I am an Ariel, an Ariel from before the Disney onslaught. I live in the coastal barrens of Nova Scotia in a house called Farfara, where I'm an academic and cultural omnivore. My mother once told me that if I ever felt at sea in a strange place, I should just imagine that I'm the heroine of a novel and proceed from there. I may have taken this advice too much to heart, and it's seldom now that I find a place anything but strange. My grandmother, who found that advice to be nonsensical, told me that the best cure for heartache was to spend the day cracking nuts by hand. Lacking an old-fashioned nutcracker, she offered up a set of china she'd thought better of. My father raised me to be a feminist, my grandfather taught me to be a classicist. And D, my partner, wants to know why I'm compelled to talk to people I've never met on the internet.
Here's the advice I give myself most often, though: Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.