a rose by any other name

So anyway...

We don't all get to choose our own names. Most of us live with the ones that our parents selected for us before we were born. Most of the time that seems to work, although I have known plenty of teenagers who wish they had been named something other than what the attendance lists call them.

My oldest child's name has been an ever-evolving phenomenon, it seems just about forever. At birth, we had chosen the name Caitlin Patricia. Caitlin, in fact, had been such a solid selection that there had been no second choice at all, and no male name had ever even been decided upon. In middle school, Caitlin dubbed herself Angel, and the name stuck enough that the administration even (to my chagrin) called it out at graduation. But that was far from the end of things.

Some time in high school Angel/Caitlin realized that she was transgender, that he was actually male. And that was when all of the fun began. Because not only was he male, but he also was multiple, meaning he had several different personalities within him--of both genders. Super. At first, my new son christened himself Nick. He also created a name for the collective group of personalities: Moss Alexander. Over time, Nick became John. Then it became Rory, which it is today. Moss Alexander morphed into North Homeward. I don't know why. It doesn't even sound like a name to me. It sounds like a street name. Still, if it's what he wants...

Most of the time, people around here just call him Bob.

As to me, well, I have been Karen all of my life, at least to myself. I do not know why. I have a cousin Karen, and we used to play together when we were young, but I don't think that is it. Who can really say? As to the middle name: I never had one until I needed one, so I gave it a lot of thought before settling on Renée because it means rebirth, it's Frenth (which I love), and I happen to like it. Full disclosure: I also happen to have a cousin named Renée. Make of that what you will.)

Here are my thoughts on my name:

There’s something solid, I think, about my first name: Karen, a simple, direct-sounding name, only five letters, grounded on both ends by firm consonants, the clipped K and the melodic N at odds with each other but working in harmony to compete the sound.  I like its simplicity, the ease with which is slides off the tongue, as I like its traditional spelling despite childhood flirtations with more cutesy versions with C’s and Y’s and a brief but passionate affair with Corinne.

My middle name, which flows directly from the ending of my first, is Renee.  Karen Renee.  Karenee.  It’s as if my middle name’s sole purpose is to remove the weight of the first, to change its innate structure, to transubstantiate it from a grounded name to something of air, a whimsical name that is only five letters long, three of which are E, a name that begins with the quietest of consonants and floats off into the nothingness of the French ée at its ending, lighter even than air, slipping into dreams.

These names are me.  I am my name.  So much of me is grounded in the firmness of normalcy, from my occupation to my children to my home.  But there remains at my center the whimsy of Renee, freely drifting wherever my life’s movements take me.

So I drift on, floating with the current, borne on whimsically into the future.

prologue

prologue

He sat alone at the side of the road as cars whisked past, stirring up the dust around him.  The evening had grown darker, heading toward the deepest part of night, the part that he disliked the most, the part when they came out.

If only he had been able to stay with his brother.  That would have been so simple.  But he had been there for less than a week when it happened.  Of course it happened.  It always happened. He had not been able to go more than a few days without the shaking and the breakdowns in years; why had he believed that he could make it this time?  And the terror on his little niece’s face when she found him shaking and drooling in the hallway, speaking those odd words he always did at those times…  He didn’t blame Joseph for asking him to leave.  He’d have done the same.

The cars kept on moving past.  He really should not have been sitting so near the highway, he knew.  He reached for his pack, shoved the water bottle back into it, and shambled to his feet.  Slowly he slipped down the embankment to the base of the hill, looking for some kind of shelter as the sound of the passing cars receded.  Above he could see stars coming out.  There was danger in stars.  When there were stars, there were others.  No one ever believed him about the others, but he knew they were there, and they were the ones who brought on the attacks.

He cut through some tall prairie grasses, hoping that he would not end up in a swamp of some kind.  The highway sounds were almost gone now, and he had no real idea where he was any more.  On a small patch of low-cut greenery in the middle of the dense grasses he stopped, opened his pack, and removed a tightly rolled up piece of fabric.  Unraveling it, he threw it over himself and lay his head on the pack, listening to the sounds of the deepening night. 

The insects now had risen to the point of a kind of shrieking, blending with the low pitched croaking of frogs somewhere in the reeds and the darker undertones of winds that moved almost silently through the prairie.  And there was something else, too, something that he almost missed.  Something very high up in the aural range, almost beyond the limit of hearing.  A hissing. 

He snapped upright and looked around, hopeless to see anything in the darkness.  They were here.  How they had found him he had no clue, but they had.  And he had no clue also where he could run or in what direction.  The hissing grew louder and more distinct, overwhelming the insects and the other sounds of nature.  Quickly, he shoved his blanket into the pack and tried to stand, but instead, as the hissing grew and something finally came and stood above him, he fell back in the green space, drooling, shaking, broken, finally knowing he truly was as alone as he had always felt.