And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing, made. Wallace Stevens I am secretly a mermaid, a mythical goddess of the sea, singing my alluring song. The ocean flows through my veins and nature is my mother. I am one with the water, the currents, and the tides. I breathe in the saltiness of the sea and the crispness of he air.
I dive and twirl, gazing up at the surface and see beams of sunlight penetrating the speckled density, shining sparkling rays down into the abyss. The deep green kelp sways with the rhythm of the tides, dancing back and forth. The water is cool, enlivening. When I dive deeper, through spiraling threads of light, I enter a bright kind of darkness. Here there is a silence that consumes me.
Although it is silent, I hear something. But what I hear is not a true sound.It is a calling from thin. The blinding walls of concrete, the chaos of responsibility, the tainted air, the traffic of everyday life sirens, horns, carbon dioxide, famine, cancer, crime, scandal, lies, even everyday boredom or anxiety or frustration. Down here, none of that exists.
I glide through the depths. Cool water slides like silk across my tail. Freedom. I am happiest here.
Entering my kingdom, I open doors to the other world: a new way of thinking, a new way of life.Underwater, I escape gravity through the oracle of buoyancy, which undoes the constraints of mass and pull and allows me to let go. In the water, everything dissolves except for the particles of, what are they? Remnants of song? Memories? But this is not forever. I live in two worlds, not one.
I must return to land; it is half of who I am. I must emerge and shake the water off my tail, for I am not a fish, I am a mermaid. For a moment, the air feels foreign and empty. I feel a strange lightness and an uncomfortable ease of movement.
Everything is too fast. But that, too, is who I am. And so I see the contrast, which is my magnifying glass to the wonder and greatness of the sea. Like the ebb and flow of the tides, the time will always come for me to return. But wherever I go, I take the water with me.
With a flick of my tail, I go down to the heavens I call home. Down into the depths of water I dive, where I am renewed, moved by the tides, captivated by the feeling.
