I Want My Mermaid Back

When I was a little girl I had this INCREDIBLE imagination. Now that creative way of viewing life comes in small doses. Sadly, I can never suspend disbelief long enough to create that same magic.

Anyway, I lived for (still do) baths and dresses- and climbing trees (but this one I have had to release from my list of talents. I don't heal like I used to and scars are no longer cool to me). I drove my mother crazy because I changed my clothes three times a day-partly due to dressing to suit my mood and partly because trees are not dress friendly. I was always contentedly pretending to be a princess, Annie, Dorothy... a slave girl, a movie star, fairy,cabaret performer, scientist, or whatever self created heroin I had invented...but at the end of the day, when the street lamps came on and I was summoned inside it was bath time. My favorite part of the day.

It was in that enchanted hour, when the moon shone bright and the stars waltzed through the infinite sky- that I would fill the bathtub with steamy, bubbly water, glide in and let my hair fan out around me. I would cross my ankles to make a mermaid tail and "swim" around changing directions and no doubt making a mess on the floor in front of the bath tub. Thank goodness for linoleum...heehee...never thought I would hear myself say that, but it was the 80's and that was mostly what was available.

I created this imaginary, underwater paradise with these intricate story lines. Stories about a glorious mermaid who was being sought after by a handsome fisherman. He caught glimpse of the mermaid and was impossibly charmed by her. He wanted to capture her heart so that she would sacrifice her paradise and he could make her his bride.. She loved the fisherman deeply, but she loved the ocean more and couldn't be torn away from her ocean home-not even in the name of love. There were plot variations, involving princes and other fantastical characters that little girls cherish.

I was five or six and the stories didn't stop at mermaids in bathtubs. I was forever playing out these little scenes-mostly to myself because I was the youngest, with a large gap between my sisters and me. Entertaining myself was my sole purpose in life at that juncture.

Eventually this self created fairyland was stolen away by slumber parties and the discovery of boys and whatever right of passage moments take with them the possibility and fearlessness of girlhood. Freedom to create and dance and sing and escape to hidden places and be secret people and experience everything your brush of imagination can paint. The limitless, mystical kingdoms and perfect princes are shattered by reality and leave behind only the twinkle of possibility. A secret stash of fairy dust reserved for stormy weather.

Now when I have an especially rough day. When my reality does not live up to my fantasies. I pine for the imagination that I once had. An imagination that allowed me to fully commit to being whatever and wherever I wanted to be at any given moment. When I feel as if I am a chameleon that blends unnoticed into my surroundings, I wish for the unaldulterated belief that allowed me to simply change my mind and become an Indian queen, a warrior, a unicorn, ESPECIALLY a mermaid. Unfortunately reality has paralyzed the mermaid with mediocrity. My ability to escape-replaced by the wisdom that living brings. At that time, when the shackles of responibility tighten and obligations of adulthood steal my air- Those are the instances when I want-when I NEED my mermaid to return to me.

By some miracle of fate, or gift from God- there are still those brief, stolen moments where the Mermaid in me breaks free and for a few moments she flits back and forth through the shimmery waters with the sun catching each glimmering joint in her majestically created, jewel toned tail...The most captivating and mystical creature in the sea...too true to her passion, too alive-to sacrifice an ounce of her magnificence. Even in the name of love.