Have You Met Your Mermaid Yet?

Anima is the woman within the psyche of the man who conveys the vital messages of the self. The anima is a personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a man’s psyche, such as vague feelings and moods, prophetic hunches, receptiveness to the irrational, capacity for personal love, feeling for nature, and — last but not least — his relation to the unconscious. — Marie Louise Von Franz, (Chapter 3, Process of Individuation), Man and his Symbols, Edited by Carl. G. Jung

You don’t know it yet. But if you are the kind of person who is searching for meaning in life, you are destined to meet a mermaid.

I met mine on a plane.

I was a merry go lucky corporate big shot with a miserable mind. I was reading books on finding happiness while I drank myself to sleep on most nights of the month. I hated my boss while I back slapped him in Business class lounges around the world. I was a bird with a broken wing that did not want to stop flying.

One night, on one of these long haul flights to nowhere, I found myself sitting next to a man who was crying while watching a black and white Audrey Hepburn movie. He was an Asian guy, a few years older than me but looked much wiser. He was so moved by the movie that tears ran down his face and he could not stop blowing his nose. Concerned and slightly irritated, I tapped him on his shoulder and asked if he was ok…he turned to me and just sobbed a feeble yes and went back to his movie. The sobbing continued in harmony with some periodic sniffles.

About half an hour later dinner was served and he turned to me and profusely apologized for his racket. He told me that whenever he flies, the altitude makes him emotional and old tragic movies give him the chance to have a good cry. He in fact said he looked forward to getting a good cry on these long flights.

His name was Mori who lived in London but was a retired nuclear scientist from Japan, who now was a freelance travel writer.

I had to get more out of a man with a CV like that …so I asked — “Mori, what is the strangest thing you have seen so far on your travels? He smiled, turned to me and said matter-of-factly;

“A Mermaid.”

. . .

This happened in early May 2010. He was still working at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant in Okuma, as one of the plant engineers. He had been tasked by his boss to host a group of around 20 foreign Ph.D. students who had come for a tour of the plant from London. They were a mixed group of international students who were traveling around Japan as part of their thesis work and this was the last stop before their return to London.

As he spoke fluent English (his mum was English), he was tasked to spend a day with the group and show them around the plant and answer any questions. Being a single, middle-aged guy living in a small town in Japan, he looked forward to meeting foreigners and relieving his boredom and learning about cosmopolitan life around the world.

. . .

Her name was Lina. She was 26 years old and the most inquisitive student in the group. She was Finnish but had lived in London most of her life. She was an architect and impressed Mori with her knowledge of building technology and how she was concerned about the impacts of earthquakes on Nuclear power plants. She seemed most concerned about the construction of the reactor cooling systems to withstand a severe earthquake if accompanied by a tsunami. Mori proudly defended the plant design feverishly and even lightly chided Lina for being too theoretical in her critique. But she remained calm and smiled and shrugged her shoulders and said, “Well, I hope you are right Mori”.

Mori could see she was not convinced, well not entirely anyway by his answers. Mori could also tell that the group was slightly amused and irritated by the number of questions Lina asked and the amount of time she took on the trip talking about her worries and concerns. One of the groups even called it a `Lina tour’ in half jest at the end of the tour that made Lina blush a deep pink in embarrassment. Mori remembered that her uncombed, long blond hair stood out even more against that blushed skin.

The group was in a hurry to get back to catch their plane so there was no time for lunch and Mori bid them all goodbye. Before she left, she gave him her email address and said she would like to send him some follow up questions to complete her report. She put out her hands to say goodbye and Mori held them for a moment and later that day he remembered that he had never touched a hand that soft. As if free from any bones.

That night Mori had a strange dream…

He was swimming as he normally did, in the ocean at dusk and suddenly a girl with luscious blonde hair swam beside him. She reached out and gently held his hands and smiled. He noticed that her body was unusually long and she was swimming naked in the freezing water. She said something that he could not hear and then her form melted into the dark waters. He smelt his hands that she had touched and they had a faint smell of jasmine on them.

He had met his Mermaid.

“A mermaid is not frightened by her own duality. She is a walking contradiction of piety and lust, sobriety and ecstasy, brilliance and stubbornness, the sacred and the scandalous…so dance with your own inner paradox.”
― Margot Datz, A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids

…to be continued.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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