Author's Letter to the Reader:
I find myself as this seal person because of my disability. It's a coping mechanism. It's been a struggle for me to come to terms with my disability and being in a wheelchair for most of the day and I imagine myself as a selkie to cope with constant anxiety and emotional pain. It's how I feel. I feel like writing helps. It's almost an alter-ego, coming out of this, removing myself from this pain. I can't explain it.
Selkies are filled with immense love. So much love that they give up their seal form and become human and I feel like I need to remove my skin from myself to heal my trauma and become a fully-fledged human being. I feel like the selkie has been my mascot when I feel like I don't belong to the wider disability community. I feel like the selkie embodies self-acceptance - they don't care whether they are a seal or human. They just are seal-people and that seems so beautiful but also so far-fetched. You can be a seal and a human on the same day, just at different times of the day, and that I find really intriguing, the whole transformation into something other than myself.
Writing about selkies has really shaped my identity as a writer and as a person. The sense of longing and freedom is interesting. I like to play with those ideas when I am doing creative writing in general. The story of the selkie, a mythical creature, allows me to explore these ideas and feelings without needing to disclose the fact that I'm in a wheelchair. I feel this is an extremely powerful way to explore my disability.
I am still working on fully accepting my disability but this mythical creature helps.
BẠN ĐANG ĐỌC
Selkies, Gaelic Songs, and Highlander Mythology: Short Stories
Viễn tưởngHighlanders myths, and the songs by the people of Scotland and Ireland that they sing in Gaelic have inspired these short stories. I always use selkies as a way of speaking my truth. Selkies are humanoid creatures who can shapeshift between human a...
