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I'm standing in silver; My legs are cold and the air is warm here. Nearby I hear the little waves break against the shore. Above me, in the sky, the moon glows at its brightest so that no stars are seen.

Around me, the water is calm and the world is quiet. If I were not in the water, letting my toes get wrinkly, I would think the silence might be overwhelming. Salt water feels different from freshwater; it's not quite the same as standing in a pool or a lake.

I wonder if it moves differently or if the tide has some sort of effect on it. But my thoughts always blur because all I can do is feel the water around my legs and look up at the moon that makes the tide rise as high as it is.

I like to do this as often as I can and try to figure out how it is the moon can make the ocean move. I don't know it, but I tend to think of the story of a bird who falls in love with a fish, the two never actually getting the chance to be together yet one has a strange effect on the other.

I wonder if this kind of relationship is one way or if the water gives something back. What does the moon get out of seeing the tide shift? Is it just the simple pleasure of knowing that the water will just move with it, that to know that as long as it does one thing, the water will always do another? Perhaps the water enjoys this movement, the chase that will never end.

I walk out a little more into the silver darkness, up to my hips, and wish that I could become the water and feel the movement as it rises for the moon. Maybe it just wants to rise and rise and rise until it can touch the moon and finally be with the thing that moves it.

If I became part of the water, I think that the joy of just moving, reaching, rising, and sinking would be incredible, unlike anything that can think of.

My muscles are trembling and they are creating little ripples in the water that quickly dissipate the farther they go. I like to think that beneath me, a fish swims between my legs or that a length of seaweed just drifts by my toes in the current of the water.

I take my eyes away from the glowing orb in the sky to look upon the water, the reflections from the lights of docks and the city across the sound dancing mysteriously. Sometimes, I think I feel the water try to pull me at my ankles trying to incorporate me so it can grow to the moon.

I know it's just the current, the tide that is driven by the moon… Still, even at the shore where the little waves crest and break into their whisper, I feel the water pulling at my ankles or that the moon is pulling all the water on my skin away from me.

Before I go inside, I look at the man in the moon and wonder if there is a woman in the ocean. I take a deep breath and think about the bird and the fish and how the moon and the ocean seem so similar and yet so different.

The moon moves the tide and the tide moves for the moon; I wonder if I can play a part in the story, the part where I move just to move.