For Love of Water

I became a mermaid when I was twenty-six.

If you know someone who likes to bathe in a bathtub versus a shower, you need to be warned: that individual is likely to become a mermaid, too.

If your three year old constantly wants to be wet, and turns on faucets randomly, and puts on a swimsuit in December, you also should be warned. Your child is going to grow up to be a mermaid. Or merman. I wouldn’t want to be sexist.

When I was twenty-six, I was landlocked in a self-sustaining suburb which drew water from a far-off manmade lake. My apartment complex had a pool, but it was only three feet deep, and the presence of other people made me too aware of my fondness for the water. Plus, it was chlorinated water, a sad imitation of fresh water. I would prefer salt water, even, to chlorinated water. The nearest lake to me was three hours away. I felt like a dried out weed. I felt cracked and brittle and staunched. So, I spent two hours a day in the bathtub.

It was a nice, deep tub. I think it is called a garden tub—yes, that’s what I had. I would immerse myself in the bathtub in slightly cold water—a temperature close enough to a body of water. I would close my eyes and sink beneath the surface of the water, and from behind my closed eyelids, I would watch the rippling of the water and imagine myself in a deep cavern in the ocean, a blue and gentle place, quiet except for the distant booms of ships running aground or whales singing back and forth to one another. I would blow bubbles through my nose and imagine my voice underwater, as a mermaid. It would be haunting, like a Byzantine chorus. It would echo amongst the fish and coral, the ruins of lost treasure. And while in the bathtub, imagining these things, I would smile, and let the world fall away.

As the months passed, I found myself aware of other mermaids, too. They were everywhere! At the grocery store, a woman would stop in front of the bottled water display and seem to salivate. At work, a married woman would stop all projects if it rained. She simply had to be near a window while it was wet outside. As I look back, I see that my father and mother were both mer-people. My father avidly sailed, my mother swam passionately. I was thrown into the Chicago YMCA’s pool at the age of two. I guess I had always been sensitive to mer-people, even when I was not aware of my affection for the water.

My transfiguration occurred shortly after I was fired. I went home and drew myself a cold bath. I sunk in the bathwater and heard the Byzantine choirs again, the angst of older sailors, and closed my eyes with abandon, and delved beneath the water. There I remained, drifting away, farther and farther into the ocean, the wide expanse of the Earth’s womb. When my breath could no longer hold, I lunged out of the cold calm of the bathtub and gasped for air, all the while missing that lovely place I had encountered. Soon after, I emerged, clean, wrinkled, damp. I gathered some smallish items, filled up my tank, and closed the door to my apartment. I sat in my car, and tucked one damp piece of hair behind my ear. And I began to drive.

I drove for eight hours, before I reached the coast of the Ocean. It was nightfall; I found a remote beach dusted with rocks. I parked and stepped out into the fresh air of the shores. The stars above twinkled as souls of Mer-People smiled on me. My shoes came off, then, my clothes. I let my hair down and let it brush my shoulders. And, oh, how I smiled.

Because as I neared the water’s edge, and heard the lapping upon the sand, and the tides swim out and in, out and in, I heard my family call to me from beneath the waves. One foot went into the water, then another. My skin tingled with the thrill of water, my blood pumped hot through my chest. I was up to my knees, and feeling the kisses of tiny fish welcoming me home. I turned and glanced one last time to shore. There was no one there to see me off. There was nothing to go back to. And so, my thighs followed, then my hips. My hands skimmed the waves, allowing my body to be rocked back and forth, a sort of backwards birth. The water was black and blue and green in the dim starlight. The stars, still chirping with hope, grew brighter. Now, the water was up to my chest, then my neck, my mouth and nose, and at long last, my eyes.

As I did in the bathtub, I closed my eyes and listened. But this symphony was so much more complex than I ever imagined. The grand crash of waves about my head, the silence beneath me, a dark cradle in which I could float, was all so overwhelmingly sensory, I almost gasped. I drifted to and fro, gently rocked, and finally opened my eyes to the inky ocean.

I expected to see mere shadows there. Instead, I saw with great clarity and wonder the entire expanse of the ocean. I saw boulders ages old crumbling on one another. I saw shipwrecks, rotting and mussing the ocean floor. I saw every wondrous sea creature ever imagined. I watched dolphins frolic with sea lions, and kelp caught between the gentle, majestic mouths of sperm whales. And the light refracted from the stars, and made everything gentle, not harsh like the florescence of land, but soft and dimmed, like a candle. And the sounds! Oh, the sounds of the ocean are incomparable. Every movement goes noticed, every flap of fin or wiggle of reed or collapse of ship was a sound, echoing far into the deep blue. Hearing these noises for the first time, I almost wept with its beauty. As I looked and listened, I let go of the air trapped in my lungs, and a great bubble escaped. When this was done, I felt even lighter, even more at ease. My hair swam about me as a great inky cloud of an octopus. I tasted the salt of the ocean and the water of all shores, and was filled with satisfaction. Further out into the sea, I swam, and as I swam, I realized my legs had formed into one magnificent, iridescent tail. There were tiny scales, just like a fish’s tail, and ripples of color throughout. And my fin was magical silver, and spun light through the water as I dipped. The further I swam, the better I saw and smelled and heard. Then, I stopped, for I had heard an unnatural noise, and looking beneath me, I saw another Mermaid. She waved to me, and smiled with pearls for teeth and sapphires for eyes. I drifted deep, deep down, and saw the rest. So many mermaids are here with me, now. So many friends.

When someone tells you about a suicide, like my death was classified, ask if it was suicide by drowning. Because we do not believe those are suicides, down here. We believe those deaths are the deaths that result in dreams of water, of peace, forgiveness, and friends. We believe that each entering into the water is a re-cleansing of the soul, a new birth to the seas of the world. And we embrace our brothers and sisters who join us. You may not understand, but then, you may not have been born a mermaid.