The Mermaid

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

Enter your email here to receive Weekly Wide-Awake

back

A mermaid found a swimming lad, picked him for her own, pressed her body to his body, laughed; and plunging down, forgot in cruel happiness that even lovers drown.
– William Butler Yeats

Have you ever drowned in love? Heartbreak can feel like drowning. Unrequited love can feel like drowning. The death of love can feel like drowning. The mermaid forgot love’s challenge. We must be ourselves – who we are at our very core – to love another fully. That means we must understand our own needs – our very breath. Wrapped up in love’s challenge are vulnerability, trust, self-care, mortality, and a host of other things that lifetimes are spent learning.

Love’s Challenge

Start Where You Are

Love’s challenge asks us to look at where we have been and where we are, consider where we want to be, and start to love. Start reaching out. Start risking. Start opening up. Start loving strangers and friends. Start loving in public and loud and private and quiet moments. Start loving in logical and random moments. Start to love. Love more than mermaid magic romantic love.

Hold Center

Once we start to love, we must hold center. Holding center means balancing self and other, compromising and standing strong, and growing and shedding. Holding center means knowing how to forgive and communicate. Holding center means a healthy generosity that does not ask us to die or get lost in the process of love.

Do Not Be Afraid of Deep Water

We must stay in love’s deep water. We are asked by the same parts of our heart that need connection and belonging to swim; using every muscle, diving and bobbing and floating and flowing through rough and calm water, paying attention and noticing every fish and plant and bubble and rock. The deep water is where love’s magic happens.

Fill Your Cup

Love’s challenge requires that we fill our cup. A full cup sleeps enough. A full cup eats well. A full cup takes care of body and mind. A full cup finds time. A full cup connects. An empty cup wanders lonely as Wordsworth’s cloud. An empty cup tip toes when it must dance. An empty cup whispers when it must sing. Fill your cup. No apologies. No regrets. Lots of redos. Lots of missteps. Lots of back and forth. Lots of swimming to the surface to share treasure and diving again to find more.