At Starbucks, I’ll place my order and tell the barista in an apologizing tone, “Just D.” After all there’s a line behind me, and New Yorkers are their most impatient selves when doing routine things. Yet still, nobody has time for that back-and-forth lingual dance of me repeating my name only to inevitably have to spell it out: “D as in Dog.” But “Just D,” that’s my escape: the speediest way out of everyone else’s way. “Just.” The word connotes impartiality but also scarcity, and in those moments, another acknowledgement of how things would always be. “Just,” as in “Hardly D,” or “Not quite D.” Hi it’s me, “Barely there D.” The same goes for when I make a reservation or greet the hostess at a restaurant. “D’s fine,” is what I’ll say in a slack warble as if unencumbering her. Most times though I’ll give my friend’s name without the slightest hesitation because mechanically disallowing my name in favor of what I assume is more commonplace has over the years, become reflex. “Table for two under Fiona,” I’ll say spryly. No sweat. Sometimes I feel miserable doing that, like the pangs I pocketed as a kid any time I couldn’t reconcile my parents’ Indian heritage with my own Canadian childhood, but mostly, I rarely notice my impulse because it’s just that, chronic. After years of my pleading, my mother finally gave me her yellow gold “D” ring that was passed down to her from her mother. Daisy, Dulcie, Dolores, and now Durga. The ring’s band is thinning so I don’t wear it often but when I do, I feel the clout of family. Few things yield such command. I’m from somewhere! And these women had something to do with it! The weight of those two facts is, as I grow older, increasingly humbling. With that lineage comes the consideration that if I have a kid, I should perhaps give him or her a D name. But what? Should it be Indian? How many Indian D names do I know? These are the sorts of thoughts that slide through my mind in the morning when I’ve been in a long-term relationship, when I’ve considered, dare I say, my future. These are also the sorts of thoughts that cross my mind when I’m out at a bar and a stranger asks my name and where I’m from. And as I impatiently play with the ring on my finger, I wonder, Do I really want this kind of dim encounter for my kid? But then I feel the embossed gold lettering, the most capital D I’ve ever seen. D as in Durga, Dolores, Dulcie, and Daisy. I’m from somewhere! I’ll be reminded. And these women had so much to do with it. I am an accumulation of them and myself, and a newfound vitality born from no longer accepting that I am an accumulation of my misheard name, no longer inured to self-evasion, to ceding my totality. - Durga Chewbose | Finding Myself In The First Person
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 07:15:14 +0000
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