“The writer/poet knows that names confer magic. Or fail to confer magic.” Joyce Carol Oates Write of…
= = = I didn’t start using the name conveyed to me by marriage until five years later. I wanted to move, I wanted to escape, I had to get out of the place my daughter died. I couldn’t be in that place where I had committed the ultimate, biggest failure of my life. Anything, anything to release me, even if that meant giving up my name so that we could get into a house, this house I still sit in twenty-six years later – the house that has become my only constant. I was Julie Jordan. Sung to, admonished, not wanted by humanity. Birth control failure – I discovered at 13. A name. I had a name. Julie Ann Jordan. Claimed kin to Julie Ann Drews. Quirky, earnest, optimistic. Loved easily and often until looks mattered and influence mattered and money mattered. I am distracted by a mourning dove and remember the hummingbird who paid a visit a moment ago. My name. Magic. It happened when I added Scott to Jordan. I took Jordan out of the hope chest at the end of my bed. I fluffed it up and proclaimed “Julie Jordan Scott” (I worked for the county then, Susan Gill helped me. She never changed her name I don’t think she has yet, either or maybe who knows.) Julie Jordan Scott. My made up magical claimed I like it name. Merges me with my children and my history. Never say Scott without Jordan please. Reclaimed with twenty-eight seconds to go. Remembering characters I’ve played. Grandma Betty, Jack’s Mom, Woman. Eunice, Mama, Present.
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Julie Jordan Scottis the founder and creator of 5For5BrainDump. She has been inspiring artistic rebirth since 1999. Archives
December 2021
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