The waters rush'd, the waters rose,
Wetting his naked feet;
As if his true love's words were those,
His heart with longing beat.
She sang to him, to him spake she,
His doom was fix'd, I ween;
Half drew she him, and half sank he,
And ne'er again was seen.
-The Fisherman
Goethe
I love the ocean just as much as the next person. I grew up on the coast, in a small shore town, Half Moon Bay.
It's nestled from the world, south of the big city, San Francisco. Half Moon Bay is unlike any typical Cali beach town. It's a working town, filled with natives, transients, visitors, rich, poor, blue collar, surfers, escapists, cowboys and lost souls.
It's a far cry from Barbie's ideal beach haven.
No, instead fisherman wake before the sun. Surfers ply through black water, and farmers rise early, greeting the day with thoughts of fence posts, cattle and hay.
The mist rises and falls away again, like sleep from the eyes of a giant.
I spent hours passing time on trails leading to the edge of the world. I stared a lot, lost track of time, got in trouble for not calling my parents and well, I dreamed a lot out there. That giant expanse of water gave me the space to get into the better parts of my head.
After years have passed me by, I come to find the real reason for my love of the sea. It's not the blue hue of the ocean, reflecting off the bright cobalt of sky above. It's not the hot guy changing out of a wet suit, on the side of the road, trunk open. It's not the sound even. And while there's something to be said for the weightlessness one feels, as your small body is pulled to and fro, in the hands of a wave, it's not even that. It's not the feel of harsh sand beneath my feet, and in my toes. It's not the summer sun either.
It's myth and legend.
The ocean holds her stories as a woman holds her pearls.
On any given night in such a small place, stories are told in a small bar, overlooking carefully clutched fishing boats. Darkly paneled wood hugs visitors, while a wide-massed wall fire warms bitter toes and running noses. Fingers dissolve in to warmth, and the tap flows, wildly, for such a tiny enclosure.
Years ago, in this very place, I watched a haggard man take his place on a worn bar stool. His eyes were tired and his beard...holy God...it was a thing of legend. It tore through his face with a vengeance. It wasn't the stuff of Santa Claus. It wasn't the stuff of the placid Irish folk-tale stuff. It was, er...yeah. It had the slightest hue of mmm...green to it. Green. Old Man Sea had a green beard. It took me a few minutes to get through the questions looming in my mind.
Does he wash his beard? Shampoo it maybe? Can he use Pantene Pro-V? Or does he need those huge bottles of Horse 'n' Mane?
Does he have a granddaughter who braids it on Sunday nights for him, while by the fire?
Does he have a seawife who brushes the gnarls from it, for him?
Has he seen it in the mirror? Could he maybe dye it?
I was transfixed for a few minutes until I saw the same green in his eyes. Such a heavy sadness there. He sipped something thick, the color of amber, in a tiny clear glass, slowly. And as he set it down upon the bar, I watched his fingers, lightly trace the arms of the wood, fiddle with his napkin, and then trail the top-most portion of the glass with his left middle finger. I wondered if the small shot glass sang to him, in the same way a light wine glass might.
And I wondered what made his mind so busy.
And then, like any other twenty-five year old young woman stuck in a five-year old storybook mentality, I made up his story for him.
I knew, that at some point in his earlier years, perhaps also at the age of twenty five, he must have fallen in love with a mermaid.
It was the only reasonable explanation for seaweed eyes and such a lost space within him.
No one would have believed him, not the story of his love for a mermaid. Never.
He would have seen her rarely, until her mother discovered her nasty little secret, barring her from returning to the tops of the waves, for an eternity.
Her love lost would cause the seas to rise with her tears, saving her human man from the torrents of the storm that very same night. High seas would carry his ship to the shore, alleviated from the tumbling of her family's rage beneath the seas.
As his feet met earth again, the fog would drip with Rachel Yamagata's Duet, sung by the two brightest stars in the sky. And he would walk in to this same bar, drinking this drink that now remains the only soul that kisses his lips. The green upon him, the only reminder of his mermaid's touch, now emblazoned upon his personage, eyes and now beard, with age and time. He would recall his mermaid's name, something like Lilania, or something close to it.
And he would await the day he would be passed in to the deep waters, where his lovely mermaid still waits. Even after all this time.
And then, once some sort of reality struck me, I would begin to wonder what mermaids and mermen think of humans.
Are they angry with us for the drips, drains, dumps and deaths we immerse upon their home? How far down do they live? Did they destroy Avalon, clutching it close to the heart of the sea, after the king's men discovered their presence? Maybe that's why they say Avalon was washed away to the sea? Do they war with Great Whites and swim with dolphins? Do they think human men are as lovely a breed of creature we assume of mermaids? Are their scales really like gold?
They probably think we're idiots.
Mermaids and selkies are myths. And it's the stuff in these myths that draws, me so, to water.
Like I said, it's not really the sunny sky on beach day that pulls me to the water.
It's the tales told by old fisherman, in bars like that small spot on the coast.
For as much time as I've spent on the water, by boat, board or wake, I've still never seen a mermaid. So I've listened to old men tell stories about mermaids, and I'm still sort of young enough to take their word for it.
