Identity: Finding myself in Ann's Arbor

To what extent is identity defined by the name?
Actors and musicians take on alter-egos wrapped up like a bow by the name. Women usually take their husband's names when they marry.
Or, as Shakespeare famously put it, is a rose still a rose if called by any other name?

These are interesting questions to me when I consider that my parents got the name Ann from where I was born (Ann Arbor), and then simply tossed a coin (one side for each grandmother's name) for my first name, Virginia instead of Josetta.


Growing up, I felt that nothing about the name Ann stood out except that it blended into the crowd. So very many girls with pretty first names that their parents favored enough to actually use, had Ann as a middle name, like a mere extra syllable to help the first name flow into the last. It certainly didn't give me assistance in defining myself positively.

just an ann

To grow up ann
in rose land...
plain tan and not
planned, like lily
colored sea foam's
murkey secrets;
tree roots hide my
mirrored crying
all dried; when pain
flies and rain feeds
hunger needs of
small weeds that from
seeds seek to climb
in no time to
find crimes of self.
I'm not a rose.
I suppose, I
must close this short
prose, just an Ann.
In my parent's defense, they were young and desperate enough to have gotten themselves into "trouble" with a college pregnancy, and concocted a crazy plan that blew up in their faces.

I was born shortly after the end of spring finals, on May 20.
I grew up with the story that it had simply taken three days for my parents to decide on a name for me, and that this was why I was named on my third day. This never rang with the solidity of truth considering my name seemed to be be chosen by fate rather than their wills.

I wouldn't hear the story of what actually happened until age 38. I'd hear from my maternal grandmother shortly before her passing, though to this day neither parent has wanted to discuss it.

They had married for my mother's good name to be preserved, as that was still perceived a consideration. Then, the plan was to tell the families that the baby had been still born, and put it up for adoption; freeing them to continue with their educational plans. They did in fact tell the families that I was still born.

What they didn't plan for, was my father not to be able to go through with putting me up for adoption. The fact that I naturally carry much of his side of the family's energy was obvious right from the start. His change of heart forced them to have to call their respective families and own up to my being alive, and I now realize that naming me was probably not as looming an issue as owning up to such a lie.

I grew up to be a geek with too many life analogies which reference gardens, plants and trees, leading to my alter ego Mim and her Garden. One sunny day, it finally clicked that an arbor is a special spot within a garden.

Now, there is a hidden place deep within this Mim and her Garden. A meditation spot called Ann's Arbor, where I know that I am more a child of God than a child of my parents, a place where I found myself in my name.