When things are quiet and messy

photo by Torsten

I know that it's been quiet around here lately. I've been rather quiet on other fronts, too. I'm not doing much writing beyond what my current paying projects require. I'm not happy about this. My mind feels dull and cluttered, much like the view from my kitchen window: a persistently overcast sky above a leaf strewn yard. Yes, things are grey and messy around here. Honestly, it's making me feel a bit bleak and hopeless. But I'm choosing to believe that this is the quiet before the creative storm.

Christmas in November

image by jetheriot

James: Is this the earliest you've ever voted?
Me: This is the earliest I've ever done anything.

A few winters ago, I became keenly aware of my status as an adult when I complained about the snow. Up until then, I'd been more concerned with the magic and beauty a snowfall brings. Suddenly, I was a grown up bemoaning the other things that snow brings: shoveling, cleaning off cars, navigating icy streets. A small piece of my innocence and childhood was gone with that moment.

Today marks another adult milestone. I was more excited this election morning than I have been on a Christmas morning in years. Although to make the analogy more accurate, I suppose this morning was like going to sit on Santa's lap to tell him what I'd like for being a good responsible citizen all year. The equivalent of opening my present will come tonight (or possibly tomorrow) when the new president is announced. I'd just better not end up with a lump of coal in my stocking and a dud in the Whitehouse.

I was so excited to vote that I got up e-a-r-l-y and was at the polls before they opened at 7:00am. My husband had to go to work early, so we went together. If you look at the time stamp on my last blog post, you'll see that I didn't get much sleep. Well, actually, that time is misleading. I started the post around 11:00pm, but didn't publish it until after 1:00am and didn't go to bed until nearly 2:00. This is a normal night for me. Getting up before first light is not a normal morning. I felt like the little boy in that Disney commercial who says, "We're too excited to sleep!"

Now there's a very long day of w-a-i-t-i-n-g ahead of me. And as soon as this vanilla latte wears off, I may need a nap.

Hello, my name is:

Fingerprints by kevindooley

Awhile back, I wrote about my failed attempt to rename myself and the lingering desire to try it again. To sum up the original story: During my freshman year of college, I tried to add a vowel to the end of my name in hopes that it would make me stand out from the sea of Jenn's in my generation. Due to a friend's honest question and my timidity, it didn't stick.

But over the past year, I've realized that the name Jenna calls to me, beyond my desire to be different . There's something about it that appeals to me. I wondered if it could feel like home, but I wasn't sure I was ready to rename myself. In June, I wrote, "Names get into our being. They're part of the story we tell to ourselves and about ourselves. I don't know if I can cast aside Jenn or Jennifer for Jenna."

Three months after writing that, I decided to take Jenna out for a test run. I've always been fascinated with the idea of going to a place where nobody knows me and creating a new persona for myself; not because I'm ashamed of who I am in my "real" life, but because so often I get bogged down in who I'm expected to be. Or more accurately, who I'm accustomed to being, which, despite my best attempts to live authentically, does not always line up with who I really am or want to be.

So in September, I traveled to the woods of New Hampshire to meet more than 100 strangers at the Squam Art Workshops. I "knew" a few of the women there through blogging, but had met none of them in person and had never spoken with any of them on the phone. The extent of our interaction had been reading and commenting on each others' blogs and sharing an occasional email. It was as good a place as any for my name experiment.

Two months earlier, I trotted out my new name a few times while at BlogHer in San Francisco, but I had a hard time being consistent with it because I'd already met several of the people there. I wasn't completely ready to commit to that extra letter.

But for five days in New England, I said, "Hi, my name is Jenna." For five days, I heard people say, "Hey, Jenna...." and then realized they were talking to me. If I'm being completely honest, I felt like I was lying about my identity. It was just one tiny extra syllable on top of "Jenn," but I may as well have introduced myself as Mathilda. My own name sounded foreign to me.

And yet, I stuck with it during the whole retreat. I resisted the urge to abandon my experiment and fall back on the familiar. So now a whole group of people know me as Jenna. I told one of my closest and oldest friends about this experiment, and she admitted that she could never think of me as a Jenna. I understand that. The verdict is still out on whether or not I can.

Then today I read something that Karen Maezen Miller wrote on her blog:

Our mind is so swiftly conditioned to an acquired understanding of names and labels. Like all forms of delusion, we attach and identify erroneously with names when they are just tools. Identifying yourself with a certain name is like mistaking the fork for the food.

It reminds me of Popeye's famously jaunty song: I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam.

I am Jennifer/Jennie/Jenn/Jenna Ann McGuiggan. Call me what you will, I'm still me. And that's all that I yam.

Even the afterlife is political these days

Ghosts for Obama, Rockport, MA

Do you know where to vote? Find out here. Early voting may be open in your state. If so, get thee to the polling place. If not, make sure you get there on Tuesday (Nov. 4).

Happy Halloween and Happy Voting!

Where I was last week