honoring (essay's brewing, maybe?)

my name has been a life-long dispute with myself. it wasn't always a life-long dispute, i should say. there was a time when i absolutely was in love with my full name, all four names, and would introduce myself as such. i was four. in preschool (and i still have the vhs to prove it!) my daycare went on this morning news show called the Mr. Knozit show where we would introduce ourselves and say what we wanted to be when we grew up. when it got to me, and Joe Pinner asked my name, i said, in one breath, all four names (if you ask me independently, i'll tell you all four). The man didn't understand, and asked "what?" and so the whole class exclaimed "delana!" and still, defiant, determined that this man would recognize my full name, i said it again, in one breath, the four names, the 9 syllables that constitute my name.

fast forward to learning to write. my mother told me that i was named after a white girl she used to teach. her first name De'Lana. (she pronounced it day-lay-na). when you enter into the public school (probably especially in the south, probably especially if you're black) fights with pronunciations of your name with lazy teachers abound. too, reading a name typed in all caps from an electronic roster doesn't help either. for the longest time i wrote my name simply: Delana. and pronounced it (da-lay-na). Something in me a couple of years down the line made me grow to hate it. I don't know why. but I wanted to go by my first middle name. I hated that my first and last name started with the same letter (this is before i learned the aesthetic qualities of alliteration). i had ignored for so long that everyone mis-pronounced my name, and my parents even, stuck to the second alteration of my name.

in daycare, too, i hated my name. in fact, i insisted my friends call me by a different name. it stuck, sometimes. other times people thought i was silly. it didn't help either that my daycare teacher was my mother's friend and had told that i was insisting upon another name. my urge to change my name was short-lived, but sometimes i still wonder if a rose by any other name...

I don't believe it was until middle school when I enrolled in french class that I learned my name - I showed my teacher the correct spelling and accentuation - had a french pronunciation and would be honored as such in the class. It was then I decided to take back my accent agiu, and my capital L in the middle of my name. But outside of the class, I didn't take back my accent agiu in pronunciation. At least, i decided, i was honoring it in how i wrote it.

Too, the public educational system leaves no room for the student who defies the norm, or has two middle names. my two middle names are the names of my grandmothers. when filling out papers, you only have room to put one initial, so invariably, the second grandmother - my father's mother - was always left out. i didn't think about it. that the school system was forcing me to alter my name, until my high school graduation when they called out your full name and you had to fill in three blanks for your full name, and i, too, left out the second middle name...because i thought they didn't have space for it. so my father, after my graduation, asked why i decided to shorten my name. it was more a question of, why aren't i honoring his mother.

still, i conformed to writing only three initials. my first, first-middle, and last. for years after that. thinking: who has two middle names, except my sister? and she doesn't write out all of her initials. so why should i? then i thought, i would be fancy and sign my name in script with an initial - grown folks do that, they write their initials. and still, i couldn't bring myself to write down that second-middle name or initial.

too, the fight with my name stems from this realization: i am the last of my father's line. for some reason, when i was in middle school, i was thinking of this truth -- that my father had two girls, and none of his siblings had any children, and the name would die out with me. i vowed then to never change my name. i vowed to have a son and give him my last name. this, of course, was done without any consent of any man. or any consideration. it was what i could think to do to ensure that my father's name lived on beyond me.

i guess you could say i was relieved when i entered into the poetry world, and was accepted, full name (well, first and last) and was told that my name sounded so poetic, that i should introduce myself always by my first and last name, that it has such a ring to it. and when i started publishing, and realized that, too, i am writing this name into eternity, it gave me great pleasure, and also great sadness. people were not honoring my spelling and distinct capitalization. they were changing my name again, they are changing my name again. but my conviction was in the truth that i still hadn't written into my own name my father's mother, the woman who saved me over and over, and keeps me still, in her spirit.

all of that is to say, this year is an especially trans formative one. i believe in its powers and strengths and what it will deliver to all of us. i am starting a new life outside of the academy. i am entering new territories in the writing world. i am beginning new legacies, and it is now that I need to begin to stand up and honor all of the roots that are supporting this tree, these branches, these leaves, this fruit.
i had to go fill out the important paper work for these new jobs i'm working in NYC. i sat down, and decided, yes, i'll write it. both initials. all four names. i'll sign it too. i'm finally around to honoring all of myself. and this, you'll know, is a big step.