Mesa, Makenna.
Mesa [mey-suh]:
“the American English term for tableland, an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs…”
-Wikipedia
or,
“a city in Maricopa County, in the U.S. state of Arizona.”
-also Wikipedia
or, simply ‘table’ in Spanish.
It was never meant to be a stand-alone name, the name I would go by, the name by which I would be known to the world. It was a first-to-go-with-the-middle sort of name: “Mesa Makenna,” or just “Makenna,” but never really just Mesa.
But it is still the name that comes first, is read first, is seen first on any legal documentation that was or is my own. the beginning of my identity — legally and otherwise.
Always has been and always will be.
And what I want you to see now
is an eye-rolling four year old, standing on her grandparents’ red-carpeted living room floor, giggling at the cousin whose face is blurred out, and blush-faced yelling
that’s not my name, you silly!
is a confused eight-year old with her head tilted to one side, hearing but not understanding that her first — her formal — name is unlike the others. A pit in the stomach, like remembering forgetting to have the form signed by a parent when showing up for school in the morning. like realizing your funniest, your trustworthiest friend didn’t show up either and the playground is a more menacing place without her, pit in the stomach. wondering
is that my name, momma?
is a frustrated 11-year old who wishes more than anything she could change her name to something else, erase it, make it disappear forever. who wishes on the first day of school — every single year — they wouldn’t call the first name on the roll sheet. that they would see the middle name next to it, and say that one instead, and she wouldn’t see heads turning and she wouldn't feel eyes crawling all over her that way. nothing different, no one notices. whispering
please don’t call my name out, please.
is an overly-annoyed 15 year old who turns around when the two boys sitting next to her, textbooks tucked away for the remaining hour, call out “hey, table!” and “you know that’s what mesa means in Spanish, right, table?” and “what does it feel like to have table as a first name?” breathing
that’s not my name, you world.
See that girl, how she stood. Immature and angry. Blaming others unhappily. discontented, ungrounded.
And then the girl grew.
And she grew, and she grew, and she grew.
And she saw, she felt, she broke, she believed many things, and she continued her search. Granted, it was, at first, a search for a newer name, one that didn’t embarrass her, one that didn’t stand out, a search for a replacement — at least at first. A search that she would not have been remotely able to fathom would lead her right back to where she started.
And as she grew, she watched how big the world grew around her. No bigger could she get without the sky getting bigger. Because it wasn’t the world that needed to see things more clearly — no, it was most certainly her.
And what I want you to see now
is a girl whose face lit up, maybe with unsurity, but surely curiosity, at the sound of “what a COOL name - no way! - are you serious? - that’s not your name - it IS? - can I call you that? Yeah, I’m gonna call you that.”
yes that’s actually my name, I promise!
is a girl who reflected on her parent’s tidings of “Well baby, that was a name we chose. And we thought it sounded pretty alongside your middle name, which we loved, and still do. Actually, our family friend - you know her - our friend for more years than we can count, she suggested it. We all thought it was so different, so unique, so neat. We felt it was the right name for you. We just knew,” and those reflections brought her joy. Small, so small at first, she didn’t know it was there. Joy, as it often comes.
thank you for my name.
is a girl on a journey. A girl who is proud — proud of her family, proud of her place, of her knowing, of her mind. Proud of the simple things she has done, of what she knows she can do, what she knows she will do. A girl who is teaching and learning what it means to be comfortable — with a name, with a circumstance, with a thought. With both the changing and unchanging. Or not comfortable — not comfortable with seeing needs and despair and feeling guilt and ache and complacency. A girl who messed up time and again in all fairness, on her own accord. A girl who has been forgiven. A girl who gazes up at the sky and wonders how much bigger it could ever possibly get, and if it can ever stop. Who is doubtful that it would ever want to.
is a girl who realized the name doesn’t make the person. Of course the person makes the name — of course. The life, the lessons, the longing, the living — that makes the name. A girl who realized that when her great-grandchildren ask about her, ask for the stories of old with a name so unfamiliar, the tales to be told about her would be bold and they would be great. A girl who realized she would go make the name herself, while she still had time.
there are hills, there are green valleys.
there are people with long faces, square faces,
blackish-brown hair, uneven gazes.
there are people who are looking,
and people who are found.
there are people who create, date, wonder, and people who are round.
and “some people dance” (-B. Button).
there are patches of grass gone missing,
bubblegum-pink colored cars that never can,
and windows that look down waiting to be looked through again.
And then there is a great big sky,
growing bigger with each breath,
ever-welcoming the sun to its rest at the end of
the color-fading day,
right over the top of the mesa.
that is my name, you silly.
And I love it. And it is me, and it will always be the greatest puzzle piece of me (to me). And I’m learning exactly who it is that is me, and I’m here. And I love being here.
And there, in the sky, though I never have been there before — soon, I will be.
I’m here for this moment, but not for very long. No more looking up at the sky, but looking right at it. No more asking why, but creating the answers myself.
Me, my name, and I.