What We Find Our Identity In

I have recently read two short stories. One by Nessa Rapoport titled The Woman Who Lost Her Names and the other Covered Bridges by Barbara Kingsolver. Both these pieces have to do with one’s identity. The first story is finding identity in a name and the latter is finding identity in a child.

Of course the first thing that pops into my head after reading Rapoport’s story is the eloquent phrase of William Shakespeare’s hand; “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” I feel as though too much importance is placed on trivial things such as names. The name is not really what matters, but the person is. In Inuit culture the children are not named until their personalities become apparent. When that takes place the parents name the child after a person the child reminds them of. So there could be a man with the name of Amy for example. The personality of the person is what is important. The main character in The Woman Who Lost Her Names is a woman named Sarah who finds great importance to several different names, many of which are her own. Sarah despises her middle name and wants to break her religious traditions and go against her husband when naming her daughter. I personally love my name; Christie Ann Cutshall. Cutshall is a nice German sounding name, difficult to mispronounce and easy enough for my kindergarten students to say. Ann, a middle name shared by the majority of the women in my family, is a seemingly plain middle name that I happen to think lovely. And then there is Christie. It is spelled differently from anyone I’ve ever met and not short for anything, which makes it rather unique. But the name is not what makes me who I am.

Covered Bridges is a story about the decision to create life to try to make one self immortal. Although I think having children hardly creates immortality. The main character, Lena, does discover this eventually and decides having children is not for her. Initially she thought having children would make her complete but through a series of trials discovers that all she really needs is her husband. This story brings up something that I really want in life; a husband and a family. Although, I want it much earlier in life than Lena is considering it. I really enjoyed this story mostly because I like the way Kingsolver writes. There were several phrases that stood out to me. For example, “Over the phone, her laughter sounded like a warm bath.” I love when someone describes something in a way that you never would have thought of, but it totally fits. I also like the line “When a bridge reaches this age, it’s important to listen to what it has to say to you as you walk through it.” Again I enjoy her descriptions like you wouldn’t expect but that fit perfectly anyway. I love how things that are old really speak to you like they have a story to tell. Not just bridges, but trees and toys and houses too. I also really enjoyed the passage about photographs. The narrator describes pictures as never truly capturing the feeling in the moment. It suspends the happy moment flat in time but it could never portray the true happiness felt at that second by the photographer gazing upon the brightly colored scene with the one he most loved as the subject. I am a photographer and I love taking pictures, but there are just some things that pictures can not capture and that will forever have to remain as only fond memories.