~A Mermaid's Tale~
~A Wyld Sea Witch surrendering to the Ninth Wave of the Goddess ~Archive for July, 2009
Collected tales of fey isle. A re posting for Sorrow
Prologue.
Collected tales of fey isle. ( A work in progress) Grand Mother’s stories.
It is a well known fact that rats will leave a sinking ship. Their tails wormlike, slithering wet across the deck. They know by instinct to get out when the going is good.
I was told of a storm that struck this Isle with such force that it is said that it lashed the shores and changed its shape forever. Waves that built their muscle and weight far out in the ocean, hit the shore with such a pounding that the Island seemed to creak and groan. The wind pushed and moaned at the wooden doors of the houses.
Branches scratched and clawed black fingers at windows.
Candles guttered, their flames sputtering in the wind sending out black puffs of smoke like distress signals as their small bright flames fought against the darkness and the wind.
Small children sharing a bed ,clung to each other beneath their quilts at the sound of the pounding wrath of the wind and rain; their faces lit up like small moons by the flashes of lightning.The waves worked hard, beaching great piles of seaweed and shingle, sculpting it into mountains of green sludge and stone. In the valleys lay giant bones of bleached driftwood, like dinosaur skeletons, scattered along the shoreline.
Then, the next morning , in the pale watery light when all was calm again, the shadows of the Islanders were seen, picking their way down to the sea. They searched the treasures of the deep, turning stones and scraping seaweed back from wood, examining the changes wrought by the storm. It was with this foraging along the shoreline in amongst the sludge and shingle that they found her.
She was curled around a stone, hugging it tightly to her chest. There was seaweed tangled through her hair and scattered everywhere around her were small delicate shells, looking for all the world like confetti strewn across her body.
Now it has been said that she was on board a ship that the Islanders themselves had tempted, brought to the rocks with great fires and wreckers greed. There were others who said the selchies must have brought her, that the seal people took pity and pushed and nuzzled her to the shoreline.
Others said that she was of the blood of the seal folk but they had lost her in the great waves.
Of course there were dark mutterings that she was a witch and that she survived the sea, it left her, spewed her forth like some unfinished meal, unable to swallow her devilish skin. There were those folk who did not comment nor mutter; they just stared at her in a daze of wonder. They thought she was a gift from the sea, a miracle of salt and wind.
After the shock of finding the girl lying amongst the stones and the seaweed, the Islanders carried her body to the only person on the Island who knew any healing. The general opinion was that she was dead anyway, her body was cold to touch and her skin had no glow of blood pumping beneath it. She was lifted and carried gently, by Calumn a local fisherman, who had claimed last year to have seen the selchie folk gathering on the rocks as he returned homewards at dusk.
He strode ahead of the little band of storm weary folk, the girls head lolling against his shoulder, her arms swinging loosely by his sides.
He watched her face closely as he carefully placed her on the wooden table and with great tenderness he asked if there was anything that could be done.
Strong hands took her from him, a voice told him to leave, but to come later with wood for the fire. He searched the gloom of the croft for the source of his instructions but could only see the dim outline of a small woman. As he left there looked once again at the girl where she lay, the miracle of the storm.
The Man I love~
Well this time last year I was waking up each morning with a smile on my face.
A smile of anticipation and building excitement and also in a way, one of validation to a successful manifestation.
You see, a few month previously I had been listening to this man, the man I have been deeply in love with for, well, twenty something years.
I said to him, just after he had just finished serenading me with *I’ll shoot the moon right out of the sky for you baby*, I said, Well I would die a happy woman if I got to see you perform that song, live.
(I don’t have much in life, but what I do have, I treasure and value, my varied musical tastes being one of those things that keep me sane.
Along with a mountain of good reading.)
SO,I thought to myself, fat chance of that, given how rarely you tour Tom, and when was the last time you played here? The eighties, was it not?
OK now. Cut to my myspace site, a few weeks after that, one I hardly ever visit except for checking out music and various new artists.
I happened to get an updated subscription from the man himself, well from of his well trained hamsters. Saying Tom waits Glitter and Doom tour press conference.. I watch this and roar with laughter, he talks of Europe, but I’m still none the wiser, then a few days later I go back to check and I see dates.. Paris. I swallow this down and think can I afford Paris? Yes, I could. not only that, I LOVE Paris I lived there for eight months, lousy job but great city.
I start scheming as to how I could go and have things OK back here.
I scan my eyes through and that’s when I notice dates, in, Edinburgh! Two dates.
I scream out in joy, YES! I cant quite believe my eyes.
So, then fast forward a few weeks to sale day. I had the extreme trauma of knowing that the tickets, once on line, would sell out in minutes, like the last gig in London did.
He was only doing two gigs here and NONE in London ( Chuckles in gloating fashion)
I also have to get ID as he had stopped ticket touting by announcing that, but my PP was out of date and I knew it would take too long to renew, this was turning into a mission.
Well I get up on the big day and boot up my trusty PC in the morning of the ticket selling, the only cloud on my horizon was a woman who had offered to take me to gig in her car ( making life slightly easier, it’s quite far from here and involves a ferry journey) to pay me back for helping with her kids. BUT. She was pussy-ing around about going, (a behavioural trait she had about everything, indecisiveness and to my way of thinking, a form of subtle control, needless to say she is no longer in my life)
SO. To be honest I was thinking, F** it, just get one expensive front row ticket and say to her, I will go under my own steam. Looking back I wish I had, there was yet another lesson in intuition there for me.
Anyway, back to the day. I look for the night she wanted to go, and hands shaking I select two tickets, it takes ages to confirm the sale and for one stomach churning -long- moment I thought, oh god/ess maybe my computer was having an off day and she is going to crash on me.
I start to pray to the Goddess of -all good things- and to Tom himself (via the hamsters) please let me go, please.
Then YES two tickets confirmed..I was SO ecstatic, I ran around the house whooping and dancing with the dog. He was confused, but being a Tom fan also he got the message.
Fast forward to a few months later and I have allowed myself to become excited, like a slow fuse burning. Its something that is tricky for me, having had my hopes built up and then let down, so many time in life, it’s hard for me to just wallow in anticipatory joy.
But this time last year, I did. I went through ALL his albums, playing a few songs each day and re reading a few interviews, biographies , watching his hilarious interviews on Letterman on utube. Musical foreplay.
Sending him waves of- have a great tour vibes – be well and happy and for gawds sake don’t get anything ( ?) or let anything go wrong before Edinburgh.
THEN came the night. I had to go there early as the woman who took me wanted to go shopping in the city, something I loathe, so I went to the ART gallery.
She had asked me if I was excited, for some odd reason,I could not answer her.
I was secretly wishing I was alone OR with someone who was a total fan.
I felt bad, ungrateful in spite of her still owing me money for the ticket, thinking that.
Then I thought, as I ate a very expensive sandwich after looking at some photographs taken by Lee Miller, this is your night, to hang with her, this is IT.
So, I let it build up inside me again.
I knew it was going to be a night I would never forget.
Waiting for him to walk on stage, the total excitement and abandon.
The stuffiness of the venue, the old theatre creaking under our weight.
But, I had no idea just how amazing he would be at that point in time, and nothing I can find can really capture it.
The feeling of sheer joy and love in the theatre.
Grown Scotsmen shouting out- I love you Tom- during the short song breaks.
Me doing the same. The fact his two young sons were in the band. His incredible stamina and energy at 58 years of age.
The atmosphere, the banter. His wonderful timing, intelligence, wit and humour.
That voice of his , like he has swallowed glass for breakfast and smoked Cuban cigars since the age of three. His story telling magic.
OH, I was one very happy woman, everything faded away to the back ground.
-You are innocent when you dream-
And he sang to me, but of course to me, I was after all the only one there now,
(wait for it) yes “Ill shoot the moon right out of the sky for you baby.”
I had my wish. I saw the man I love. The only one.
I will always be grateful he is on the planet at the same time as me. I Love you Tom..thank you for Edinburgh, July 27th 2008.
This is how he opened for us also.
