I'm really a mermaid

A psychic once advised me to wear a small emblem of a mermaid to remind myself of my strength. I have strong ties to water and in a past life I was ostracised as a rumoured siren who could put any man under her spell and summon terrible storms at will. A Destroyer of Men.

‘It’s different now though,’ the psychic explained. ‘Your abilities have changed, your purpose now is to soften a man’s heart, bring the walls down, help him to heal.’

I don’t let her know that I’m disappointed. The brutality of the siren-killer has always excited me. I’m fascinated by the femme fatales of mythology and though I’d like to consider myself of their ilk - I’d enjoy luring prey with a siren song - it’s true that I’d probably falter at the crucial moment. I’m too soft-hearted to go in for the kill. I’m careful to look more savage than I really am.

I often think about the psychic’s diagnosis. Not least of all because I’ve always felt a strong pull towards the sea which is hardly unusual but feels significant.

Whenever I’ve been devastated, unable to come to terms with my destroyed life, my crushed soul, I somehow wind up alone on a beach somewhere and it all comes out. Swimming in the sea has unexplainable, healing properties. It feels natural to cry there. The salt water makes me think of a million tears. And of course, there’s the wonderful feeling of water against the skin. It has always felt like coming home.

There are times I’ve thought that really being a mermaid in a human body is the only explanation for how much a fish-out-of-water (ha!) I’ve felt in my life. I suspected the feeling would lessen when I grew out of my teens but a decade later, life is as much a mystery to me as ever. Reader, I have not assimilated. I am clothed, sheltered and fed by pure miracle. I am terrible at mundane and grown up and responsible. I am only good at feeling and creating and sensation.

I could sit for hours, transfixed by the shape of the moon and her silvery glow. I used to wake up before sunrise when I had to go to school and savour the quiet lilac hours when I could pretend that I was the only girl in the world and I could just be. I always liked to be alone, to dance to music, to draw, to lose myself to my own imagination. I have ached often for another time or place, the idea of swimming freely through the oceans, surrounded by aquatic life has always appealed to me. I don’t think I would miss my voice.

I will always remain fascinated by mermaids. To me they represent an existence of experience, freedom, autonomy, peace and wordless beauty away from the complicated social world with its endless grind of capitalistic demands. More than that, there’s the desire to return to nature, to exist within it. To need no explanation, just to feel fully alive every moment, for me there could be no greater joy.

And if you haven’t read The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey, you must! It’s spectacular and gorgeous and has inspired me to dig in to the legends of mermaids in the Caribbean where my family is from. There’s so much rich mythology there and a strong belief in the existence of ancient mermaids who take people away to their underwater world, returning them with special abilities.

Excellent inspiration for a next novel, you might say.