Name
The world is nonbinary; take our sun for example. Nothing truly exists in twos, though humans wish for something so easy. Opposites do not exist. Labels like these fail and fall short. Names are among the first and most oppressive labels we wear. They are a tricky thing to shirk.
Choose your own; grow into it.
Line:
Drawn. Like a system of waiting. The trace of a point in motion. A mark or stroke. A line in a poem. A boundary. A course of action. Generations. Not the two sides but the in between.
The word with endless definitions.
What I tell people who ask for the origin of my name:
Lies mostly. It’s short for Linoleum. My grandmother taught geometry and loved it more than anything; my parents wanted to honor that. It’s not short for anything, it just is. My parents are strange. It’s Scandinavian. They really wanted me to be an artist or writer. It’s short for Linear. It’s like a collaboration with my parents. I picked it out of the air.
If you step slightly to the right, it looks like I lie to everyone I meet. I have been ripped apart, skin and organs searched for scar tissue that could lead to hints, first letters of names past. They tell me I am not enough.
The rejection, dropping, of what you have been forced to carry. Atlas lets the sky drop onto your toes.
Put these on a scale, compare weights: a title shackled to your ankle and the breath you hold in your chest, refusing to fully exhale.
What people mistake my name for:
Lime. Lion. Lying (“Hi, I’m Lying.” “Why are you lying to me?”) Perhaps lying as in lying down. Leen. Liné. Linah.
The taking of last names is a structured erasure of information and history for women. Every last name passed down through birth retains this aggression. However, they might be okay to keep, in small ways, if this issue is understood and other reasons prevail. Surnames denote a history, even if it’s just a fragment. Humans need heritage otherwise the world turns flat, bleak. There are more Kuzniars in Chicago than Poland; it means blacksmith in Polish. My father told me he was the last in the Kuzniar line. He only had sisters and daughters- symptoms of a dying name. This is enough to keep me from dropping it completely. I can be an end. Add it to the dictionary.
My mother’s first last name was Sheffler. Her mother’s was Sabol. Her mother’s was Kanakowski. My father’s mother’s was Kaminski. But even these names are the preservation of the father.
I cannot change my last name. I’ve tried on other surnames rolling them off my tongue like a giddy teenager gauging the compatibility of a crush. They all flop or break in my mouth. I wonder if lines can run anything but parallel.
To take someone’s name is a unification under language and law. But it is a loss of self. If two people became one, half of their matter would implode. This is how black holes are made.
If taking a name meant stealing I would decorate my walls with them. Collect. Perhaps I’d start a museum of my names. Curate. But then my people would run around nameless and unable to call out to them, I would be alone with my repurposed titles.
To be clear, I do not believe your name can be stolen or cheapened by another. Though, extraordinary people with plain names seem a waste to me.
Common names are boring.
Given names own you.
Tell me how you would be different if you were named Rocket, Sandra, or Skewer. Or Lilac, Ophelia, or Trenkus. Or Pal, Lucy, Riot, Tim, Tucker, Choir, Quiet, Oh.
Look me in the eyes and tell me that your very essence, most basic self, is a Steve. Perhaps this is true for some Steves, but surely not all of them. Probably, some not-Steves should be Steve. The success rate of parents giving names, however, is quite low.
A few techniques for renaming.
Put yourself on the stove over low heat and let it simmer. Boil yourself down. This condensing will
leave
you with a reduction that spells out your name.
Ask a young child, a toddler, to say your whole name. Then pick out the tiny parts that get sticky and
assemble a name out of them.
Babble without thinking, record it, and pick through the jumble or dissect your name and pick the
stranger
half to keep.
A list of names I suggest:
Gruelling task, floridian gesture, unplanned pregnancy, gregorian chant, gross exaggeration, meandering yonder, the larchmont, falter top, randolph hearse, bitch, and the person that grew the biggest lettuce.
Or whatever spills out of your mouth first.
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