I've been thinking about selkies lately.
Perhaps it's because we're so close now. After six years of building our boat, the dream that has occupied so much of our lives is slowly becoming real. Soon, the creek that has been our world for so long will open into estuaries, coastlines and, eventually, the open sea.
And if I'm honest, that feels more complicated than I expected.
If you've never come across a selkie before, they belong to the folklore of Scotland, Ireland, Orkney and Shetland. The stories tell of seals who can shed their skins and take human form upon the shore.
In many of the tales, a selkie woman comes ashore and leaves her seal skin hidden among the rocks. A man discovers it, steals it, and hides it away. Unable to return to the sea, she remains on land. She marries. She raises children. She builds a life.
Yet no matter how much time passes, she never quite forgets the waves.
She may come to love her family. She may care deeply for the life she has built. But somewhere within her remains the ache of another home.
Eventually, she finds her hidden seal skin.
And when she does, she returns to the sea.
What has always fascinated me is that the stories rarely portray this as an easy choice. The selkie isn't running from one life towards another. She is being pulled between two worlds she loves.
The sea calls to her.
But so do the people she leaves behind.
There is sadness whichever path she chooses.
Perhaps that's why these stories have survived for hundreds of years. Beneath the magic and mystery, they speak to something deeply human.
Not all of us are meant to stay in one place.
Some people seem to put down roots and feel entirely at home. I've always admired that certainty. But I've never been sure I possess it myself.
For years, while building Gwennel, I've felt the pull of the sea growing stronger. Not because I want to escape the life I have here. Quite the opposite.
I love family gatherings. Familiar faces. Favourite places. The comfort of knowing exactly where I am in the world.
Yet I also know the feeling that comes when I stand beside the water and look beyond the horizon.
A quiet voice asking, "What lies over there?"
It's the feeling that kept us building when the project seemed endless. The feeling that makes me pause over maps. The feeling that imagines distant anchorages, unfamiliar coastlines and mornings where the view from the cabin window has changed once again.
The selkie stories remind me that longing isn't always about dissatisfaction.
Sometimes we can love where we are and still feel called elsewhere.
Sometimes we can belong to the people around us while also belonging, in some strange way, to the road, the river, or the sea.
Perhaps that is the challenge of being human.
To carry more than one home within us.
To love what we leave.
To answer the call of what lies ahead.
And to trust that the people, places and memories we cherish travel with us, wherever the tide may carry us.
Lately, I find myself wondering whether the old storytellers understood this all along.
Maybe the selkie wasn't really a seal woman at all.
Maybe she was simply anyone who has ever stood on the shore, torn between staying and going, with their heart belonging a little to both.
If the selkie speaks to you too, you might find her waiting in The Swallow's Locket — our nautical collection, made for those who feel the pull of the sea.
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