Audrey

“Yes, here I am returning, the woman who bore herself to the bottom and back. Who wanted to swim like dolphins, leaping waves and diving. Who wanted only to belong to herself.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

“I didn't know then what I wanted, but the ache for it was palpable.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

“In an age of rust, she comes up stainless steel”
― M.R. Carey, The Girl with All the Gifts

“The mermaids came to me finally, in the pink hours of my life. They are my consolation. For them I dove with arms outstretched, my life streaming out behind me, a leap against all proprieties and expectations, but a leap that was somehow saving and necessary. How can I ever explain or account for that? I dove, and a pair of invisible arms simply appeared, unstinting arms, like the musculature of grace suddenly revealing itself. They caught me after I hit the water, bearing me not to the surface but to the bottom, and only then pulling me up.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair