True Story:

When my late husband first took me to meet his parents it was quite the ride. It was about five and a half hours to upstate New York, where they had lived. The ride, now thinking back, never bothered me, we did it very often. There was a town on the way, that since that very first drive I was drawn to; Fishs Eddy. That’s the name of the town. (Fishs Eddy is a hamlet in Delaware County, New York, United States.) I don’t know what it was. I didn’t even know what an eddy was, it drew me in. We stopped once and I think there may have been a gas station. I don’t know what I was hoping to see.

Jump ahead to 2019 and I headed one last time up towards the late inlaw’s home. I wanted to make sure I went one last time to their crypts, to put some of my husband’s, their son’s, ashes with them. I joked to David that I wanted him to guess the town I wanted to “live in”, just by the name of it. Well, he guessed and guessed and when I saw the sign for Fishs Eddy, I shouted, “That’s the town!” He didn’t really understand why or what drew me to the town and I will probably never know.

So, the point is that an eddy (a circular movement of water, counter to a main current, causing a small whirlpool) was the first thing I thought of when I read the meaning of Maelstrom.

Memories are wonderful……