Name Game

Writing Exercise 8

~ Tell the origin of your first name.
~ Were you named for someone?
~ Is it a name of your parents' own creation?
~ If you don't know, make it up...

Be as wild as you like.

Start with:  It was a difficult decision...

-------------------------

It was a difficult decision because I had to settle on just one.  There were so many names to choose from, how does anyone pick just one?  I wondered how people do it when they are picking names for their kids.  I suppose if you have a family tradition of naming the first child after the father or some other similar rule-bound naming conventions, it takes the ambiguity out of the choice.  But how do others do it?  How does someone pick one name from hundreds and hundreds to be their child's name?  Then again, why did I care?  I wasn't picking a name for a child - I was picking a name for myself.

For as long as I can remember myself, I've always hated my given name.  Both the full and the shortened version.  I hated it with a sense of revulsion that I reserved for the sensation of wet clothes sticking to damp skin when you get caught in a downpour on a cold, windy day.  The sound of my name, even its diminutive form, set my teeth on edge.  My friends all knew of my antipathy - with them my name morphed into its male version which was at least tolerable or got abandoned in favor of a nickname. 

It wasn't until years later that I realized that I didn't have to keep the name I had.  It was mine and if I didn't like it, I could change it.  The realization was like an electrical shock from a faulty outlet - a sudden jolt and an enduring echo of the thought that just wouldn't leave.  So, what name to pick?

I started by setting some ground rules.  My name was misspelled so often and so hideously that one thing was certain - the name I pick will be one that no one will ever misspell again.  I also didn't want to worry about full v short versions, so another trait of my new name was going to be consistency.  Just one form of it and it will be clear, crisp, and unambiguous.

And last, but not least, it would be American.  Not a name that is so American as to be completely out of character for me, but American enough where people seeing it on paper will not immediately know who I am.  Was I trying to hide my origin?  Yes and no...  I never wanted to hide the fact that I was not born in the United States.  I am a foreigner and I am intensely proud of it.  I don't know if one can be proud of something they had no hand in... after all, I had nothing to do with being born where I was.  But I am proud of the fact that my heritage is one unique strand of what makes me who I am.  What I was trying to conceal was not the actual fact of being a foreigner; I was trying to conceal the specifics of where I am from.  I want people to know that I'm a foreigner - my looks and my accent are clues enough.  But what most cannot tell is where I am actually from and I like that.  The wild guesses are amusing too.

Once I settled on those criteria it was time to make a selection.  Some of the names I like (Alexandra, Katherine, Samantha) failed on the first two criteria of being spelling error free and not having variations.

Many of the others (Emily, Olivia, Cassie) failed on the third requirement - I am just not a good fit for any of those and anyone who reads this and has met me will be able to attest to that. 

Trying on names is not like trying on clothes or shoes.  You can't wear it for a bit and return it to the store or consign it to the back of the closet.  Picking a name is rather like picking a husband - sure, you can always get a divorce if it doesn't work out, but you don't want to go into a marriage thinking that.  And you don't want to pick a name with the thought that if you don't like it, you can change it later.  Yet, that's exactly what I did.  (With the name, not the husband, for those of you wondering)

I was so paralyzed by the fear of choosing the wrong name that I gave myself an implicit permission to change it if I don't like it.  And the name I picked?  Jane.  Simple, easy to spell, just one form and as generic as you get.  It's a name that served me well for years...  Until it was time for a change.

My name is no longer Jane, but that's a story for another time.  One thing I know for certain is this...  I love the name I have now and when it's time, I'll change it again.

(Not) Enjoying the silence

I notice that I am almost never surrounded by silence.  Silence is deafening and beyond frightening.  Silence is the unknown - what will fill it if you don't fill it first? 

For as long as I can remember, I've talked to myself out loud when I was alone.  Not because I had to, but because I couldn't stand the pressure of absolute silence.

As a child I had an old-style record player and a selection of records - both stories as well as songs - that I used to play over and over again.  I am sure that it drove everyone around me up the walls, but it kept me out of their hair so they put up with it.  I knew most of the records by heart, I could recite the long stories word for word along with the record or by myself, but I kept playing the records to stave off the silence.

As I got older I switched to cassette tapes, radio, and eventually CDs.  It didn't matter what the sound was, as long as there was something burbling in the background.  In college, my radio was as close to the door of my room as I could get it - as few steps as possible from the hallway into the silence before the announcer's voice filled the room.  These days, it's TV or Pandora.  The moment I come home, I flick the button on the remote.  Maybe that's why I can't write at home.  I can't concentrate with the TV on and I can't turn it off, petrified that once the silence falls, all I'll be left with is the clamor of my thoughts.  And I fight so hard to push them to the back of my mind, to not let them rise to the surface that the inanity of TV is infinitely more welcome than the loss of that particular battle.

A couple of months ago I came across a song and fell in love.  It took a few times of hearing it before I realized just how much I like it and then it was like a drug.  I spent a couple of evenings just playing the song on a loop for hours.  The song, in case you're wondering, is Mortal by Baskery and it's playing on a loop now as I'm writing this.  As loud as I can stand it, drowning out the sounds of the cafe around me.

Listening to it now brings me back to the first time I fell for the song and therein lies the problem with my obsession with certain songs and pieces of music.  As I fall in love with a particular piece of music it becomes inextricably linked with that bit of my life.  It's like eating so much ice cream at once that you make yourself sick and then can never eat that flavor of ice cream again.  It's a self-poisoning of sorts, but then I've never been good with moderation, my mother can testify to that first hand.  It's an enduring source of wonderment to me that I never took up smoking or became addicted to alcohol or drugs.

But there is something that I'm addicted to...  It's an addiction that I fight on and off multiple times each day, the more stressful the day, the harder the fight.

I look at the faint scar on my left forearm and shudder.  So faint now...

It's a fight that I've lost before and will lose again.  I hope.

Regrets of 2012

This morning I heard an advertisement on the radio for an upcoming daytime program.  The topic was "Your biggest regret of 2012".  I wasn't planning on listening to the program, but the topic stayed with me and as the day went on, I realized that the question percolated in the back of my mind.  A little chime would go off once in a while, What Do You Regret? 

Nothing.  I regret nothing.

I don't think in terms of regrets.  Left to my own devices, I tend to focus on the present and on how it affects the future.  Regrets are a waste of time, although I will agree that there's something to be said for understanding where you went wrong so as not to go down the same path again.  That's not quite the same as regret. 

By definition (yes, I did actually look it up), to regret is to feel sorry about something that happened; to wish that something hadn't happened and another thing happened instead.  Now what use is that?  To me, regret is akin to spinning in place.  It's the proverbial hue and cry over spilt milk.

"I regret the inconvenience..."  Did you cause the inconvenience?  Yes?  Then apologize straight out.  Don't use 'regret' as a cop out.  I'm sort of sorry I screwed this up for you, but I don't have the guts to come straight out and apologize for it so I'll just throw a crumb of regret your way and walk away feeling good about myself.

"I regret all the various things that are going wrong in my life..."  Did you have a hand in them going wrong?  Did you have a chance to get them right?  If you did, then don't regret it, just do it better or differently next time.  If you didn't, then what are you regretting? 

Regret is throwing up your hands and giving up control.  It's saying, I'm not going to take any action to fix or change things.  It's admitting defeat.

Perhaps that's why I don't have much use or respect for regret.

Free-associating

Why am I here?  Here being one of the many local Starbucks cafes.  I'm here to write and I can't write at home.  No, not quite true - I *can* write at home, but I lack the self-discipline to turn off the TV and focus on my writing to the exclusion of all the other distractions.  I'm here because I forced myself to get off the couch and venture out into a dark, wet and cold night with the intent of writing. 

It was a dark and stormy night - isn't that the most hackneyed opening for a story?  I don't think I've ever actually read a story that began with anything as banal as that.  Then again, if I had picked one up, I would likely have put it back down again.

Beginnings...  so many possible beginnings to a story.  Or to the next phase of one's life.  The lack of foresight, the lack of knowing which beginning will lead where, can be absolutely crippling.  It can leave one fumbling in place and never truly beginning anything for fear of starting the wrong thing.

Do you even know where a beginning of something is until you're actually engaged in it?  Whatever 'it' happens to be...  An affair.  Something that starts with an innocent glance, a friendly touch, a laugh a bit too warm, a few words a bit too risque but still under the guise of workplace humor.  Don't most affairs start in the workplace?  Stands to reason...  That's where you spend most of your time surrounded by other people, trying to be on your best behavior.  Or not.

Do you know when an affair begins?  Can you look back and find the moment?  You know the moment I am talking about.  This is that moment that stands out so clearly in your mind days or weeks or months after it began.  Some call it a moment of no return, but that's not always the case.  It's not the moment of no return, it's the moment of commitment.  It's the moment when you commit to leave the touch at an innocent flirtation or add the smile that says that you've committed.  That you are committed.

Commit a crime.  Commit to a relationship.  Commit code to the trunk.  Commit someone to a mental institution.  A single word with such a dizzying array of meanings.  It's one of the strangest intricacies of the English language and one that I am still coming to grips with.  English is not my native language, but as languages go, I couldn't have wished for a better one to adopt as my own.  The layers of meaning and nuances that one can achieve are breathtaking.  But then there are words like commitment and I just want to hit my head against the wall - is it a verb?  Is it a noun?  Is it technical?  Is it romantic?  What the hell does it mean???

Something, nothing, everything...  Language is a weapon and a tool, although that right there is redundant.  Weapons are tools.

I wasn't allowed to use tools when I was a child and I so desperately wanted to.  I wanted to be just like my dad, to do all the things he did.  I wanted so badly to be grown up and to be able to help and fix things, but I was a child and I was a girl. So, two strikes against me and no tools allowed.

Language is a tool I learned to use without quite meaning to.  I started reading around the age of four and I was so good at it.  Without bragging, I was an amazing reader.  I had a clear voice and great diction and, horrific panic attacks notwithstanding, I was constantly being volunteered to speak at public events, to read passages from memory, to recite patriotic propaganda.  I was a good little pioneer.  I was good at many things at that time and I didn't value any of them because no one around me did.  I was expected to be good and so I was.  End of story.

Being able to do things, almost without trying, was part of who I was and I came to expect it of myself.  Language as a tool...  And then I lost it all.

Loss is another one of those amoeba words - it has no shape without context.  Loss of self-esteem.  Loss of weight.  Loss of a partner.  Loss of fear.  Loss of virginity.  Say the word enough times and it sounds funny on your tongue, having lost all its meaning - no pun intended.

Some words have shape and heft - no one mistakes them for anything other than what they are.  They are unambiguous - love, hate, war, hospital, greed - they are also no fun to use.  They carry the weight of all our assumptions and they are already so imbued with meaning that using one in a sentence is like dropping a heavy stone into an aquarium.  It causes momentary ripples and then it just sits there with everyone else edging their way around it. 

I don't like obvious words.  I like words that carry within them the hint of confusion, the chance of a misunderstanding.  Chameleons that change their colors and shade everything around them.  Words like 'commit'. 

I can commit adultery.  I am committed to my work.  I should be committed.

Chameleon words for a chameleon of a person.

Blankness

Few things are more frightening than the vast blankness of an empty page.  Whether it's a page in a journal or on a screen in front of me, the feelings it inspires are the same.  There is the promise of boundless opportunity - I can fill this page, I can make it come alive!  There is the dragging languor of indecision - what do I write?  And on their heels are the twin fears of disappointment and failed expectations.

Writing is a war against the blankness. Each carefully crafted sentence is part of a plan of attack, each molded paragraph - a tiny skirmish. 

Yet, all too often all the hard won skirmishes add up to a lost battle; a page filled with beautiful words but devoid of meaning.  A full frontal assault on a vast castle only to discover, after the gates have been breached, that the castle is crumbling from the inside, the cattle and crops are dead, and the villagers left have the plague.  A Pyrrhic victory.

The truth is, this war cannot be won; it can only be advanced, battle by painful battle.  Or I could stop fighting.  I could say that I've had enough and walk away, but that's not in my nature.  I won't admit defeat and I won't let the blankness win.  Sentence by sentence, skirmish by skirmish, I will be victorious.

Even if the victory is only over myself.