Easter Tradition

“So, are you looking forward to spring break?” I ask Kristen, a ten year old girl who I am walking home from Monday Night Kids. We walk by ourselves, a block ahead of the rest of the group who live on her street: Kristen can’t walk with Alicia because Alicia has been caught smoking.

“No. My musha is coming to take us to Salt Lake. Its so boring there, there’s nothin’ to do der” she says with a voice imbibed with both a hard edge and a child’s speech impediment.

“Is that the reserve?”

“Ya.”

“Do you have family there?”

“Ya. Everyone der is my family. We’re goin’ der for a month to ride horses. My musha is going to get a bus and we’re only allowed to bring one friend each and der are so many people livin’ at our house she might have to rent anotder whole bus”

“So are you missing school?”

“No, that’s in the summer. We go for a month and somewhere else for a month. We’re just goin’ for a week now. Its so borin’ there. Last year my mom didn’t get us much candy for Easter by this year she’s said she’s gonna get us lots.”

“Awesome. Mini eggs are my favorite”

“Mine too. Every year my mom hides eggs all in the house and she hides a joint for the adults. And whoever finds it gets to smoke it, but they only smoke half of it and the other half they leave on my uncle’s grave. She always hides it in a green or purple or blue egg. Last year I found it and gave it to my Aunty. Then we went out to the graves. We always go to the graves. I put an egg on my Uncle’s and Aunt Holly’s grave. I haven’t even ever met half my family cause they’re dead”

“My mom’s brother died when he was fifteen.” I feel my conciliatory statement is a failure.

“I had a brother that died. He was a miscarriage”

Kristen herself was ‘baby girl’ on her birth certificate, not registered by name until her trip to Disney Land last year. Born sick and underweight, They didn’t think she’s pull through. Within her cohort she still falls short of the average size: her iridescent pink quilted coat conceals her slight four-foot frame, her facial features are sharp and thin.

“See you in a couple of weeks. I’m glad I got to walk home with you,” I say as we reach her house.

“Ya, ok.” She reaches out and I hand her the triangular prayer box with a square base and no lid that she had constructed this evening, and assigned me the task of carrying. The white glue had partially cemented the structure to my mitten. She walks through the chain-link gate, and onto the cluttered porch. After a moment she disappears through the door. I stand in the sidewalk waiting for Thea, Alicia, and Levi to catch up, as people pour out of the Mustard Seed around me, the threads of their conversation drifting past.

It is spring. That is to say, it is approaching THE BEGINNING.

This week has been full of more than its share of wonderful things.

I read a book that made me want to stay up all night to read it. The first in a long time. The best part is that reading good writing makes me dream about writing. I love the thought of having stories to write. Too bad narrative isn’t my strong suit.

The second thing I really liked was my Wednesday. It doesn’t, in my mind, seem the sort of day that I should enjoy. I was required to give a seminar in my mycology class and spent the morning at the sugar bowl putting the finishing touches on the presentation: finding previously unknown (to me) links between Amanita muscaria, Keats, Shelley, and Emily Dickinson. Then I headed over to the good ol’ biosci building to put my presentation onto the computer that was hooked up to the projector. It didn’t work at all, and thus ensued two hours of dashing about the convoluted corridors of botany and zoology trying to find a mac projector, adaptor, a computer that could read the image files that I had somehow managed not to insert as jpegs. Who knew that computers were ridiculous? This process took me through the seminar previous to mine and at the very last second there was my presentation converted into an acrobat file ready to go, unrehearsed, and barely proofread. It went surprisingly well, and apparently my audience thought fungi’s connection with fiction interesting. I think this whole ordeal was pleasant because it was exhilarating. Only I recognize how unprepared I was, and how, by some unexplainable bout of fortitude, I was still able to confidently present an argument that would never have flown over in humanities.

Wednesday and Thursday’s suppers were a treat. I was the privileged host of two very pleasant guests, with whom I prepared lovely meals. Cooking is a great deal more satisfying when you don’t do it alone, eating more pleasant when accompanied by friends. And all that with avocado… what could be better.

And the last of my long list: making a mixed cd. I used to really enjoy making mixed tapes, (which I still believe to be a better demonstration of affection and effort than cds), and until now haven’t had a computer that was capable of creating cds (or anything for that matter). Anyway, even making the cd was a very pleasant experience. It’s nice to be able to invest thought and time in something with a pleasing end. Making the cd case was an especially agreeable task. It was constructed out of a cheerios box, with a typewritten insert and red yarn to hold it together. I am very pleased with it, as, I hope, was the recipient.

The Namesake

“Hi, I’m Ruth,” she says recognizing him in that same vague way.
The Namesake.

I have made my second appearance in fiction in the last couple of months, and this time I am evidenced as more than just an echo of circumstance.

The first time I was presented in a short story read to me by David. I was (in)extricably linked with (ma)rth(a) carried as a packet of letters, along with clean socks, AK47s, malaria tablets and mine detectors, written to an overseas soldier. She, like myself, was an English major participating in the nationalistic act of maintaining morale on the front.

Today I overtook a sentence where I appeared by name. Never growing up having a last initial attached to my name to distinguish myself from my cohorts, being named after everyone’s gramma or aunt’s second name, I am taken aback when my name appears in print, typeset, reproduced. My name does not appear on my driver’s license, student identification or passport. But today I appeared, called by my pet name in Jhumpa Lahiri’s terms and words, on a train to Maine several years before my birth with slim small hands, no make-up, and a brown suede coat. I am there and now a student of English. I am there and now Ruth. I am linked with Lahiri’s words to a boy who is not: created and called by his good name. I read myself with intense interest, hoping I will pull through as an honest reflection of myself. I imagine this character’s world to be mine, but I have almost completed university. I will never be a sophomore again.

Like this novel’s lead my name has always been troublesome. I have often sought to identify myself with my biblical namesake, but though I, as a young child, reveled in possessing the name of a leading biblical character, her story was never mine. I can transmute my person to be Lahiri’s Ruth but not the scriptures’: the life of a constant widow, wife and mother has eluded me. I was given my name pet name on a whim. The lady in the bed next to my mother, who had not yet given birth to her first child, said I should be named Rose. My parents had preselected Rebeccah, Micah, and Brynn. I was settled as Catherine, carrying the burden of family heritage, the continuation of a pattern. I was called Ruth because Catherine shouldn’t be shortened. My good name is to appear in public, my pet name to be uttered and remembered. I am included inadvertently as an example of the Bengali dichotomy for naming, unknown to me until my second appearance in fiction.