I hate my name. I hate its immaturity, its naiveté. It is childish and unimportant. It is careless and lackadaisical. It sounds like it belongs to a cartoon character. I’m not a cartoon character. Not usually.
I’m told it means something in another language. It doesn’t matter. I only speak one.
Carr. The r’s seem to roll on forever. A pointless, incomplete thought with no destination or definition. If you’re not paying attention, you might write too many. But who would pay attention to a name like Carr?
Children would. Young children. Young children who think they’re funny.
“You mean like the car that you drive?”
No. Not like the car that you drive. But thanks for playing.
“Do you have a car, Carr? Cuz you’re name’s Carr. Get it?”
Yes, Jack. I get it. I got it the first time you made that joke, I got it when your mom repeated it to my mom at baseball practice, I got it when you whispered it to my first crush (Chelsea or Rebecca or something, I’m terrible with names.) I even got it when you ran into me on the playground so you could say you were hit by a car[r] and I told you to upgrade your next wreck to a big, yellow school bus.
And whaddaya know? I still get it.
I always considered giving up my jalopy of a middle name for my first name, Donald. Donald. The middle letters flow between the sturdy bookends like water in a stone basin, protective and unbreakable. Born from the names of ancient Gaelic kings, it melts dignity with durability and elegance with power.
Donald was my grandfather’s name. He was a highly respected lawyer and a fantastically charming man. People tell me he could walk into whatever restaurant he wanted, wait as little as he wanted and eat whenever he wanted. A mafia boss of prosecution, a Don of the Law.
I didn’t know my grandfather. He was killed by a friend of a friend of a convicted murderer Don had put in jail a few years back and the town wept.
That’s a lot of weight to carry on seven letters.
Plus, the name Donald does belong to a cartoon character. A pantless, hotheaded cartoon character.
“You mean like the duck?”
No, I don’t, but please continue quacking like a maniac because your humor is both original and refreshing.
Perhaps Carr isn’t so bad. It is short for Carrera, (or “race” to you Latinos and Americanos forced to take Spanish by the State of California) which is much cooler than most cars. People don’t forget Carr (maybe tasteless jokes trigger our photographic memories) and anyone who mispronounces it can immediately be classified as not-worth-trying-to-hold-an-intelligent-conversation-with. It sounds exactly like it looks. Read.
Alas! What’s in a name?
Kidding. Far too cliché. Clichés are reserved for people with names like William or Barack.
But you can’t judge a book by its cover.
Names are more than just easy labels. They inevitably become a part of our selves. They leave their footsteps throughout our experiences like an unshakable yet unthreatening stalker. They change the way we gaze at the world and the way it gazes also back into us. (Maybe if Friedrich Nietzsche had been named Freddy Nielson he would have been a pastor or a children’s book author.)
To my friends, I am Carr. To bankers, DMV officers and substitute teachers, my name is Donald – an anonymity I thoroughly enjoy. When I owe thousands in credit card debt and car payments, I’ll make sure to not answer any calls for Donald. He’s out of town for the weekend, but Carr would be glad to relay him a message via text or instant message or something juvenile like that.
To my dad, I’m DC. To my sister and my mom, I am whatever pet name they think will make me blush. All my names represent the same person, slightly tailored for the situation. My names shape me. They haunt me, they precede me, they define me. My name is me.
I don’t mind my name. Sometimes I hide from it, sometimes I hide behind it and sometimes I am proud of it. But it’s always mine. Nobody has to clarify it with a last name or a spelling variation. It’s just Carr. Four letters. Quick, easy and absolute.
I like my name.
I still hope Jack gets hit by a bus.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Nothingness
Nothingness
There is a road that winds its way across the Santa Clarita valley, snaking around shopping centers, restaurants, neighborhoods, and business. “Valencia Boulevard will be extended as part of future development” reads a sign propped effortlessly against the railing that marks the road’s present end. The powers-that-be plan to extend the road over the mountains to connect it with the rest of the world, but, for now, the road simply ends. Thousands of cars approach this sign everyday and thousands of cars U-turn in disappointment, unaware of what lies just out of their reach; the dusty Eden just past the gravel.
If a boy were to plant his feet at the base of this railing and toss a small, shiny rock nonchalantly past the road, it would land on a hill. Not a towering Rocky peak or a sloping Appalachian mountain, but a small, rather unimpressive hill. A hill fit not for repelling or hiking, but for tossing small rocks over. The rock would undoubtedly clear the top of the hill and skip once or twice through the coarse underbrush, perhaps settling beneath a thin layer of sand and dirt. And the boy might wonder where that rock decided to make its final resting place. And he might cross that railing and climb that hill and explore that underbrush. And he might be led to the top of that hill, with nothing above or around him but an infinitesimal sea of oxygen and freedom.
On top of Nothingness Hill – my own name, free of bureaucracy – time is absent. The overwhelming heat provides an alarming reassurance of the awesome power of nature. A tense stillness filters the air of its impurities on an early summer afternoon. I am overcome by the feeling that the hill’s existence is only defined by the time I am in contact with it; as if it comes into being the moment my shoe first touches its soil and flickers out of reality as I return to the road. The first few minutes of this existence consist of my scratching and clawing over the rough bushes and dead undergrowth to the very tip-top of Nothingness. One quick circle of my feet tells me that I am above everything. No buildings pierce my view of the horizon, no lampposts obscure the flawless blue sky, no chain-link fence teases me with empty promises of exploration. Nothing.
The faint chirping of a car horn drags my eyes down from the brilliant blue space above my head to the unnaturally colored civilization below. Then the familiar yet regrettable smell of car fumes and asphalt creeps into my nose followed by the conscious cough that such smells evoke, and I am reminded of the alternate reality that strangles the rest of the world. Traffic lights blink in and out of agreement, directing the masses. Lines of crimson red brake-lights paint roadways with the steady glow of frustration. Everyone is headed somewhere, looking for something, convinced of their need to understand somehow.
An unnerving silence accompanies my life atop the hill, similar to the silence one experiences in the seconds following a power outage, when your televisions and your pupils submit to total darkness. You cannot help but feel wholly emancipated from all humanly concerns up there. Nothing and no one is present to judge, interpret or acknowledge your existence. It is liberation at its core.
And yet, in this moment of absolute freedom, a pervading sense of emptiness swallows my thoughts. It seems my entire life I have imagined Nothingness Hill as a nirvanic state of existence, where nothing happens and nothing is wrong. But once up here, I realize what is missing. Absence of all means absence of good. Surely we cannot live our lives hoping merely to escape them?
A whirlwind of dusts tears at my legs. I glance down instinctively – could that small, shiny rock have landed right here – right where I landed? A moment of chaos at my feet ends with the rejoining of earth and ground, drawn together by the natural forces of attraction. There is no rock. Just earth and ground.
I decide to leave the rock in the place to which it was naturally drawn, also, (best not to upset the nature of things) and begin my steady descent of Nothingness. Twenty breaths escape me, leave me standing with my feet planted at the base of the railing that marks the end of the hill and the beginning of the road. As I step over the boundary and onto Valencia Boulevard, the hill flickers back into nonexistence just as quickly as it had appeared.
Will I ever return? Will Nothingness still be there? Will I be drawn in by its liberating emptiness? I don’t know. Nor do I care.
Nothingness is still nothing without the people who mean everything.
There is a road that winds its way across the Santa Clarita valley, snaking around shopping centers, restaurants, neighborhoods, and business. “Valencia Boulevard will be extended as part of future development” reads a sign propped effortlessly against the railing that marks the road’s present end. The powers-that-be plan to extend the road over the mountains to connect it with the rest of the world, but, for now, the road simply ends. Thousands of cars approach this sign everyday and thousands of cars U-turn in disappointment, unaware of what lies just out of their reach; the dusty Eden just past the gravel.
If a boy were to plant his feet at the base of this railing and toss a small, shiny rock nonchalantly past the road, it would land on a hill. Not a towering Rocky peak or a sloping Appalachian mountain, but a small, rather unimpressive hill. A hill fit not for repelling or hiking, but for tossing small rocks over. The rock would undoubtedly clear the top of the hill and skip once or twice through the coarse underbrush, perhaps settling beneath a thin layer of sand and dirt. And the boy might wonder where that rock decided to make its final resting place. And he might cross that railing and climb that hill and explore that underbrush. And he might be led to the top of that hill, with nothing above or around him but an infinitesimal sea of oxygen and freedom.
On top of Nothingness Hill – my own name, free of bureaucracy – time is absent. The overwhelming heat provides an alarming reassurance of the awesome power of nature. A tense stillness filters the air of its impurities on an early summer afternoon. I am overcome by the feeling that the hill’s existence is only defined by the time I am in contact with it; as if it comes into being the moment my shoe first touches its soil and flickers out of reality as I return to the road. The first few minutes of this existence consist of my scratching and clawing over the rough bushes and dead undergrowth to the very tip-top of Nothingness. One quick circle of my feet tells me that I am above everything. No buildings pierce my view of the horizon, no lampposts obscure the flawless blue sky, no chain-link fence teases me with empty promises of exploration. Nothing.
The faint chirping of a car horn drags my eyes down from the brilliant blue space above my head to the unnaturally colored civilization below. Then the familiar yet regrettable smell of car fumes and asphalt creeps into my nose followed by the conscious cough that such smells evoke, and I am reminded of the alternate reality that strangles the rest of the world. Traffic lights blink in and out of agreement, directing the masses. Lines of crimson red brake-lights paint roadways with the steady glow of frustration. Everyone is headed somewhere, looking for something, convinced of their need to understand somehow.
An unnerving silence accompanies my life atop the hill, similar to the silence one experiences in the seconds following a power outage, when your televisions and your pupils submit to total darkness. You cannot help but feel wholly emancipated from all humanly concerns up there. Nothing and no one is present to judge, interpret or acknowledge your existence. It is liberation at its core.
And yet, in this moment of absolute freedom, a pervading sense of emptiness swallows my thoughts. It seems my entire life I have imagined Nothingness Hill as a nirvanic state of existence, where nothing happens and nothing is wrong. But once up here, I realize what is missing. Absence of all means absence of good. Surely we cannot live our lives hoping merely to escape them?
A whirlwind of dusts tears at my legs. I glance down instinctively – could that small, shiny rock have landed right here – right where I landed? A moment of chaos at my feet ends with the rejoining of earth and ground, drawn together by the natural forces of attraction. There is no rock. Just earth and ground.
I decide to leave the rock in the place to which it was naturally drawn, also, (best not to upset the nature of things) and begin my steady descent of Nothingness. Twenty breaths escape me, leave me standing with my feet planted at the base of the railing that marks the end of the hill and the beginning of the road. As I step over the boundary and onto Valencia Boulevard, the hill flickers back into nonexistence just as quickly as it had appeared.
Will I ever return? Will Nothingness still be there? Will I be drawn in by its liberating emptiness? I don’t know. Nor do I care.
Nothingness is still nothing without the people who mean everything.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Dragons in the Night
I was lying in the grass,
Staring at the sky.
When I saw something
That brought a tear to my eye.
Above me was a dragon;
His wings spread in flight.
His shadow floated across my face.
His scales glittered in the night.
His eyes were glowing embers
Resting on his head.
When they turned my way,
My face shone crimson-red.
His scales of many colors
Reflected rainbow light.
As he settled down beside me,
And rested from his flight.
He spoke of things long past;
Of a land so far away;
Of unicorns and elves and dwarves;
And where hidden treasures lay.
Of heroic kings and knights,
And of old Camelot.
Of stories and songs that children sing
But adults have long forgot.
He spoke of a time so long ago,
When diamonds filled the sky.
And I was filled with sorrow
Because the time had passed me by.
For a dragon holds the dreams
Of a time and age long past.
To remind us of the joys we had,
Before life goes by too fast.
I felt a tear land on my cheek,
As he flew off through night,
For the stories locked away
To never see the light.
In a world of hustle and bustle,
While running left and right.
Stop, remember, never forget
Your dragons in the night.
Staring at the sky.
When I saw something
That brought a tear to my eye.
Above me was a dragon;
His wings spread in flight.
His shadow floated across my face.
His scales glittered in the night.
His eyes were glowing embers
Resting on his head.
When they turned my way,
My face shone crimson-red.
His scales of many colors
Reflected rainbow light.
As he settled down beside me,
And rested from his flight.
He spoke of things long past;
Of a land so far away;
Of unicorns and elves and dwarves;
And where hidden treasures lay.
Of heroic kings and knights,
And of old Camelot.
Of stories and songs that children sing
But adults have long forgot.
He spoke of a time so long ago,
When diamonds filled the sky.
And I was filled with sorrow
Because the time had passed me by.
For a dragon holds the dreams
Of a time and age long past.
To remind us of the joys we had,
Before life goes by too fast.
I felt a tear land on my cheek,
As he flew off through night,
For the stories locked away
To never see the light.
In a world of hustle and bustle,
While running left and right.
Stop, remember, never forget
Your dragons in the night.
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