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Located on the Gulf Coast of Florida, Weeki Wachee Springs is the only city of live mermaids; Weeki Wachee was founded in 1947 by former Navy frogman, Newt Perry; the original mermaids were called “Aquabelles”; Weeki Wachee is one of the finest tourist attractions in the United States, and the entire operation—an underwater mermaid aquarium and a water park called Buccaneer Bay—is built on a natural spring; the spring is deep; if you go to Weeki Wachee—and you should go to Weeki Wachee—you will see mermaids, and you will gape like a prepubescent child; Weeki Wachee is a necessary destination in what Greil Marcus called “the old, weird America”; early last year, I met a girl—a young woman; I saw the girl perform in a Donna Reed dress, and she made me smile; let me clarify: I was on a semi-date, but when this girl walked on stage, everybody else in the room ceased to exist (including the semi-date, whose name I can not recall); soon after, this girl and I met for lunch in a park; I arrived before her, and as I waited, I wondered how I would appear to a beautiful girl in a car as she drove up; she arrived, then immediately went to the public restroom; I wondered if she was nervous too; probably not, I concluded; we sat down on a bench and talked for hours; I could have listened to her for days; when she spoke, I noticed a gentle lilt that reminded me perhaps of southern gentility—or Julie Andrews; I inquired about her accent, and she confessed that she stuttered as a child; years of practicing proper speech had created a curious enunciation of words; the resulting effect is that she seems like a kindergarten teacher, and you are her student; it is comforting; this girl’s stories meandered and circled and gave birth to other stories, like the tributary system of the Amazon River; I thought to myself: “What a lovely, odd girl”; at one moment in our conversation, her gaze drifted past me; she then said, “That squirrel looks like he’s reading a newspaper”; I turned to see a squirrel standing on hind legs, holding a scrap of paper in his front paws; the squirrel did look like he was reading a newspaper; the girl said that when she sees something so unbearably cute, it makes her want to grind her teeth; I understood what she meant (later, the same teeth-grinding issue arose with hummingbirds, except when they flew close she had a strange desire to pluck them from mid-air, like flying fruit); stop it! too cute!; our conversation in the park then drifted to Weeki Wachee, which was near her childhood home; I had heard that Weeki Wachee was celebrating its 60th anniversary, and the original mermaids would be performing a reunion show; we both talked about how fun it would be to go to the show; when we left the park, I wondered when I would see this girl again; soon, I hoped; I left for North Carolina the next day to visit friends in the military who were preparing to deploy for the Middle East; a week later, while in Wilmington, I received a phone call from the girl; she said that she was serious about going to Weeki Wachee, and wanted to know if I was just as serious; I was; I spent the summer getting to know this girl; we became friends; she liked to garden, and I once took a photo of her standing proudly with a handful of weeds, the sun setting behind her; she has the unique capacity to discover—in manual labor—the opportunity for magic; it is infectious; if this girl told you that hidden in the dirt and weeds was a wooden box full of gold, you would immediately grab a shovel and dig; I imagine her gorgeous mind as a Rube Goldberg machine, as Pee-Wee’s bedroom—an elaborate workshop of springs and sprockets and wee beasties tugging on levers, revealing rainbows and ghosts; late that summer, we flew to Florida and visited Weeki Wachee; we befriended some of the mermaids, and were even able to swim in the springs; she mastered using the oxygen tubes used by the mermaids and swam to the bottom (she was a natural, an Esther Williams—and the mermaids tried to recruit her to join their ranks); she outclassed me in the water; I watched from the surface as she fed bananas to floating turtles thirty feet below; I could not figure out how to breathe from those tubes—except in short spurts—but I loved being in the water, and while the girl swam below, her oxygen bubbles bursting around me, I thought: “I could not possibly feel more alive”; it was a couple months before the girl and I kissed; a year has passed, and I have since traveled to other cities to be with the girl, but still, when I am with her I feel so alive—and like I am floating; during “The Little Mermaid” show, the mermaids of Weeki Wachee sing: “We’re not like other women/We don’t have to clean an oven/And we never will grow old/We’ve got the world by the tail!”; when you go to Weeki Wachee—and you will go to Weeki Wachee—be sure to have your photo taken with a mermaid; mermaids are camera-friendly; you will never see a mermaid without her tail, and it is a given that she will be smiling; you will want photographic evidence of your visit; people will not believe that you met such a woman; you will need proof; have you ever been to a place so otherworldly you are sure you are dreaming?; I have.