The Furious Spinner

It’s night at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. A strong wind rattles the dry leaves in the palm tree just outside our door. The great horned owl is long gone, I’d imagine, out hunting. I haven’t heard any coyotes. No animals sounds of any kind. Just the wind in the palm tree. And then silence. Profound, dark silence.

It’s been a time. I have appreciated all your kind words and wishes for me and my family. As Joanna says, love, love, love. I still feel so unmoored. I’m having excruciating back pain. This morning I got out of bed and a few minutes later, I felt this spasm in my side. It was as though a muscle decided to pull one of my ribs out of place. I was in tears—and in agony. After I put hot towels on it and took a hot shower and then a hot bath, Mario and I went into the desert and walked for about an hour. We also talked. He thinks it’s TMS. I wondered if it was from a too soft bed or from driving 15 hours the day before. (I couldn’t do any yoga, by the way; that’s how bad it was.)

Mario pointed out that I always feel as though I have to fix things. I feel the need to solve problems and make things better. I said, ‘don’t you feel that way?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘I thought nearly everyone was like that.’ ‘No,’ he said again. I can’t bring my mother back, and I can’t help my father. I can’t make anything better right now.



And I keep thinking of everything I’m doing wrong. I hate it when adult children treat their parents like children. When I was in Santa Cruz to see my father and sister and her husband, we went to the Forest of Nisene Marks, where I’d been several years earlier. I wanted to show my father the redwoods there. I found out my father had not eaten since early in the morning, and now it was about seven hours later. My father has to eat something every two or three hours or his blood sugar drops (or something) and he gets depressed and has other symptoms. He’s just getting over an illness (the shingles) and he’s still reeling from my mother’s death. Right now I feel like he needs someone to watch over him, just like any person would under these circumstances no matter what their age. Anyway, I was chastising my brother-in-law for not making sure my father ate, and my father was getting a little annoyed with me. I realized later that I was probably sounding like one of those adult children who treats their parent like a child. I didn’t mean to do that, and I keep worrying over these kinds of things.

I feel as though I am failing at everything. I know this is wrong thinking.

Ten minutes before my back went into spasm, I was in bed looking up at the ceiling and wishing I could stay here forever. And then one of the many little voices in my leetle brain said, “Bad things can happen here too.”

Well, of course they can! This is where I developed allergies and asthma and where my whole life went into a terrible downward spin for so many years...

Anyway, soon after that my father called and soon after that, my back spasmed.

By the way, in the middle of the redwoods, away from the ocean, mind you, I discovered two seashells. Near this huge old redwood off the trail. I thought they were mushrooms at first, but then I saw they weren’t. I said, ‘Dad, look. The Old Mermaids have been here. Remember from the book, if you find a seashell away from the ocean it means a mermaid just found her tail.’ Near to it was a circle. Perhaps someone left the shells as offerings.



Did they pray to an Old Mermaid? Does this mean I’m the Old Mermaid who heard their prayers?

I wish you happiness, good health, and much love.



Today I sat by the pool, the beautiful curving pool that has an Old Mermaid painted in the bottom of it...at least it does in my imagination and in Church of the Old Mermaids. The old owl slept in the palm tree above me, buffeted but seemingly unmoved by the winds. Across from me was a statue of part of a woman. I love the art here. There is something new every year. This partial woman turned up last year. She has no legs or hands. I don’t like this. I’m not saying it’s bad art; I’m only saying I don’t like it. I don’t like dismembered art. Never have. Every time I look at this woman thing, I think of violence and helplessness. I want to run over and reattach her hands which are on the ground near her—and fashion her new legs and tell her to run, run, run to safety. I see this place as a healing place, and the dismembered woman doesn’t fit with that. There are also heads in my enclosed garden this year. Four of them. Quite gruesome. I want them gone. Every time I step outside, I have to avert my eyes. It’s not restful or healing. Will I grow accustomed to them? Last year I didn’t go out to the pool side much. I couldn’t stand seeing the dismembered woman. Today I just stared at her.

We got here in the dark. The headlights of the car lit up the shovel I’d found in the wash so many years ago, the shovel that became the tail of an Old Mermaid, in real life and in the novel.

I’m so tired and sad. I feel stingy. There is so much I have. I remember the quote by e. e. cummings, probably because I’ve read it here somewhere at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary: ‘I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.’

I had more to say. But my back is aching. Everything is aching. Maybe I’ll read for a bit. Or just close my eyes. Perhaps I’ll dream. The Old Mermaids will come into my dreams and take care of me.

Maybe one of the Old Mermaids will be my mother.

Six hours later. Awaken from a dream. It’s long and complicated, but in the end, I’m in a car that my mother is driving. I’m in the back. My father sits next to her. She doesn’t look like my real mother. I ask her a question and she can’t remember the answer. She pulls the car over and says there are so many things she doesn’t remember. She looks at me and then hugs my father. “Tell Kim it’ll be all right,” she says.

I awaken. It takes a long time to go back to sleep. I take another bath to alleviate the pain in my back. I’m so exhausted I can’t think or feel. I nearly fall to sleep in the hot water.

Morning. The rash on my hands has started. Sometimes I wonder why I come here every year. The first year I had a bad rash on my back, plus there was an obnoxious dog here which kept me confined to certain parts of the property and I got pricked by nearly every cactus on the property. The second year I had another rash, but I also wrote Church of the Old Mermaids. Last year I remembered to bring white cotton gloves, so I didn’t get a rash. And I wrote another novel, The Old Mermaid Sanctuary. Now I’ve got a backache and a rash. And there are heads growing in my garden. When I’m here for a month, these nuisances fade. Since I’ll be here less than two weeks, I wonder if I’ll have time to acclimate.

Still, the Old Owl is here, quail flutter as we walk the property, and I found bobcat prints in the wash. Magic awaits. I know it. Or I used to know it. We’ll see.

Labels: Arizona, Old Mermaid Sanctuary, travel

4 comments

4 Comments:

Love, love, love, Kim, and it is flowing your way in abundance - in a a great ocean full of comforting mermaid sisters. Cate

By  KerrdeLune, at 8:56 AM  

Rest!

If the bed is too soft, remove the mattress pad, because the mattress itself is very firm.

And feel free to move the heads somewhere else! Maybe load them on the garden cart and leave them on it until we get back?

And, last, the poor woman's hands broke when she fell in a rain storm, but Beckie plans to replace them, so see her as a strong survivor and a symbol of hope.

But, mostly, rest. It's an important part of the cycle. It's not shirking. It's preparing.

By  Will Shetterly, at 9:51 AM  

I'm curious as to where you got the concept of the "OLd Mermaid" from. When I wrote my novel, The Old Mermaid's Tale, I chose the name from that of an old tavern that used to be in Erie, Pennsylvania. it is long gone now but when I Google "Old Mermaid Inn" a lot of images come up.

That must be a popular concept -- the old mermaid. Of course, MY old mermaid is quite a colorful and sassy old gal --- I'll have to look for your book so i can compare our respective visions.

Best wishes for 2008,
Kathleen

By  Kathleen Valentine, at 2:54 PM  

Thank you Will and Cate! I needed to hear that. Hi, Kathleen! I did write to you when you first commented on the blog; don't know if you got it or not. If you go to the Old Mermaid website, I've written about how I came up with the Church of the Old Mermaids. But quite simply, they just came to me as I sat in the Quail House in Tucson, Arizona. I was writing a novel called The Woman and The Old Sea. In Portland, there's a guy who sells stuff on a table on 21st Street and he calls it the Church of Elvis. Or at least that's how I remembered it. Anyway my character, Myla Alvarez, picked up trash in the wash and sold it on a table in front of Antigone Books in Tucson and a story came with each piece. I wondered what kind of "church" she would have, and the Old Mermaids just walked up out of the wash and told me their stories. I'd never heard of Old Mermaids before then, so actually I think you and I are fairly unique in that part of it, but who wouldn't love Old Mermaids? I'm wishing you great success with your Old Mermaid Tale. We need all the old mermaids we can get!

By  Kim Antieau, at 3:18 PM  

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