Eshé Nayo

a very interesting thing happened at the grocery store today. i purchased a few items on the way to a superbowl party and instead of getting the short receipt i was expecting, it was long. very long. i quickly joked with the cashier about it’s length. as i read the receipt, i realized that it was so long because there was information related to the peanut butter recall. i love clif bars and purchase them pretty regulary. they are great for that pre or post workout boost! i am also a fry’s valued customer (you know, the little card you swipe when you buy groceries). as a result of my participation in the valued customer’s program, the grocery store had information on things i had previously purchased, so they alerted me to return items that may have been effected. woah! i wasn’t sure what was more disturbing;

1) that i might have salmonella sitting on my shelf or
2) that the grocery store tracked all of my purchases and can use the information in any way they see fit.

i like getting savings on the groceries that i buy and never gave too much thought about what the store might do with my shopping data. i do get coupons every now and then for items that i purchase, which i like…then, i started to wonder what else they might use it for. direct marketing? collaborating with my insurance company to determine whether i was a potential health risk due to the foods that i eat?! okay, a bit of conspiracy theory there, but really, where does it end? i haven’t thought this out fully just yet. but i am keeping my frequent shopper card.

when i got home, i checked my cabinets only to find that oops! i’d already eaten the clif bar containing the bad peanut butter paste. good thing i didn’t get salmonella!

there is a family of stray cats that roams my apartment complex like they own the place. i can usually find them sunning on my patio or scavenging for food. one day i saw the female cat laying out on my porch, and thought nothing of it. day two, same position…i’m thinkin she’s dead. a quick check confirmed this, and then the “not my responsiblity” game began.

first, i called my landlord, who said i should call the humane society, and they said i had to call animal control who told me (after 45 minutes on hold) that they didn’t do dead animal pick up and referred me to a third party contractor who told me that i would have to pay for the removal of said dead animal since it died on my patio instead of “community property.” i didn’t want the cat laying out there collecting germs, so i paid the animal pick up fee and notified my landlord so they could reimburse me only to find out…”not their responsiblity.” argh.

so the following day i am going out on to my patio, and the Tom cat is near the place where his lady died, he looked up at me with hate in his eyes, the kind that said “i know what you did, and you’ll pay for this.” but i didn’t do it! i didn’t kill his girlfriend, she just died on my patio :- he has not returned to my patio since, but i see him stalking around the complex and he always stops and gives me that same death look. if i turn up missing, please put out the APB: black tom cat, white paws.

have you ever uttered the sentence: “funny, he/she doesn’t look like a ?” i met a (black) man named shamus with a last name that is equally irish. it set me to thinking. our parents (presumably) carefully select a name that will reflect who we are, or who they would like us to become. i did not have a name for the first week or so of my life. my mother wanted to see what type of personality i had instead of giving me a name and hoping that it fit. i was “bright eyed and bushy tailed” to hear her tell it, and emerged into the world curious and ready for something new, so she named me Eshe, Swahili for “life.” how much of who we are is determined by the name that we carry?

i have often met people who didn’t seem to match their names. i have known certain names where the bearers share similar characteristics (i would never name a child bertha). many a person has renamed themselves upon reaching adulthood because they felt mismatched with their given name. there is a certain power in naming something. a thought, a feeling, person can seem intangible until you give it a name. on several occasions, i have struggled to find the words to convey an emotion, and once i found them, i felt more at peace. God gave man the great responsibility of naming all that he had created. are people trapped in the wrong name doomed to a life of feeling out of place? it must be terrible to wake up every day feeling…not yourself.

if you can speak things into being, and i believe that words carry weight well beyond what we are willing to admit, then by haphazardly naming a child, a parent does them a great disservice. we spend so much of our lives trying to find ourselves, that adding a name mismatch to the equation is just cruel. to all people: choose your words carefully, and to the parents: name your children wisely.

“Well then, if i’m a Namer, what does that mean? What does a Namer do?…When I was memorizing the names of the stars, part of the purpose was to help them each to be more particularly the particular star each one was supposed to be. That’s basically a Namer’s job. Maybe you’re supposed to make earthlings feel more human.”

–Meg/Cherubim, A Wind in the Door, Madeleine L’Engle

typically, i try to give people the benefit of the doubt. i am beginning to rethink that practice, especially where men are concerned. now, before you condemn me with your diatribe of “here goes another bitter woman,” permit me to explain myself. i have several married male friends with whom i hang on occasion. one of these friends constantly laughs at me for saying that married guys are “safe.” i believe in the sanctity of marriage, so my assumption is that when a married man says “let’s grab lunch” that is all he means.

i went to an art show with one of my married friends, and we stopped for a bite to eat beforehand. while we were dining, he casually tells me that he has divorced his wife, stating “i didn’t want you to feel strangely about spending time with me.” yeah, i didn’t, until he told me he’d divorced his wife! he then ended our outting by inviting me to a game of one on one basketball, needless to say, i never took him up on the invitation, i just felt strangely about the situation. fast forward to this past weekend.

i was doing my civic duty, registering voters and getting people to sign up for the early voter list. each person was supposed to walk their houses with a partner. i am minding my business when a very attractive man approaches and asks if i’m already partnered, i’m not. he asks me where i’m from and it turns out we are both new mexicans! we chat about loving to travel and the importance of community and civic engagement, and then he says “where were you when i was single?!” hold the phone. this sneaky sneaky so-and-so! there were a TON of other people there he could have partnered with, now i’m stuck with the married guy! to make matters worse, he called me “sexy shoulder girl” and at the end of our walking, he gave me his number and told me to call him if i was “going to be doing any more organizing.”

so from now on, married men are no longer in the safe category. i don’t want any angry wives chasing me down, that i can do without.