One More for the Road

Names are important. You'd think I wouldn't care too much given the vast number of names I have accumulated, like an adventurer in a fantasy novel. My birth name has a story that I've recounted elsewhere, but it is the name I have held the longest that I'm thinking about today. That is not the same as my birth name. My name is Amy, which means beloved. This was the name intended to be my legal name until other circumstances intervened. This name, which shows up nowhere in records or government issues IDs, is the name that most people call me. It is engraved on a tiny silver teething ring. It is name on Christmas cards and love notes. A game being played on Twitter is to introduce yourself by the meaning of your name. Hello, I am Beloved Sea Born. And I really feel that.

 I feel like I looked away and 5 years flew by.  Wasn't I just in Barcelona with my friend, Alicia? I lived in a cute house next to a forest known for mountain lions and homeless people.  The house had a dog door and a dishwasher.  The forest had pine needles and sky.  I went for walks with Lori and drinks with Sandra.  I lifted heavy weights with Gail and carried the world, they said. Was it a dream that I slipped away? Did I step through some sort of portal? I recall working in a small office in a large building in a mid-sized Hoosier city known for not much outside of the local university having a great football team.  It was humid there and the houses were tiny and quite old, which adds character, they said. When the sun shines there, the whole world is impossibly green.  When the moon glows there, tiny lights skirt above the grass and blink away.  My friend, Hope, died.  That memory is oddly sharp in the midst of this...

“When you find people who not only tolerate your quirks but celebrate them with glad cries of ‘me too!’ be sure to cherish them. Because those weirdos are your tribe.” That quote has been attributed to so many people, I have no idea of the source. Whoever this person is, I want to meet him or her.  This is true wisdom. One of the things I love about the people in my circles is that they are all so different. Artists, writers, photographers, musicians, poets, preachers, athletes and so so many more, all masquerading as stay at home moms, corporate managers, cogs in The Machine... But we know better.  "Preparing a face to meet the faces that you meet..." is the reality of today's world. But here we can be who we really are, and keep testing our limits to our identity.  I want to try to be an athlete... and there they are, cheering me on.  I want to be a writer... "You already are!" they grin at me.  When I'm whispering, "I think I can?" ...