Introduction
Introduction
How do mermaids appear in the desert?
Very simple, really.
Start with a couple of writers—Kim and I—living in cold and wet Washington state, looking for a refuge in the winter. Somewhere relatively warm and dry and bright.
Then one year Terri Windling told us about an artist retreat she, Delia Sherman, and Ellen Kushner had created in the Sonoran Desert outside of Tucson. It sounded like just the thing. That winter, we drove to Endicott West, as it was then called. We loved the place immediately. It kindled the creative spirit in both of us. We spent our mornings writing our books in the Quail House, a charming small studio on the property set amidst the cactus, palo verde, and mesquite trees just on the other side of the wash. In the afternoons, we hiked the desert.
And then something extraordinary happened. The Old Mermaids came out of the desert and presented themselves to Kim. Kim, not being one to refuse the gifts of the muses, wrote down their stories and created Church of the Old Mermaids, this amazing novel that combines fantasy, drama, truth, and, well, just about anything anyone would ever want from a novel. It has life, love, humor, drama, danger, tears, and joy. It examines the issues at the border through the lens of the people who live on the border, those who protect it, those who ignore it, and those who harm it.
The Old Mermaids live in the here and now. They thrived in the Old Sea, but the Old Sea dried up and they found themselves cast on the New Desert where they had to make a new life for themselves.
They were border crossers and tough survivors. They brought their mermaid sensibilities with them and found a way to thrive in their new home just as they did in their old: with love, smarts, and integrity.
As Kim wrote the book and read me each chapter as she finished them, I knew this book was something special. The Old Mermaids embody the wisdom and strength of nature. They know how to live well in isolation and in community. They are beautiful strong beings, meant to live and thrive in any environment. I felt all people could learn and find joy in their stories and their lives.
It also took place on land very much like the land we were visiting. There were the buildings, the flora and fauna, the corrals, and the wash. The only things missing from the real life Endicott West were Myla, her circle of friends and acquaintances, and the Old Mermaids.
The book is magical realism writ large. It tells the story of everyone who has been cast onto a foreign land or a strange country or an unknown world. Most of us have been such beings; some of us have met that challenge many times.
Church of the Old Mermaids has proven to be one of Kim’s most popular novels. We launched our publishing company to send into the world books exactly like this one: true to life, yet partaking of a fantastic sensibility, not merely for escape, but as a way of illuminating a world.
Kim has written other Old Mermaids books. You can find their titles at the beginning of this book. Seek them out; they are all lushly beautiful stories full of wisdom and a love of the natural world. We have even produced a deck of cards, The Old Mermaids Wisdom Cards, as a tool for helping folks live in the here and now in the Old Mermaids Way. The Old Mermaids are for everyone because everyone knows what it is to be cast onto a world not of our making.
The Old Mermaids came to be an important part of our lives. When a problem or challenge arises in our lives, we ask each other WWTOMD: What would the Old Mermaids do? We don’t necessarily always know the answers, but thinking about the question often helps us resolve issues and problems.
And then an even more extraordinary thing happened. About a dozen years after writing the novel, we had a chance to buy Endicott West. We were grateful for the opportunity and cast all doubts aside and jumped at the chance to own this beautiful and remarkable place. We renamed it The Old Mermaids Sanctuary, life imitating art to a certain extent. And isn’t that what we want from art: the power to change the world.
For this fifteenth anniversary edition of COTOM, we have decided to add our annotations to the novel, illuminating places where the events of the novel intersect with our own lives and helping readers to understand how the many stakeholders at the U.S./Mexico border affect the lives of residents on both sides. And how they affect the Old Mermaids.
We are pleased to have Charles Vess’s amazing art for our cover. We couldn’t ask for a better face to the world.
We indicate annotated items in this ebook edition with a superscript number like this: 1. Different ebook readers will handle this superscript in different ways, but for most devices you should be able to tap on the number and have it take you to the annotation. Then there should be a button to tap to take you back to the main text. Kim’s annotations are indicated with her initials ka and mine with my initials mm. Although the annotations are a collaboration between the two of us, the novel itself is all Kim’s.
We have also included three essays by Kim about mermaid folklore. They were written when we lived in the Pacific Northwest.
Whether you are a new reader of COTOM or an old friend back for a visit, we welcome you and hope you find pleasure and strength in this very first tale of Myla and the Old Mermaids.
—Mario Milosevic
