Words meme from Mithen

[icarus_chained]

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

mithen   gave me:
1: Mermaids
2: Ireland
3: Alfred
4: Sea
5: Beauty

1: Mermaids

*grins* I come from a family where we were raised on myths and fairytales, often in original form, with all the blood and guts left in. We used to have this massive book of fairytale drabbles, one for each day of the year, that our grandad would read to us at night when he babysat for our parents. He has this gorgeous deep, calm voice, and anything you hear him read sticks with you.

So I remember fairytales, and myths, and sailor's stories about mermaids, about sirens and selkies, about Formorians and the Tuatha De Danaan, about Manannan Mac Lir, the Irish God of the Sea. About capricious undersea creatures that could make people love them, that could fall in love, that could turn into seals and be captured if you stole their sealskin while they slept, about sirens that led men to their deaths, and whimsical merwomen that would blow kisses to enchanted sailors in the fog. Manannan, the God of the Sea, was the Lord of the Isles of Apples, the islands of the dead, and he was the ferryman and guardian of the souls who travelled there. He was trickster, too, and a figure of justice (and a large part of my version of Arthur, by the by), and he and his children embodied so much of the impartial, capricious nature of the sea that brings out the best and worst in men. The myths of the sea, her stories and legends, her creatures and her gods ... mermaid calls a lot of stories to mind for me, and they mean many, many things.

2: Ireland

Hmmm. I don't know what to say, here. Ireland, the land of my birth. I've only been outside it twice, and neither for more than a week. I'm named for the patriotic poems where the Anima of Ireland, Eire, appears to poets. I grew up on her legends, her rich stories. I also grew up with her rain, her strange prejudices, her utter, utter ineffiency (it offends me, it really does, how people can be so repeatedly stupid about things that with a little thought and a willingness for sacrifice could be so readily straightened out - yes, I am naive, but such shoddy systems offend me). I grew up with her obsessive religiousness (grandparents), the remainders of her civil war (great-grandparents, and the scars run deep), the Troubles (my dad works up there), her racism ... All her troubles, really. Part of life. But there's also her beauty, damaged though it is. There's the ever-present sea, the Atlantic. There's her worn mountains, remnants forged over 400 million years ago, that stood through Ice Ages and show the scars. There's her whimsy and her mystery, and her stubborn reluctance to modernise. Actually, a lot about her is stubborn. I rather like it about her.

3: Alfred

I'm not sure what to say that I haven't already said. Alfred is incredible. I admire the man so much, for what he does, what he helps his family to do. I pity him, in some ways, for the toll he's let it take on them all, himself especially. I love the silent caring, the well-meant rebukes, the secret-but-oh-so-suggestive past, the rich tapestry of life that circles around him at the center of the Batclan. I love the relationship he has with Bruce, that strange mix of servant and father, the hesitancy and depth of it. I love the way he reaches out to the wider family, strives to bridge the gaps that Bruce riddles his life with. I love writing Alfred, for the compassion it allows to show, the weariness, and the hope. And, of course, the sheer badassery that Alfred allows. He went at Scarecrow with a SHOTGUN! I mean, wow. Basically, I love the man.

4: Sea

I inherit this from my mother, I think (my father's first love is the mountains). The sea is just ... something else. Something other. Deep and rich and powerful, capricious and cruel, nurturing and exotic. There is nothing to compare, truly nothing. To swim in the sea ... it's not about exercise, like it is in a pool, or even relaxation. It's about exploration, wonder, surrender, power. Being part of something vast that could crush you in an instant if it chose. It's about throwing yourself at waves, fighting them, being beaten by them, carried by them, spared by them. It's about the deep mysteries, and dangers, and peace, and beauty, and hideous creatures and things more beautiful that the land could ever dream of. It's about history on a scale to beggar meaning, making centuries, millenia, into nothing at all. It's about fear, and discovery, and adrenalin, and peace, and the sound of water in your ears, and the feel of water moving and pulsing and crashing around you, and the quiet joy of following seaweed as it drifts through the shallows ... there is nothing, nothing to ever compare.

5: Beauty

I'm not sure why someone would associate this with me, unless because I'm compelled to admire it wherever I find it. And I find it everwhere. Truly. In every hideous thing, the most ugly, horrendous, evil, repulsive, there is something, some grain, some sheen, of beauty. Even spiders, which I hate and which absolutely repulse me, have their own unique appeal, the sheer brilliance of their design, the beauty of insect eyes. And hands! The most gorgeous, brilliantly functional things. When I write, I'm always watching the hands. Because. But there are more kinds of beauty than physical. Souls. Emotions. Courage. Even pain. People. Even the worst. Everywhere, in everything, on some level there is beauty, be it a physical thing, or something more nebulous and ill-defined. There is nothing that is not beautiful. And maybe that's a scary thing, maybe a terrible thing, because beauty then is not good or right or any such thing. Beauty is just beauty, and it can kill and wound and destroy, and still we are drawn to appreciate it. Because. It is.

I like writing about beauty, letting it filter in. Because whether or not it is good or right, it is one of the joys of life and the world we live in, and joy should be shared.