my life as a mermaid
in which we discover the author/artist has always had a fin...
oh, and you can too!
Back in the Dark Ages of the 60s, there were TV shows I adored...
TV, you know, before Netflix and streaming whatever...
Sea Hunt and Flipper.
And the odd Jacques Cousteau special.
Cousteau pretty much invented underwater exploration because he invented a thing called the "aqualung". It was still a brand of scuba regulator when I learned to dive. The regulator is the magical thing that lets you breathe underwater, which I thought was awesome, because I wanted to do that since I'd seen Sea Hunt and Flipper. I own an Aqualung. And I've jumped off perfectly good floatin' boats to look at the sunken one, decorated Christmas trees underwater, celebrated New Year's Eve by spending 40 minutes in a freezing quarry (the bluegills were hanging out in the Christmas tree), and carved pumpkins underwater. Oh yeah, and the tricycle race... but that was in a pool. I have the weirdest trophy ever....
Sea Hunt was about a diver who had adventures and sometimes solved mysteries and crimes. My eventual dive instructor had adventures and helped solve mysteries and crimes because he was also a state cop. He looked a great deal like Lloyd Bridges who was the Sea Hunt guy. He also said stuff like (when we were practicing in the pool): "this stuff's dead, (holding up a handful of water), but when you get out in the ocean, that, that's alive..." The planet's water system is a living breathing system supporting all other life.
Flipper was about a boy and a dolphin. Made everyone want a pet dolphin. But hey, they're happier in the wild with their buddies, even if they do come hang out with you sometimes. My closest encounter with dolphins was at the Baltimore Aquarium, where I watched the educational show and saw them do their stunts. And... one evening paddling up the channel on the west side of Chincoteague Island VA, I saw the choppy wave shapes make something like a fin... I shouted to my buddy I'd seen a fin.The next thing he saw was me paddling up the channel at about warp eleven. What he had not seen was one tursiops truncatus (bottlenose dolphin) arc across the stern of his kayak. I flew up the channel, chasing fins, aware of marine mammal harassment laws (how many yards are you supposed to stay away???) and aware that nobody in a kayak could bother a dolphin... they can outmaneuver, outswim and knock me into the water if they like. I kept a steady course and a steady stroke so they knew my course and where I was (so I was just a part of the scenery), I kept a polite distance but they swam around me anyway. They strolled up the deeper part of the channel, surfaced with a shout of breath like someone blowing over the top of a soda bottle, little explosions of air as they let out the stale and filled with new air. They wheeled up from the green water... wheel...whale...wheel...whale... they are just tiny toothed whales. One pair included a large one and a smaller one, probably a mom and child. They utterly ignored me. And of course I had no camera...
The largest of the dolphins is orcinus orca, orca, killer whale, swordwhale (in parts of Europe, like where my ancestors came from). I tripped over legends about orca shapeshifters in Northwest Coastal America and was intrigued. They are the same kinds of stories told about selkies, seal shapeshifters, those legends appear in every culture that has seals. Swordwhale became my "trademark".
I never saw the sea until I was about twelve, and I went to the beach with an aunt. My parents were Pennsylvania Deutsch farmers who did not venture near water, especially water that big... except for the ancestors who braved the sea to come to America, and my Dad who got stuck on a troop ship in World War II and found himself surrounded by nothing but water and other boats. Scariest part of the whole war for him, I think. I was surprised when he offered to take me and two friends to Chincoteague for Pony Penning in 1972 (the last year Misty of Chincoteague was still alive), and later the entire 4-H horse club. he did not go near the ocean though, he clumped up and down the beach in his boots, chambray shirt rolled up to his elbows, and wondered at the fishgirls who were dancing in the waves.
I came up over the sand dune on that first trip and stopped in utter awe. It breathed, it roared, it rolled. It was far more than the images I'd seen on TV and in books.
I returned over and over, never to "civilized" beaches like Ocean City, always to Assateague, to wild places with pelicans and ponies. I backpacked for days and saw no one else. I paddled and used a lighthouse for navigation. I waded into marshes, scuba dived and snorkeled in the shallows of eelgrass beds.
Unless I was wearing a scuba tank, I always swam like a mermaid. Among people who swim competitively that is called a "dolphin kick". I learned to swim mostly on my own, though I did take a few lessons at my local school after I was an adult. I hate crawling about on the surface. I'd rather don a mask and fins and mermaid.
Then I discovered "mermaiding" is a thing.
It ranges from buying a monofin and a spandex tailskin and playing in your local pool (and shooting videos, and offering advice) to being a professional "edutainer" in a realistic silcone tailfin that costs $$$$$ and holding your breath for five minutes. I have to admit my favorite is The Chesapeake Mermaid who is a local Chesapeake Bay phenomenon, writes and illustrates books, and does programs that teach about the bay and how you can help save it. http://chesapeakemermaid.com/
As for me, I got a monofin and tail from FinFun ... discovered it was EPIC trying to get my huge feet into the tiny footpockets of the Advanced Monofin Pro... wrote to the company about it, got a nice response and advice, got a different style fin: the Monofin Pro (the older model which is stretchier and has one big foot pocket), saw a neat video by the Mermaid Seamstress... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6MhXcpiUFGas2nVfTQY6wg
...decided I wasn't going to ship the first one back after all (she also has big feet, and not only got it to work but found several advantages to it).
Then I considered writing to FinFun and suggesting they make an orca tailfin...
and discovered they have one.
So now I appear to have two tailfins...
Two...
and mermaid leggings (which can be worn with regular fins in places that don't allow monofins or in places where a monofin might be a problem, like Assateague's surf).
Merrows, Mermaids, Mermen, Merfolk and Sirens...
Like most faerie tales, mermaids have become cute, pretty safe toys we sell to little kids. That's not what they are. They are old as storytelling. People didn't care about "facts" or "science" in those stories, what mattered was how those stories dived deep below the surface and showed us truths that could not be revealed except by story. Merfolk are our connection with the living waters of our world. They are the voice of the sea and its tributaries. When you slip on a fin, and enter that world, whether with scuba gear or a mertail, you are in a world of no fire, no color, no gravity, where there are six directions not four and UP is critical to air breathing divers. You fly in slow motion, you are part of the space where life began.
An old Irish word for the merfolk is merrow. Sirens are from Greek myth, and are composite creatures (bird, woman) who lured sailors to shipwreck with their haunting songs. In later myths, they were often mixed with the myths of mermaids. In earlier myths, they were daughters of a river god, and of complex nature (oh just look it up), forces of nature to be respected. The series "Siren" takes mermaids out of the cute and into the real, natural creatures, forces of nature caught up in the havoc wreaked on the seas by humans (with a few friendly humans as allies).
There's an idea that lonely sailors saw manatees and interpreted them as mermaids. I doubt it. Mermaids need no actual physical creature to inspire them. They are part of our storytelling history and our deepest connections to the world around us.
TV, you know, before Netflix and streaming whatever...
Sea Hunt and Flipper.
And the odd Jacques Cousteau special.
Cousteau pretty much invented underwater exploration because he invented a thing called the "aqualung". It was still a brand of scuba regulator when I learned to dive. The regulator is the magical thing that lets you breathe underwater, which I thought was awesome, because I wanted to do that since I'd seen Sea Hunt and Flipper. I own an Aqualung. And I've jumped off perfectly good floatin' boats to look at the sunken one, decorated Christmas trees underwater, celebrated New Year's Eve by spending 40 minutes in a freezing quarry (the bluegills were hanging out in the Christmas tree), and carved pumpkins underwater. Oh yeah, and the tricycle race... but that was in a pool. I have the weirdest trophy ever....
Sea Hunt was about a diver who had adventures and sometimes solved mysteries and crimes. My eventual dive instructor had adventures and helped solve mysteries and crimes because he was also a state cop. He looked a great deal like Lloyd Bridges who was the Sea Hunt guy. He also said stuff like (when we were practicing in the pool): "this stuff's dead, (holding up a handful of water), but when you get out in the ocean, that, that's alive..." The planet's water system is a living breathing system supporting all other life.
Flipper was about a boy and a dolphin. Made everyone want a pet dolphin. But hey, they're happier in the wild with their buddies, even if they do come hang out with you sometimes. My closest encounter with dolphins was at the Baltimore Aquarium, where I watched the educational show and saw them do their stunts. And... one evening paddling up the channel on the west side of Chincoteague Island VA, I saw the choppy wave shapes make something like a fin... I shouted to my buddy I'd seen a fin.The next thing he saw was me paddling up the channel at about warp eleven. What he had not seen was one tursiops truncatus (bottlenose dolphin) arc across the stern of his kayak. I flew up the channel, chasing fins, aware of marine mammal harassment laws (how many yards are you supposed to stay away???) and aware that nobody in a kayak could bother a dolphin... they can outmaneuver, outswim and knock me into the water if they like. I kept a steady course and a steady stroke so they knew my course and where I was (so I was just a part of the scenery), I kept a polite distance but they swam around me anyway. They strolled up the deeper part of the channel, surfaced with a shout of breath like someone blowing over the top of a soda bottle, little explosions of air as they let out the stale and filled with new air. They wheeled up from the green water... wheel...whale...wheel...whale... they are just tiny toothed whales. One pair included a large one and a smaller one, probably a mom and child. They utterly ignored me. And of course I had no camera...
The largest of the dolphins is orcinus orca, orca, killer whale, swordwhale (in parts of Europe, like where my ancestors came from). I tripped over legends about orca shapeshifters in Northwest Coastal America and was intrigued. They are the same kinds of stories told about selkies, seal shapeshifters, those legends appear in every culture that has seals. Swordwhale became my "trademark".
I never saw the sea until I was about twelve, and I went to the beach with an aunt. My parents were Pennsylvania Deutsch farmers who did not venture near water, especially water that big... except for the ancestors who braved the sea to come to America, and my Dad who got stuck on a troop ship in World War II and found himself surrounded by nothing but water and other boats. Scariest part of the whole war for him, I think. I was surprised when he offered to take me and two friends to Chincoteague for Pony Penning in 1972 (the last year Misty of Chincoteague was still alive), and later the entire 4-H horse club. he did not go near the ocean though, he clumped up and down the beach in his boots, chambray shirt rolled up to his elbows, and wondered at the fishgirls who were dancing in the waves.
I came up over the sand dune on that first trip and stopped in utter awe. It breathed, it roared, it rolled. It was far more than the images I'd seen on TV and in books.
I returned over and over, never to "civilized" beaches like Ocean City, always to Assateague, to wild places with pelicans and ponies. I backpacked for days and saw no one else. I paddled and used a lighthouse for navigation. I waded into marshes, scuba dived and snorkeled in the shallows of eelgrass beds.
Unless I was wearing a scuba tank, I always swam like a mermaid. Among people who swim competitively that is called a "dolphin kick". I learned to swim mostly on my own, though I did take a few lessons at my local school after I was an adult. I hate crawling about on the surface. I'd rather don a mask and fins and mermaid.
Then I discovered "mermaiding" is a thing.
It ranges from buying a monofin and a spandex tailskin and playing in your local pool (and shooting videos, and offering advice) to being a professional "edutainer" in a realistic silcone tailfin that costs $$$$$ and holding your breath for five minutes. I have to admit my favorite is The Chesapeake Mermaid who is a local Chesapeake Bay phenomenon, writes and illustrates books, and does programs that teach about the bay and how you can help save it. http://chesapeakemermaid.com/
As for me, I got a monofin and tail from FinFun ... discovered it was EPIC trying to get my huge feet into the tiny footpockets of the Advanced Monofin Pro... wrote to the company about it, got a nice response and advice, got a different style fin: the Monofin Pro (the older model which is stretchier and has one big foot pocket), saw a neat video by the Mermaid Seamstress... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6MhXcpiUFGas2nVfTQY6wg
...decided I wasn't going to ship the first one back after all (she also has big feet, and not only got it to work but found several advantages to it).
Then I considered writing to FinFun and suggesting they make an orca tailfin...
and discovered they have one.
So now I appear to have two tailfins...
Two...
and mermaid leggings (which can be worn with regular fins in places that don't allow monofins or in places where a monofin might be a problem, like Assateague's surf).
Merrows, Mermaids, Mermen, Merfolk and Sirens...
Like most faerie tales, mermaids have become cute, pretty safe toys we sell to little kids. That's not what they are. They are old as storytelling. People didn't care about "facts" or "science" in those stories, what mattered was how those stories dived deep below the surface and showed us truths that could not be revealed except by story. Merfolk are our connection with the living waters of our world. They are the voice of the sea and its tributaries. When you slip on a fin, and enter that world, whether with scuba gear or a mertail, you are in a world of no fire, no color, no gravity, where there are six directions not four and UP is critical to air breathing divers. You fly in slow motion, you are part of the space where life began.
An old Irish word for the merfolk is merrow. Sirens are from Greek myth, and are composite creatures (bird, woman) who lured sailors to shipwreck with their haunting songs. In later myths, they were often mixed with the myths of mermaids. In earlier myths, they were daughters of a river god, and of complex nature (oh just look it up), forces of nature to be respected. The series "Siren" takes mermaids out of the cute and into the real, natural creatures, forces of nature caught up in the havoc wreaked on the seas by humans (with a few friendly humans as allies).
There's an idea that lonely sailors saw manatees and interpreted them as mermaids. I doubt it. Mermaids need no actual physical creature to inspire them. They are part of our storytelling history and our deepest connections to the world around us.
