MERMAID

This piece, transferred from my old blog, is still a favorite of mine.  I hope you enjoy it.

She is an ocean woman who gets homesick for its briny scent even though she’s never lived by the sea. She is drawn to its shore when she is soul-weary or heart-sore; the ocean woman pays homage to her essence when she returns to share her joy or when she’s simply seeking solace in the silence of her thoughts. She returns to clear the city’s miasma from her brain so she can once again see clearly, and remember: always remember.

The ocean air upon her cheeks is a homecoming gift; she runs from the boardwalk to the edge of the wet to inhale the wildly whirling winds that seem to be welcoming her back, back, back to her home, back to her place, back to her one true love. Her hair whips behind her back in a dark tattoo like forgotten beach towels snapping in a pre-storm wind and straining for release from where they were carelessly pegged to a clothesline. She throws her arms to the sky and with utter abandon, she dances on the shore, a water ballerina laughing at the seductive sea as it teasingly sucks the sand out from under her feet. Like the kelp waltzing in the surf, bobbing up and down, up and down, the woman’s body sways in perfect time with each note of the ocean’s roar that forever plays in her ear. She’s elemental in her joy; she’s primal in her passion for the sea. She revels in its lure. She knows the mystery of its darkly buoyant secrets. Her body has slid through summer’s sparkly surf. She’s played in its murky depths with her sisters and prayed in the shallows for her lover’s return. She knows the dichotomy of the sea: like a woman, it’s soft and giving, playfully sharing its bounty and gently sheltering life one moment and then, seemingly out of the blue – there heaves from its bosom a storm of relentless and unyielding strength…of passionate anger that washes over shore, cleansing and refreshing all that it touches. She watches a pod of dolphins and remembers the hours of innocent indulgence spent cavorting with them just beyond the breakers. The woman walks and moves and absorbs the rhythm of the waves for hours.

It’s getting dark, Luna’s light is lapping the now calm sea in a softly sensuous silver swath. She hears the clapper of a distant buoy clanging its ancient warning to mariners and remembers. She remembers the ones who wanted to be saved; she remembers the ones who chose to stay with her and her sisters.

The ocean woman yearns as she stands on the doorstep of her heart’s home. She still hears the calling of her sisters and misses them so. She still remembers the weightless freedom of the water.

Weightless.

She draws her simple sun dress over her head and holding it by one finger, lifts her arms and stretches her nude body as if to touch the moon.

Freedom.

With a smile, she watches as the salty sea breeze sucks the gauzy garment from her fingertip and spits it across the night sky. Shimmering in the crystalline moonlight, it swoops and sails and climbs higher, higher, higher before it trembles and tumbles into the silver sea.

She was once a mermaid, and she remembers all. The ocean woman rises on the balls of her feet and dives into an incoming wave. She’s a mermaid again, and all remember her.



Until next time,

“I have seen the sea when it is stormy and wild; when it is quiet and serene; when it is dark and moody. And in all its moods, I see myself.” ~ Martin Buxbaum