Sunny
The power of a name
She leaned over the antique table, hand trembling as she wrote, Ann Smith 40.00 Forty dollars and no cents Note: for women’s writing class
The pen stopped and started over the rough surface of a table older than she was — scarred with years of use or perhaps, neglect
She imagined the small table, dusty in the back of a frowzy barn, smelling of wet hay and cow dung, a trowel carelessly flung on its 80-year surface, leaving a small dent that now stopped the progress of her quivering pen
She scrawled her name, a name that didn’t feel like hers, along the line in the lower right-hand corner of the check and thought of how information on checks is uniform, no matter the financial institution or the printer of the rectangular documents that turn paper into currency
Consistency, conformity
She wanted those things in her life, she longed for normal and ordinary and even boring, tinged with happy
Carefully folding the check, making sure the sides aligned well, she placed the paper with her resented name in a basket that smelled as she imaged the imaginary barn did and tucked it amongst other checks and some $20 bills, no one counting, an honor system for those hoped to be honorable
She looked about the room — two tables placed side by side, chairs down the lengths and across the ends — fourteen total, all the chairs but one filled with women who looked surprisingly like her — too old to be middle-aged and too young to be old but holding enough years to possess stories that must be told
Heads and eyes turned as she filled the empty chair with her reluctant body, reluctant to have left home, reluctant to have dared be here, reluctant to fill space anywhere
Smiles beamed or grimaced as chairs scratched on a wooden floor that looked as old as the small table — sounds of arranging and settling as the ordinary-sounding Ann Smith said Welcome, ladies, let’s tell our stories.
We’ll start with our names. Please introduce yourself with a story of your name.
Ordinary Ann looked at her, straight at her with a smile of encouragement and welcome
She swallowed and decided today was the day she would no longer be who she was or the story she carried — she stepped outside history, beyond narrative, leaving behind stories to be told, not repeated
Hello, my name is . . .
She said a name unknown to her until that moment when the past became a myth that she chose to tell but not live continually
A name that felt ordinary and extraordinary because it wasn’t hers until that moment when she felt like the grubby and scarred table being gently lifted and carried out of the hay dust and into the light
She opened the barn door and said,
Hello, my name is Sunny
This weekend, I attended a women’s writing class — a safe place for our stories to be told. The class began with each woman stating her name and telling a story about her name. I was shocked by how many attendees, myself included, had strong resentments and complicated stories about their names — names they want to shed like old skin.
In response to this Imagination and Observation prompt by David S.:
