Some lessons learned so far

There is SO much more story to tell, but let me stop here and give some lessons learned.

I have learned to never stay in a job that makes me feel like I have sandpaper on my soul. The world of options is as vast as the sea.

I have learned that rules are for people who do not know what to do. Paths are for people who are lost. My task is to courageously travel where my heart leads me.

I have learned that I can talk myself out of, or into, anything if I do not acknowledge my fear. I now stop and ask myself if I want the part that of me that is afraid to make my decisions.

I have realized that I can always choose how to respond to a situation or person.

It is clear that I can spend time blaming the terre-world around. It is not fluid or supportive in the way the sea is. But blaming is a bad investment and keeps my soul from thriving.

I am a mer-person in a terre-world. That has been a choice. My job is to adapt and innovate...and stay true to myself.

I was not too Savvy

A Mer-person, or at least this mer-person, has to adapt in many ways to the terra-world. One way is that issue of beauty and popularity. Just as teachers find A's more aesthetically pleasing, and insist that being an A is better than being a B, school kids have their own way of grading to separate better from worse.

Can you guess? I was worse.

Who knew that curves were bad and playing sports well was good. Straight hair was good and wild curls were out. Picking sides was in, and fluidity between dichotomies, the essence of being mer, was seen as wishy-washy.

So I was worse with the girls and good with the boys when I was little and shape or size did not matter, and then worse with the boys and the girls when shape did. Then, for some unknown reason I was good with the boys, who were now men, and later, much later, I was good with both. So odd. I have still have not figured this out, but I have adapted.

I have found that sailing (or swimming) in the directions of my dreams without concern about who is following me, or why they would want to, and without concern about where others are leading, is the best solution. The roads others take do not lead where I am headed.

So where am I headed?

Now where was I?

Now where was I? Oh yes, I was born a mermaid but was raised on land, doing terre-people things. I went to school where I learned that certain letters were better than others. I often thought a C was visually more attractive than an A, but there was something about an A, or being an A, that made people happy. It was clearly much more important than the letter C, or any other letter for that matter.

A person became an A when they listened to directions and produced work just like the teacher wanted with all the words spelled one way, the numbers all lined up, and papers with no doodles in the corners. Drawing seashells or waves or family portraits was frowned on, and writing with an ocean lilt was forbidden. Well, not really forbidden, my real language was not forbidden, but clearly not understood.

So here was the early choice, be a C terre-person and appreciate the aesthetic of it all, or try harder to fit in and be an A terre-person. I split the difference and became a B. This did not make people as happy, and they often wondered why my work was unpredictable, but they did not frown. And I did not go quietly into daylight.

This pattern continued through high-school and into college. Moments of brilliance matched by periods of distraction and boredom. Dreams of the mer-land that I knew was there, while learning the ways of the terre-place I wandered in. The rocks began to call to me, just at the sea did, though in a different language....

But that is the next part of the story.

Set the Record Straight

For those of you who have learned everything you know about mermaids from a highly fictional Disney movie, let me set the record straight. No mermaid has ever given up her voice for the love of a prince. If you read the original story you will find that there was no "happy ever after" for the mermaid. She was abandoned by the prince and could not return to the sea unless she killed him, which she chose not to do, though her heart yearned for the sea.

But even Hans Christian Anderson got it wrong. He was sure that mer-people did not have souls and would live long lives but die in sorry. He was a devout Christian and this tainted his understanding of our kind.

We have chosen the sea, but can walk on land. We are deeply spiritual and know when to flow with the tide and when to create out own flow. We are very present in the moment, knowing that it is the experience of a life well lived that matters. Joseph Campbell was one of us...he said:

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive."

This is the life of a mermaid.

Lest you think that all mermaids are Buddhist, let me correct you. I am Jewish. OK, laugh about Jewish Mer-people if you will...but it does put an interesting twist on the crossing of the Reed Sea story...

To be continued.

Let me explain

I have lived a life on land for many years, choosing to forsake my watery home and luminous tail for the challenge of walking on land. Not all mer-people choose to make the trade and walk on two feet, but my family did. I think they only meant to stay a short time, to give my brother and I a taste of the ground. But the land required roots, which my family grew. The deep joyous waters of the sea seemed like a memory, and at times a threat. Our visits to the shore grew more sporadic and shorter in length. My family knew the sea was calling to me, and that I craved nothing more than the touch of the waves on my skin.

But I stayed on land and built a life....but I never truly grew roots. I did the land based things that people do...earned degrees and titles, bought a house and filled it things like a good human hunter-gatherer should. But mermaids do not gather degrees or titles or containers or supplies. Mermaids live and dance at the junction of the sea and the sky and the sand.

I am going to go home. The sea calls my real name. But just in case you think I am depressed or fearful, that I am running away from obligations and commitments, that I just need a vacation or a day on a sail boat, let me tell you the rest of the story.