That's our family's official myth. I have it in a book somewhere. Ancestor McKay loved to wander the wild beach his family claimed on the Atlantic side of Scotland. Where, it must be admitted, you could not grow the grapes for good wine.
One day he met a mermaid. She calmly basked on the damp sand, little curls of surf racing up her long tail. "A very shapely tail," he thought.
He did not want to frighten her. "May I approach?" he called gently.
She pulled her long, fine, sea-weedy hair back from her face.
And that day, a mermaid left her natural home. She changed her tail for long legs. And with Ancestor McKay began a family, as his bride.
They were happy. She built a large family, bearing six children. All survived. That mermaid loved her man, true and true.
But as their children aged and became independent, she fell into melancholy. She longed to see (sea) her native world again. She said to him, "We must visit the wild ocean." And he immediately agreed, because her heart beat in his chest.
They would visit the wild ocean again and reminisce.
They walked together, just the two of them. The waves thumped. The gravel rattled. She leaned her head against his shoulder.
"Would you like a few minutes alone, lassie?" he asked. It was the hardest thing he'd ever said. He knew what it could mean.
He ached for the place where he belonged, so for sure she ached for her place. He'd thought: "With the children gone, would she wish to stay on land?"
He literally could not imagine life without her.
He depended on her. He depended on her mood. He depended on her kindness. He depended on her body within arms' reach.
But you could not truly know another's thoughts or predict someone's behavior.
He was in love. She was in love.
She swam away from the shore, tunneled into the waves, and disappeared. "Graceful as a dolphin after all these years," he thought.
And that's why the McKays to this day yearn to live near the ocean. To reunite.
pounding in my ears, to help me through just one more hour of daylight. I can pretend to be bored and return to my bed, turn to my book, an historical romance, happily drift off to sleep; if sleep isn't suicide, I don't know what is:
pounding: a locomotif remix
Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair
Nina Simone & Jaffa
as inevitable, as ominous, haunted as dripping black tears, fatalistic as ever because love always dies & f. we're mortal even if it doesn't
we're sad
we hope to be happy & will try a thousand paths
like this: pounding chug-a-chain percussion SO
what other conclusion to draw? keep moving
thing to do
He put his feet up again. Reached for his best buddy: a stiff drink.
... in my last gig, in Buffalo. And he picked out every mistake I made in my footers. There was no
consistency, I soon saw. I'd pulled slides from everywhere, different
years. And he caught it all. Mistake after mistake.
I ate twice at the city's renown Anchor Bar and its airport cousin. The common legend says Buffalo (hot) Wings were invented at the Anchor Bar, to satisfy a late-night food craving of U.Buff students. Meaty chicken wings, dipped in hot sauce, deep-fried. Sauces range from "mild" to "suicidal."
And him? Now we occupy a villa over the Venice harbor. He's still annoying.
...my immediate world consists of friends I should call, friends I should contact, friends I should Friend, memories I'd rather forget, the clients hitting my windshield, my desire to surprise them, trying to help in my only area of apparent relative for now competence, trying to be pretty though not physically (that ship's sailed), worries, plans first class, plans second class, plans maybe, plans "oh come on!" ... and a bunch of other stuff. Flotsam poems caught in the throat. Envy of my betters (mostly literary). Appreciation of my betters (ditto).