Stories from Soraya

Like most others, I scream, cry, or shout expletives when I am in pain. At least, I do so when I am in reasonable amounts of pain--burning a finger, stubbing a toe, experiencing mild-to-moderate period cramps. But, perhaps unlike most others, when I am in the most pain, when I am hurting and aching beyond my own comprehension, my cries become wails become music, and I don't scream, but instead I sing. I don't necessarily consider myself a siren, but have long felt siren-singing to be at least a related component of being a mermaid for me. Maybe this was just falling victim to the propaganda: H2O, The Little Mermaid (not that I ever fully related to Ariel despite our shared longing to transcend the boundaries of assigned species). Mermaids are supposed to have beautiful voices, right? But maybe there's another side to this.

I've considered setting up and being part of a panel on BIPOC alterhumanity for a while now, especially because my alterhumanity is so intertwined with my own phenotypical Blackness and Afro Indigenous Caribbean heritage. Things I expected to be a part of this panel would be: my non-physical appearance being influenced by my physical appearance, my nymph and mermaid existences being intimately connected to my ancestral homeland of Boriken, the African American ancestral veneration of the ocean as the resting place of those that leapt from ships rather than be enslaved or otherwise did not survive the transatlantic journey (in some tellings, they are thought to have become merfolk). What I did not expect to be on that panel: song--a pervasive urge to sing.

The movie Sinners captured this feeling as well: the soul-deep ache that echoes through the ages via the power of song. It's not a conscious choice, it just happens. I only recently realized the possibility that this is an ancestral coping mechanism, passed down through ages of Negro spirituals and seeded in my spirit for whenever such a situation might arise--medical procedures, severe period cramps, grief. If it feels like getting shot or dying, there's a good chance that you'll hear me sing instead of scream. I may sing my expletives, or call out upon a god that I don't believe in, but I'll do so in as much of a deep, rich alto timber as I can muster, as if that somehow helps to release the pain, helps it hurt a little less, helps the healing along. And maybe it does. Maybe singing my pain allows my ancestors to help shoulder some of my burden, and allows me to take some of theirs at the same time. Maybe I sing my pain because they did. So now, I'm wondering, considering...Is my siren-singing simply because I am a mermaid, and that is what mermaids do? Or do I sing because I am a Black mermaid and my ancestors move through my voice just as they move through my fins and through the water when I swim?