I don't suppose it's fair to call myself relocated to North Carolina, now that I've been here for more than 20 years, but I lived in central Florida on the Space Coast (hence the name Indialanta!) for the first 7 years of my life and I'm sure that my identifying as Floridian plays heavily into the fact that I feel all mermaidy. I first fell into mermaid obsession when I saw the movie Splash; I must have been only four or five at the time. Disney's The Little Mermaid pretty well cemented it.
Recently somebody asked me why mermaids resonate for me. I just said to her, "I am a mermaid, so..." I think it has to do with mystery and yearning, among other things. I'm a librarian by training, and I came up with this whole explanation of how librarians are like mermaids. (It had to do with pearl diving in the sea of information...)
I don't currently own a tail. I did have a tail-skirt once, which I wore for a chorus concert where I sang "Part of That World." Since mermaids can't walk, I refused to walk on stage but instead had two boys carry me on and set me down at the edge of the stage.
For a long time now, I've dreamed of being a Weeki Wachee-style mermaid, but it just didn't seem in the cards. I was dimly aware of mermaidery as a subculture but then only recently learned that my middle+high school friend ivoryleopard is rather deep into it and asked her where I should go to learn more. She sent me here, so here I am.
I think it will take me some time to build up the confidence to make or buy a tail and go out swimming in it, but everything has its beginning and this is mine! Right now, I'm turning my home office into a big mermaid shrine. I identify as a manatee mermaid, so once I do end up with my own tail, it will be a paddle-tail rather than a fluked-tail.
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