Summary

In "Lobsterman," Mary reflects on silly things that she did that got her in trouble in school when she was young. Namely, she remembers when her teacher had students write a story with the sentence "The lobsterman looked out over the water" (40). She wrote a very imaginative story about a half-man half-lobster character, only to realize that lobsterman was referring to a person who catches lobsters. She asks herself why she did not know that this was what the story meant, and reasons that in school "we're limited by the bounds of what we understand to be right" (43).

Sometimes Mary is asked to come and speak to a school. In "Mermaids and Destiny," she tells students that "life will surprise you," and asks them to consider, "who were you when you weren't wondering who you were?" (46). To answer this, Mary turns the...