Say my name

Say my name, not the one given to me at three days old by the people who had such high hopes and selfish desires they gave me bits of their names. Lee and Ann – their middle names combined together, a declaration of their supposedly deep love and devotion. The sum of the problem they’d been trying to solve. No, that’s not who I am.

Say my name to help me rediscover where I am from. I am not from some small, dull Midwestern town. I am from the deep past, the deep earth, the raiding Vikings and the Pict folk who knew their Mother was Nature and their Father was Time. My name could be Brigid or Freya then and be woven into the old stories that give me hope, that feel like family now.

Say my name is, before all else, Love. I am the thing I have most desired through each lifetime, a bell echoing back and back, perhaps to the Bang when my cells were breathed into life and I had no question of belonging.