Some Merfolk History

I promised happier thoughts today. Here's a little mermaid history...from my brain.

Copyright: Kathryn Gustafson 2014

The moon was full and high, and the skies were clear.  From the back, screened porch, the gentle crashing sound of waves could be heard and somewhere in the distance fireworks screeched and popped.

A small girl was on that porch, neatly tucked into the swinging bed where she got to sleep sometimes during summer.  Her name was Sabrina, she was six years old, and it was her bedtime. 

However, it was also the perfect kind of night for Sabrina’s mother to tell her favorite story, so Sabrina was excited.

But first, she had to wait for her mother to light the lanterns and snuggle down into the soft, blue sheets with her.

“Before we can really get started, it is important to note that our story takes place in the Atlantic Ocean.  Which one is that, Sabby?”

Sabrina sighed loudly (her mom always made her do this) and took the miniature globe which sat on the shelf next to the bed. She swirled it and then put her finger down and tapped the big stretch of blue between North America, South America, Europe and Africa.

“Excellent! Well, lots of mermaids live in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a pretty big place, after all. But our story takes place in a particular mermaid colony, which is located right… here.”

She placed her finger just above the outline of Florida, where the coastline curved slightly.

“Right here in this curve, off the coastlines of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, there are a dozen tiny islands.  They have many names: Amelia, Jekyll , St. Simons and St. George…”

(the girl knew all of this already, but it was part of the story, so she listened  and nodded eagerly)

“Now what makes it so unusual that there was a mermaid colony close to all of these islands, and what you have to understand about seafolk, is this: they avoid people at all costs.  In fact, for the past three hundred years or so, they have very rarely made their homes anywhere near land.”

“But mom,” the little girl interrupted, “Why were the mermaids so afraid of people? Why couldn’t they be friends?”

She had asked the question many times before and she would ask it many times again, but her mother always answered in the same way.

“They used to be friends, a long time ago. You see, shortly after the time when men began to explore the oceans in their massive ships, they began to see mermaids quite frequently.  Mermaids are very beautiful and very talented, but also very lonely.  So, when men began sailing out at sea more often…  I’ve told you before that there are very few mermen, haven’t I?”

Sabrina nodded.

“Right. Well, there’s a king for every colony, of course, and then usually the king and queen will have a few sons, but that’s about it. Because of the shortage of mermen, mermaids have the tendency to be rather…flirtatious.  So, in the early ship-sailing days, mermaids thought that having all of these strong men upon the oceans was the best thing that could have happened.  The sailors, who were also quite lonely, did not mind the clingy nature of the beautiful sea maidens. This time in history resulted in many love stories which are legendary to this day. “ 

Sabrina thought this was very romantic and always hoped her mom would tell her more about that part, but her mother insisted that it wasn’t all that interesting.

“Then, the accident happened.  A very foolish mermaid unwittingly lured the captain of a ship into some water that was too shallow, causing his ship to run aground and be damaged. The captain’s name was Blackbeard.  Even though he was unharmed by the accident, he was so outraged about his ship that he sailed the seas spreading horrible rumors about mermaids.

Starting with the pirates, men who sailed the oceans began to hunt mermaids. They harpooned many of them, and those who were captured and put on display at circus shows suffered an even worse fate. After that, Merfolk had to be much more careful about staying unseen. Many colonies moved to deeper waters, where the only nearby islands were uninhabited.

The colony in our story was one of the very few exceptions to this rule.

After the Blackbeard incident, there was a huge debate about whether or not the colony should just pack up and leave. King Poseidon was even called upon to help make a decision about what to do.  Ultimately, it was decided that the colony would stay where they were.  The Folk of the colony had been there first, after all. Furthermore, they had established one of the most culturally important societies under the waves. There were simply too many important historical sites and ancestral homes in the area which could not be abandoned or moved. So, the colony stayed to protect the history and culture which they had established.

 However, that culture was about to change. As the surrounding islands began to become more crowded, the Folk of the colony had to be more careful. Mermaids there could no longer lay out upon the shore in the moonlight to comb their hair, or rise up from the waves to sing beautiful melodies the way that mermaids from other parts of the world did. They did not even come to the surface at all unless it was with a clan of dolphins for which they might be mistaken.  

So instead of making beautiful music like those of their fellow colonies, this colony learned to be quiet, serious, and clever with their fingers. They made beautiful jewelry and art with shells. Perhaps most importantly, they invented the first written language of the sea by weaving patterns into rope and seaweed. Using this method, they recorded many stories, histories as well as legends. They learned to sense the presence of Humanfolk and skillfully avoid being seen or heard by them even at close proximity.

Less Love in the World

I am so lonely.

Usually my grief is for the person I miss so much-my mom, one of my best friends in the world, the only person who ever really understood the way I feel and think about things.  

Lately, there have been times when my grief is for myself.  It’s self-pitying I know. But I don’t think it’s wrong or unnatural. There is so much less love for me in the world than there used to be, and I feel it. 

I just wrote a bunch of examples for times when I feel this absence of love. It was too much, and it was making it worse. I deleted them.

Let me just say that feel the absence of this special kind of love often in my life. Very often.

I realize now what people told me growing up is so true, “Your mama just loves you so much. She is so proud of you. She talks about you all the time.” 

 She wasn’t pushy. She was a cheerleader.  Her belief in me expanded my world enormously so that every failure felt picked up off the broken ground, brushed off, and mendable. Every achievement seemed to catapult my horizons so that they stretched easily into forever. 

Confiding in her seemed to make things better too. She was such a good listener and gave such good advice. Even if it didn’t change anything, really, it always helped to talk to her.  The few people I actually talk to in person about my biggest personal problems (which is mostly related to this topic these days) are sweet  to listen, but can’t make me feel better, so I stop myself a lot. They listen, nod, don’t say anything. Maybe there’s a hug. And that’s the best anyone can do I guess. No one can fix it. 

I am grateful for the people who have listened to me, but I wish for more. I wish for the sage, comforting way my mom listened and responded. But the wish only makes it hurt worse.

I remember the last time she comforted me. It was also the first time I really understood that she couldn’t make anything feel better.

It always makes me cry to think of that. I am crying now.   

The day before she died, she couldn’t even talk. I lay in bed with her. I couldn’t even tell if she was awake, she had barely moved or made a sound day.  I tried to tell her good things, sweet things, but the tears came despite my best intentions and carried me away. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t mean for her to hear, but I have a habit of hyperventilating when I’m really upset. As I tried to slow my breathing, I felt a hand on my back. She had moved her hand for the first time all day and was rubbing my back. Her eyes were still closed, but there were tears coming out the sides of them.  In a few hours, there were white streaks of salt crusted along the corners of her eyes. She had called out the day before, the last loud thing she had said in a painful voice, “I don’t want to die yet.”

I realized then that she was helpless. And I was helpless.  

It was the helplessness that hurt so much then, and I see it in the eyes of my family and friends when they look at me.  Painful helplessness is not what I wish for them, or you, but I have to get this out into the universe or I will explode.

My world feels so much smaller without her enthusiasm. I feel like I have lost an important part of myself. I was always the dreamer, an optimist.  No hurt is beyond mending. Happy endings are always possible. I am struggling now, because I question that. 

I am tentative without the strongly woven net of love beneath me. 

I feel uncertain excitement with my successes. Recently I have achieved two goals that my mom knew I was working towards.  After each, I was excited, and told my dad and Dane, who congratulated me and said they were proud of me. Then there was a hollowness, a feeling like neither really happened, a “This is it?" Because I guess, connected to those acheivements, was the knowledge that I would make my mom proud and excited, maybe more than anyone. She would probably be more excited than me. That's just how she was.

I wish I had told my mom more often how much I appreciated her enthusiasm and joy. On trips. With family and co-workers.  With me and my small successes.  If I had told her about these recent successes, she would have told the family and they would have known, and she would have smiled at me and maybe done a “whooo-hoo!”  I mean, I could tell my family this stuff.  Dane would say “WHOOOO-HOO” if I wanted him too. It’s not about that. I guess I just am realizing that I was irreplaceable to someone who was irreplaceable to me.  I took it for granted, how proud she was of me, how much everything in my life meant to her.

It’s hard to think about all the times that that will happen again in future years.  Will every important good thing hurt this much?

This one looms larger than the others: As much as I look forward to starting a family with Dane one day, I currently cannot bear the thought of my mom not being there when I am pregnant. I can’t bare the idea of her not being there to meet her grandkids. I would not be able to cope with that right now. I probably won’t be able to for awhile. 

 I have people who love me, I know, but it’s very lonely.  I am very lonely. There’s no one to share this special grief with really, no one who will understand completely. That's the nature of it, though.

Maybe you'll read it an relate in some way. Maybe someone who loved you died, and you feel an abscence of love, too. Maybe you got dumped by someone you thought you'd found forever in. Or maybe you aren't speaking to your best friend. I'm not saying no one can relate to this kind of grief, just that every grief of this kind is personal  and unique.

The beauty of a blog post is this: It helps me to write about it and get it out there.

If it helps you to know you're not alone in your pain, great. If it makes you depressed, you can stop reading it or forget that you did immediately.

Regardless, I don’t have to watch you stare at me helplessly. Win-win.

 I’ll come up with something happier for you tomorrow. Promise.

White Pixie Dust

It was a cold, grey January day.

“Let me tell you a secret, Griffin.”

“HUH,” The boy half-growled, scrunching his eyebrows together in a way that he intended to make him look tough.

“Grown-ups aren’t really grown-ups. They are just kids who have to deal with a lot more responsibility.”

         “NUH-UH!” he scoffed, disbelieving.

As the tedium of the day continued, the sky turned paler and paler until the powdery crystals began to twirl downward. As they fell, tension grew. But the icy specks did not stick, they only dissolved into poor little puddles as soon as they landed. 

  Foots tapped. 

Bottoms wiggled. 

Eyes were never on the board, always on that window to the outside world.

Would something magic happen?

Later, in the frigid white that so rarely layers the red clay of Georgia, the children and teachers ran around in the swirling snow.  The echoes of all the voices laughing and calling out bounced off of the concrete walls of the school. It would have been difficult to distinguish between them, even if anyone had been trying.

A Short Post in which I Do my Homework

 Disclaimer: I'm real tired, this won't be as long as I'd like.

Sometimes you give out homework assignments that don't go over too well. This one didn't on the the first go 'round. So it was re-assigned today, and I decided to complete the assignment as well.

In my middle-school literature class, we are about to start reading The Giver. The Giver, if you haven't read it (and I highly reccommend you do) is a classic, a precursor to many stories which have now seized the adoration of young folks (and yes, I count myself among those) on an international scale like The Hunger Games and Divergent.

Without giving too much of the story away, it takes place in a Utopian society. "Utopia" is such a strange word, isn't it?  A word that we associate with paradise, literally it means "no place."  Utopia is the mirage in the desert.

I brainstomed with my kids about what they thought would make a "perfect world", and without even knowing it, they set themselves up for what so often become the central problems within the settings of classic sci-fi.
If you want something to be perfect, you always have to sacrifice something else. 

Assignment for tonight? Answer a series of questions to develop your own Utopian society with an accompanying illustration.

Mine:
Nation: Floravita, an interconnected network of small, independent communities that also trade with one another. They are independently self-sustaining because of excellent farming and medical technology. Each community has what it needs to survive alone, but they only thrive because of comforts the other communities offer to trade with them. Things like: furniture, nice clothing, musical instruments, art supplies, speciality food, books, ect. This keeps them interdependent.

In each community the population is small, 10 families. 15 is the maximum before families must be relocated. It is standard that 5 large family homes be reserved for new families. No more than 100 people maximum.

In terms of government, equality and freedom of speech are reserved, which is one of the benefits of having so few people. There are weekly councils in the center of each Floravita community, in which every community member over the age of 10 is allowed to voice concerns or offered suggestions. These are, in turn, voted upon. All of this is mediated by a community leader, an elder, whose job is primarily to hold order in the councils and relay the situation of each community to the other elders once every two months. All of the elders come together bi-monthy, meeting at various communities rather than having their own place.
 The people do not earn money indivually-everything is provided by the comminity itself. They do not want for anything. There is also very little illness because of the technological advancement and spectacular benefits of plant life. All families have their own private gardens and are responsible for cooking their own meals.

The technology is solar/wind-mill powered to prevent polution. The air is very clean due to the lack of pollution and the abundance of greenery. There are numerous walking places, parks and gardens. There are no resturants (because every household must be self-sustaining and there is no currency) but there are places to go and talk with friends, play and listen to music, drink tea, dance, or read a book.


Children who are growing up in Floravita have the following options for career choices: Medic, Farmer/ Horticulturist, Technological security, Technological Farming, Technology Manufacturing, Craftsmanship, Building repair, Artistry, or education in any of the afformentioned fields.

There is hardly any sickness or violence. When there is violence, the offender is banished immediately to one of the outlying communities which does not trade with the other communities and does not have the same advancements in medicine technology.

Men and women may choose their own spouses under normal circumstances. However, if the population exceeds maximum, it may be necessary to arrange a marriage between communities.

(there's more but I am SO EXHAUSTED)

You guys can see where I'm going with this, right?
The next homework assignment will be to figure out what could do wrong...DUN DUN DUN.

Because, once you get down to the details no where is perfect.
Utopia is perfect
"No place" is perfect
Thomas Moore joke...haha.

Until we get to Heaven, that's absolutely true.

PINTEREST 'XPERAMENT: Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Sugar Free, Healthy Fudge Brownies

(I know I didn't post yesterday, but I have been sick and I crashed. Also in my defense, I had started writing this post, at least 100 words of it)

As many of you know, I'm a little bit of a health nut. I eat a lot of fruits and vegatables and try to enhance my diet with as many superfoods and Shaklee supplements as I can. I don't eat gluten due to an intolerance, and I try to do mostly lean meat. I'm pretty normal where dairy is concerned, but I do actually enjoy the taste and nutritional benefits of almond milk and coconut milk.
You'd think I'd be so skinny. Dang it, metabolism.

Of course, we all have our weaknesses. My most tempting endulgances are dark chocolate, coffee, red wine and cheese. I also love, love, love, pasta, which I now have to consume in it's GF form. Same calories and carbohydrates though, dispite common belief.

I have really enjoyed making up new recipes and trying others out that I have discovered. And of course, where would us mad-scientist, health-nut, foodies be without....
THE PINTEREST

Sometimes these things go well. Somethings they don't.

I've found and successfully tested out some great recipes found on THE PINTEREST. Salad in a jars, cakes in a mug, gluten free cakes in a mug, spaghetti squash pesto, ect, ect.

Sometimes, there are also duds. You guys know what I mean. It looks so beautiful in the pictures, and then you follow the instructions to a T, and yeah, it still looks beautiful, but tastes like a waste of time. Or maybe it doesn't even look right.

Kind of like this: (picture found on THE PINTEREST)

Ok, well, I saw this recipe:


So instantly I re-pinned it, of course. Well, about an hour later, several of my friends had re-pinned it already.

These gluten free, dairy free, sugar free,  fudge brownies sounded too good to be true. But heck, if it was true, I want in on that deal.

So commences this weekend's PINTERST XPERAMENT

View the full recipe and instuctions at the original source, here:

http://shan-made.blogspot.com/2013/11/healthy-virgin-diet-fudge-brownies.html

First I arranged my ingredients:
-Brown Rice Flour
-Honey
-Apple Sauce
-Vanilla Extract
-Coconut Oil
 -Baking soda
-(Agave for the icing, if you want icing)

Yep! That's it! That is one thing I really like about this recipe. Many GF baked goods recipes make you use like three different kinds of flours, xanthum gum, ect. This is a very simple list of ingredients. All super healthy too.


Step one: Melt your coconut oil and mix your wet ingredients

Obviously we like coconut oil around this establishment. One thing I would do differently next time with this recipe is I would have used one of the higher quality varieties of coconut oil, not the super-cheap one. This recipe calls for A LOT of coconut oil, which is why I used the cheap route, but I  think that would have made a big difference in the taste if I had gone with one of the other two brands (I'll let you figure out which one was the cheap one)

 Add your dry ingredients and mix it up!

 Bake for 15-20 minutes!

Catch your adorable husband sneaking a taste.......






So here's the part you all have been waiting for. HOW DID THEY TURN OUT?










Pros:
1. Simple ingredients and instructions
2. Healthy and guilt-free
3. Moist
4. Taste will satisfy your chocolate craving
5. Quick to make

Middle-ground

1. Definitely a dark chocolate taste, which I like, but some people don't

Cons: 
1. They were not miraculously "brownie like."  They were like a semi-sweet, chocolate-flavored bread.
2. Could be expensive, depending on the coconut oil you used*
3. Didn't like the icing*

A note about 2 and 3. The coconut oil I ended up using was one I bought just to make these brownies with. The recipe (with icing using most of it) calls for about 1 and 1/2 cups of coconut oil, so I wasn't willing to use my nicer stuff. However, after tasting both oils by themselves, I realize that a better quality oil would have definitely enhanced my recipe. Since the icing was mostly coconut oil, it ended up tasting sort of waxy (what my cheap coconut oil tasted like). I'm not saying you have to spend a fortune. If you live near a Kroger, their Simple Truth Coconut Oil is a good bet at about 5.99 for a large jar. 

Overall, don't get your expectations up too high for these to taste like a fudgy, brownie, dream. However, if you are trying to be healthy (like me) and don't do gluten or dairy, these will definitely hit your chocolate spot. Not a miraculous Pinterest discovery, but definitely not a fail, either. I would make them again, and recommend them to friends. So check out the original source and give them a try!

My Darling Sweeny

His large brown eyes stared forward at the television. They looked focused and yet they were not really processing the images on the screen into a storyline.

This could be easily concluded, despite his intense, concentrated gaze, on the basis of two pieces of evidence.

One, the movie on the screen was “The Dark Crystal,” a film which holds a hypnotic, befuddling power over even the most alert and captive audiences.  (Earlier, we watched “Pan’s Labyrinth,” another not good one to watch when you are sick. We are masochists I guess.)

Two, his mouth hung open.

He shifted his laptop around in his lap and I noticed the two lonesome words next to the blinking cursor against an almost all-white screen.

“Day 20:”

It had been that way for an hour.  

 He wore a Batman shirt and pajama pants.
 He resembled Johnny Depp’s depiction of Sweeny Todd more than just a little bit, with his wild hair waving out in all directions and his eyes painted with dark undercircles.  I hugged him and rubbed my face on his cheek stubble. He smiled at me in a tripped out kind of way.

We both were home sick today. Yep, I am still sick, but hopefully not for much longer. I think today really helped.  I’ve kind of been fighting this off all week, but have still been doing lots of things.  I have a hard time calling a sub when I’m sick because usually it’s just easier to hang in there and do it then it is to make all the sub plans and worry about everything going right.  Today’s a Friday though, which usually means the afternoon is all fun stuff anyway. Stuff that doesn’t involve plans but does involve running and jumping and yelling.

Dane was feeling really, really rough today. We’ve never both taken a sick day, and I’m not even sure if we’ve had the same thing. I have had something like bronchitus with chills. He’s had a migraine and body aches. He also hasn’t been able to sleep in two days. Poor guy. :-(

It’s funny how different we are when we’re sick though. 
 I like to take baths, sleep, and cuddle. I like to be around people who will rub my back. I’m kind of like a puppy when I’m sick.
If I'm a puppy then Dane is sort of like a cat that you would name Gonzo when he is sick.

He kind of goes off to his own little world.  He is very sweet, confused, and zoned out.  He is on another planet, bless his heart. I hope it’s not like “The Dark Crystal” in there. Sometimes he tells me interesting, random facts.

One thing I know about him. Even when he’s sick and a little bit delirious, he sure is cute!

(hoping I don’t get in trouble for this later)