What’s in a Name? (Or, Confessions of a Girly-Girl)

Once upon a time, in a fabled flatland farm town with an enormous sky, where almost everyone knew almost everyone else as well as how many cattle their family ran, and there was hardly any crime (unless, of course, you were the type to point an accusing finger at a meat-packing plant or raise your fist at a low-flying pesticide plane) . . . there was in this town a five-year-old princess whose mother decided she really wished she’d named her daughter Kari instead of Karen. This was a very long time ago, during what came to be known to the girl as the PLE (Pre-Lesbian Era, probably better named the PKLE for Pre-Knowingly Lesbian Era). A time of schooling lay ahead for the child, the time for letters and numbers, of Show-and-Tell, and so her mother, the queen, thought to herself, I know! When she starts going to school, I’ll have everyone call her Kari.

The girl was perplexed. Can someone just do that, she thought, just change your name? She felt distinctly like a Karen. But maybe she was mistaken. She did an inward shrug, put on a bright yellow overlarge skirt that was safety-pinned at the waist, placed the West Side Story album on the record player, and resumed dancing and singing and pretending she was Natalie Wood (because who in the world was more enchanting, after all?).

She took up tap dancing, then ballet. She replaced her play kitchen and the large baby dolls (whose eyes clicked open and shut) for Barbie dolls [mock horror] and a ping-pong table. Many of her cats were killed by cars on the road that ran by their little castle, which greatly grieved the princess, who loved nothing so much as stroking the fur of a cat. She fixed her hair in five million different hairstyles. She sat for long hours patting her baby brother to sleep after he was born and looking at him gooey-eyed. She took piano lessons, then took up flute, and she tried to figure out how to write a story (without much success, I might add). In other words, she was your basic artsy girly-girl princess.

For many years, she answered to the new name as well as her old one. Then, around the time she was learning times tables and memorizing state names, her teacher asked the students to make a nametag for themselves. The girl penned a neat KAREN OR KARI onto hers.

“Which do you prefer?” asked Mr. Herberts.

“Karen,” the girl replied, then quickly looked around. Let it be said that the ground did not quake, the sky did not fall, but strangely enough, the color of the leaves on the great trees outside the large plate-glass windows brightened. Hmm, the newly reannointed Karen thought.

The queen was chagrined at this development, but alas, she let it go. The curious thing was, though, that the girl’s father, the king, and her younger princeling brother continued to use the newer name. And like the sands of the desert—blowing into gently contoured shapes with feathered ridges—the name became transformed.

“Kari?” her younger brother would say, turning his beautiful golden face toward her.  But the princess heard this: You are my soil water air how I love you let your rain fall soft upon my shoulders.

And when her father said it, she heard, My little one my darling my dear child I will always cushion your fall and no one will ever be allowed to harm you.

And so it went, until one day when the princess realized that she was not interested in a prince-suitor. In fact, there was another princess—one from the far-off Southlands—who, once the two became acquainted, became impossible to live without. Again, the leaves of the trees outside her castle brightened.

This realization caused a great disruption in Princess Karen’s kingdom.  The queen was accepting and loving but obviously distraught. The princess’s brothers handled this development with much grace. The king was supportive but also quiet. That wasn’t unusual, though. He was, by character, a quiet and thoughtful man.

However, one day, when the princess asked him if she could take some photographs from the family albums—pictures from when she was young—the king held up his hand to stop her from showing him which ones she sought. “I can’t look at them,” he said, his voice cracking.

The princess was grieved, but she knew he needed time.

The harder thing for the princess to accept was that both the king and her younger brother no longer affectionately called her by her nickname. Somehow, to them, Kari had died.

But she’s right here, the princess thought. I am still her. She is still inside me.

She didn’t say this to them, though. She didn’t know how. After all, a nickname is a nickname—something people give, not something that can be forced. Maybe, the princess thought, it’s not that important. After all, they still love me.

Sometimes, though, the memory of the lost name nagged at her. She heard its silver, disembodied voice saying, I’m lost I’m lost you’ll never find me.

That’s not true, she would reply. You’re only lost to other people.

So she inwardly recrowned herself KAREN OR KARI. When people asked her about her childhood, she’d say, “I was a princess.” She told them, “I envied my brothers their train and their Matchbox cars, but I still loved my Barbies.” And when people laughed, she’d say, “People shouldn’t be so down on Barbie. That’s about telling stories. Hell, half the time we’d just build her fantastic houses. It doesn’t have to be anti-feminist. Sheesh! Does anybody fear GI Joe or Transformers are going to make macho, insensitive males? I don’t think so.”

So this new, sassier princess felt more like herself as a result—and once again, the leaves on the trees outside her window brightened, and all was well in the kingdom. All was well.

The End.