For Namesake ; Part One

When I was 7 years old I pushed open the door to my brothers’ room to find my Ma vacuuming fervently with her back to me.

“Ma,” I said, not loud enough to pull her out of the therapeutic insistence with which she pushed and pulled that machine. “Maaaama,” I said again, not any louder but longer, and she quickly turned round to me. Her and the vacuum exhaled at the same time. “What?” She said impatiently. 

“When are you going to give me my Adult-Name?” I asked.

She was confused by my question and eager to get back to her meditation, so I added, “You know, like my Kid-name is Skylar, and one day you’ll give me my Adult-name. So, when?” 

She exhaled again, "I don't understand why you think of these things Skylar, I don't know what you're talking about."

To me, in that moment, what I was talking about was obvious and necessary. See, my mom’s name is Rhonda. At that age I could not, for the life of me, imagine a child named Rhonda. Someone who plays and runs around and has fun? That is not a Rhonda. In my 7 year old brain I’d just assumed she'd had a Kid-name that she grew out of at some point, and was consequently given an Adult-name. So I wanted to know how many years I had before someone gave me an Adult-name; when I'd have to stop playing, and running around, and having fun. I did not explain this to her in explicit terms, but I did get my question across.

She hastily informed me that this was not how names worked and that I would have this name for my whole life, even if it wasn’t the name she'd planned to give me. This was the first I was ever hearing of this, so I asked her what she meant.

“When you were born the whole family was at the hospital and they lost their shit when I told them what your name was supposed to be; said you’d hate it and always blame me, so I changed it last second to what it is now. Skylar Spree.” 

I pushed the door open a bit more and stepped into the room, though I could feel I'd already encroached on too much of her alone time. My head height only reached her hands at rest upon that holy instrument of hers.

“What was my name supposed to be?”

This is the memory of the first time I heard my intended name. I'd come into this room on this day to find out when I would be given something, and even though it was something I felt conflicted about someday receiving, my emotions around it were more decided than the ones that arose upon finding out something had been taken from me.

My Ma doesn't remember this day, but she shooed me out the room so she could continue indulging in her favorite pastime, and I walked away with my first heartache, mumbling;

That was my name. Why did you let them take my name away from me? That was my real name.

Much to my mother's dismay, what was foretold came to pass and I began to I hate the name she'd hastily given me and I did indeed blame her for it.

I s'pose I might've walked into my brothers' room that day to ask that question in part because I could already feel that the name she had given me had never really been my name, and I was looking for a way to have a new one. Maybe I was hoping that when it was time to give me an Adult-name I would have a say and could pick something that felt as intentional and awe-inducing as all three of my brothers' names. I have always been jealous of the way my brothers' unique names have given them the freedom to shape their story, rather than have the story of their name shape them. I often catch myself imagining how my life might have been drastically different if my Ma had just given me the name she initially chose for me. Sometimes this name looms over me like a well-meant ghost, and I feel as though it is as sad not to be with me, as I am not to be known by it. Life yanks me from these pitying daydreams and I remind myself that names and words aren't even real, they're just noises. Why should anyone be so affected by noise? I ask myself as I toss aside the weight of my non-name.

Yet despite myself, I've taken on a new name for every era I've ever cycled through in my life. It’s never made sense- it actually seems impossible to me, that I be known under just one name. Especially not the one she gave me.

My friends know that the bothersome and wily thing that comes out of me past my bedtime is a little havoc demon called Chartreuse. At age 24 I was a version of myself called Havnamara, and she no longer exists; she was only for age 24. I got really attached to signing everything under the name Nemo in my younger years when I was determined not to be known, though lately I've been signing my name as Atlas. Yet another detached and temporary moniker I'll need for a time. No name seems to fit just right enough to keep around, so I adopt names for me to grow into, and out of.

The names others give me are never just right either. I don't mind a nickname, there's a sweetness to them, but people often seem to pick names for me that bind me into being one specific thing for them.

A name is a mold, and it's easy to get stuck inside its shape. When I was a young girl, I turned my head in response anytime I heard "Legs". When it came from my grandmother, or my aunt, or my Ma, it was a bit of envious doting as I quickly began to tower over them. My shorts got shorter every year as I figured I should start directing people's gaze at something they'd approve of. When the same nickname came from old men I was expected to say thank you. Eventually I started hearing it from coaches as I forced my body to fulfill the expectations of every sport my life revolved around. I am not even tall, actually exactly average for an American woman, but now I only wear loose pants and long skirts and I am the only one who gets to gaze at my long legs, in the mirror before bathing.

Names are for calling something forth from you, too. Being from the south, I am used to being called sweet things like pumpkin, sugar, honey. Always lifting my head in response to things people want to eat, or lick. There are many pet names used to make a girl become petite enough to swallow whole, and I sure did grow up acting sweet and digestible. The thing about treats that only call for sugar- that you only add more and more sugar to, is that they rot the quickest. And your mouth rots along with them as all those flavors grow dull on your tongue. How can I be to blame for behaving like what was called forth from me, only to have that behavior turn in time? When I told my old boyfriend to stop calling me "Baby" he thought it was because it made me blush, but really it was because I hated that I couldn't help but act like one. He brushed off my request, saying that a name shouldn't make that much of a difference, and I suspect some part of him liked that he had some affect on me. But it wasn't until he saw me truly blushing over the way someone else "calls me by my name, over and over, all the time they say my name so much to me, like they love to say it, and don't want me to forget it," that he realized the way he was affecting me wasn't the way he wanted to be. Our love grew into something much more beautiful when I quit responding to something smaller than him.

And as well, a name can symbolize the relationships you have with those around you. When I go back to Louisiana to visit my Ma, I become "Lolly"; a name born from all the sluggish, brainfogged years I spent lollygagging in my youth. I find this needy and uninspired version of myself hard to love and hard to escape, and so does she. Though in more recent years my Ma's begun to call me "Lollybelle", which isn't calling forth any better behavior in me, but it is a fine enough indicator that something between the two of us is shifting. And when my three brothers, who came one, after the other, after the other, after me, could not say "Lolly", I became known to them as "Lala" for the duration of our childhood. It is perhaps the only name I've ever felt an attachment to and saw myself clearly in. But time did pass, and I remember the embarrassed looks on their faces when their friends started making comments about their neediness for Lala. I remember the strange awkwardness I felt in not knowing how to behave when we entered middle school and the older two started calling me by my first name. I wasn't used to hearing my name at all, and it sounded so much further away from the closeness that Lala brought between us. I fought them on the subject for a while, refusing to answer to anything other than this name that was reserved just for them. But when I turned 15 my youngest was 11, and I remember the day he announced that he would no longer be calling me Lala either, because he was no longer a baby that needed my care. It was a rite of passage for all of us to leave that name behind; for them to embark on their journey into boyhood and for me to be released from the obligations I took too much joy in carrying around under that name.

These days I answer calls from my now 20-something year old brothers and from time to time they will throw in a "Lala" when I least expect to hear it. I smile to myself as flashbacks find me; sitting on the edge of the tub with my pants rolled up and feet in the water, cradling a neck under the bath faucet as I wash shampoo from a soapy head, and little expectant eyes peek open at me as I hear yet again that someone's hungry. Pressing into their wrinkled fingers and convincing them to get out of the pool as lightning and thunder begin to turn the sky dark in hurricane summers. Draping cartoon printed towels over them as I squish them in my arms to dry off. Walking down the road to pick them up from school, biking behind them to be sure they pay attention to the road. Blue stained lips from snocones I made in the backyard. Of startled eyes that turn into happy cheeks gazing up at me from tear-drenched lashes. The softness of those little cheeks as they reluctantly accept my kisses. I can hear the name Lala being called out in every vision, and there she is, too. Names are the keepers of a well of memory.

It is not my intention to be a lady so swayed by the voice of others, but it would seem that the wind from our lungs can be just as powerful a force as the wind that runs by seaside. This faithful force has been one I have relied on to locate myself in space and time as there is no physical place in this world that I call home, and I often forget myself. I forget who I was there, and never know who I might become as I arrive here. I shapeshift and dissolve, and weeks will pass by where I am only acknowledged in passing as a nameless npc. But names are an address with age, and place, and memory. I may forget myself more and more, but call a name from me and I’ll remember.