Whimsical Wednesday: "I would be a mermaid fair..."



Mermaid from rochelle31



 "I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say,
'Who is it loves me? who loves not me?'"

~from Alfred Lord Tennyson's

"The Mermaid" 

The other day a friend of mine happened to mention how much she loved mermaids when she was little. It made me start thinking about my own mermaid-loving days and how I always pretended to be a pretty fish-tailed girl when I was at the pool. Of course, no one understood that being a mermaid meant I didn't have to go up for air as often, and I hadn't really bumped my head, or gotten stuck, or been pushed under, or any of the other million and one things the silly adults were always worrying about. And I wasn't about to tell them. That three- to eight-foot-deep space under the surface was my own whimsical sea where anything was possible. The diving rings transformed into coral bracelets and the little weighted eggs we dove for during swimming lessons magically turned into pearl-laden oysters. They were lovely evenings, and I think the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen were those filtering through the water above me. I dreaded having to climb out of the pool onto the hard, chilly concrete. In the water I was wrapped in perfect peace, it was a place where time stood still and gravity didn't apply, overflowing with rich imagination and pure bliss.

Mermaid Seafoam Comb from TreasuredDetails



These beautiful moments are harder to create as adults; it's much more difficult to abandon all our cares and for a bit be whoever we want to be and see the world in any way we want to see it. Lately, though, I have been focusing on enjoying these small moments as they come, being grateful for the lovely memories they create, accepting the unpleasantnesses and moving on, and viewing the world through the most aqua-colored glasses I can muster.



Mermaid Tags from jaxg12

  

Sea Maiden Necklace from BeadCoutureBySteph

"Souls of Poets dead and gone,

What Elysium have ye known,

Happy field or mossy cavern,

Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?"

~ from John Keats' "Lines on the Mermaid Tavern"

  

Sweet Mermaid Dish from notengomiedo



Siren Song from clairelafaye

"Thou rememberest since
Once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music?"

~from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer's Night Dream"



Mermaid Dream from shopvintageme

 

Vintage Mermaid Salt & Pepper Shakers from fadedvioletvintage

 "Here all is pleasant as a dream;
The wind scarce shaketh down the dew,
The green grass floweth like a stream

Into the ocean's blue..."

~from James Russell Lowell's "The Sirens"