You know how most people can go to the keychain rack at the gift shop and easily find their name etched in plastic glory? I can't. This was troubling for me as a child to be excluded from personalized trinkets. How I longed to find my name printed on pencils, hair combs, collector spoons, anything. I'd run to the kiosk and scan the H's...Hannah and then the dreaded jump to Heather. Where was I? Why was I left out of personalized plastic heaven? Who am I if I cannot claim a personalized magnet of my own? Luckily I have a mother who was sympathetic to my gift shop induced identity crisis. She was always great about custom ordering me stationary and stickers with my name enblazened across them for special occasions. So when I saw this movie poster at the theater today, you can understand my euphoria. Daniel shrieked, "Hattie!" (I don't suppose he'd be too pleased with me describing his raised voice as a shriek, but that's simply what it was.) I replied with the customary, "What?" And he had to point at the poster in order for me to understand why he kept repeating my name.
It's nice to meet you Hattie from San Francisco. Congrats on the new movie. Your career is really taking off. Good for you.
I've had a few times when someone has told me their aunt or grandmother shares my name, particularly while working at Young Life camp in Georgia seeing as how Hattie seems to be a southern name. I was in college before actually meeting someone in person who shares my name. Prior to this I had an ominous experience at the civil war cemetery downtown during a second grade field trip. It turns out Hattie was also a popular name amongst slaves. My class joined me in counting the number of headstones bearing my identity. Something about being 8, in a cemetery, seeing your name written across multiple tombs can be a little on the terrifying side. I had made it a goal to meet another Hattie in person in my lifetime. While attending Mizzou there was a visit to Target in which I was reading birthday cards in the Hallmark aisle and heard someone call my name. As I turned to respond, a tall, olive skinned, brunette came around the corner to answer her friend. I almost approached her to exchange an awkward and fumbling "Hey uh Hattie, that's my name too, Hattie that is, um cool, so I wanted to meet you seeing as how we have the same name and...stuff. Okay, bye." I held my tongue and watched her walk out of my life forever. My missed opportunity was redeemed when my friend Amy told me that one of her YL girls was a Hattie too. She arranged a much less awkward meeting, a more run-into-you-casually meeting, where we exchanged stories of mispronunciations and misspellings and other woes of an unusual name. It was delightful and cathartic. I believe my inner 8 year old was also relieved to see a Hattie in the flesh, alive and kicking, caucasian, and not bearing the burden of cruelty and enslavement. What a relief.
No comments:
Post a Comment