Unsanitized Woman

The mermaid is not a sanitized woman. She is unkempt, unruly, uncivilized. And that is exactly why I like her. She is wild, strong and daring; painted with salt, wreathed in seaweed. As playful and determined as a fish, and full of mystery and power like a woman.

When my childhood was almost over at the age of 12, I met a girl named Mariel who was like a mermaid. Come to think of it, her name suits her- Mar means sea in spanish. She was magical to me. My dad and I spent two weeks with his friend and her daughter, Mariel, in their home of New Hampshire. And in those two weeks, I made a best friend. What did we do that made me consider her my best friend? We played. We played in the water, in the woods, in the sand and the grass. We played with each other's hair and compared hairy legs. We built, we created. And, funny enough, her favorite snack was dried seaweed. Boys liked her because she was beautiful, and she hated that. Girls didn't understand her because she didn't play their games. The games we played were games I didn't play very often with my friends at home. They came straight from our imaginations, and they lasted hours. We never tried to compete with one another, we loved one another. When I got home, I told everyone who my best friend was. She didn't become my best friend in much time, we didn't really know each other all that well, factually. She was my best friend just because she was my favorite. And we did know each other, we knew how to play together.

My role model is not grinning girl of grace, or sophisticated or sassy, but a childlike creature of the sea. She sings haunting melodies, lullabies. Like mother earth, she surrounds you with her sound. Like mother, a lighthouse. Like child, a dancer. A mermaid is not a man. There might be talk of mermen, but they are not what people stare at the sea for- people stare for the maids. For some reason, the maids are the ones who dance in the terrible waters. The maids are the ones who save the drowning men.

The mermaid, she brings me to my core. And even without fins, I can dive deep and fly fast. At my core, I am unsanitized and uncomplicated and free.