Under the sea

Photo courtesy of Michael Dweck.

If I'm ever feeling down about work (which is more and more frequently these days, I'm afraid), I should just think about packing up, kissing Julian and Ian goodbye (ha, right, I should stop there...maybe I'll take them with me), and heading to Weeki Wachee Springs to fulfill my true life purpose of being a mermaid.

It wasn't just Disney's The Little Mermaid that captured my attention as a kid, but the crisp, fresh springs of my childhood in Florida (wow, two Florida posts in one week!). I grew up less than an hour away from Disney World, but we spent outings as a family in all these natural springs and their corresponding rivers, swimming in the clearest water known to man and paddling alongside alligators.

The New York Times reminded me of this yesterday. From "Mermaids past and present keep it real":

“We’re girls who take to water better than the land,” said Ms. Holliday, 23, referring to her clan of, as she calls them, mer-sisters, a group of about 10 past or present park mermaids who have knit themselves a distinct social scene. The daughter of a crab claw fisherman, Ms. Holliday grew up cuddling baby alligators and wearing live salamanders as earrings. “Some people are born with the urge to be in the water, where life is calmer,” she said. “I’m most comfortable there.”

She’s always felt a special connection to the water. “I remember being 8 or something and going to the bottom of the pool,” Ms. Holliday said. “I remember being able to control my body, laying down on the bottom of the pool, looking up at kicking legs on top of the swimming pool and holding my breath. A lot of us had the same feeling.”

I still have that same feeling. Swimming to the bottom and looking up and pretending you're on the bottom of the ocean. That you don't have to come up for air. That life above water is as lightweight and carefree. I think my imagination as a child (and therefore as an adult) wasn't as great as other kids'. I rarely remember putting myself in a pretend situation and really getting into it. But to this day, I can hop into any old pool, springs, river, you name it, and be transformed into a mermaid or dolphin or even a synchronized swimmer.

These mermaids in Weeki Wachee must feel that so strongly that they'll put up with making under $10 an hour and slumping audience numbers just to spend so much time where they feel they belong.

Alas, for now, under the current circumstances, I might just take this fellow twentysomething's advice when I think about packing up and moving along for greener (professional) pastures.

“The number one rule is ‘Don’t panic,’” Ms. Holliday said. “When you think you can’t hold your breath anymore, you can for another 15 to 20 seconds. Fear takes your breath away.”

Photo courtesy of a nameless yeast on flickr.