A Sunbreak with Accompaniment
Cascadia offers many unique gifts, and one of them is the phenomenon known as the ‘sunbreak.’ For those who live elsewhere, allow me to enlighten you: a sunbreak is a period of time during daylight when it is not raining and the clouds have dissipated enough that you can see patches of sky between their voluptuous, undulating forms. Do you remember how you felt when the final bell rang on the last day of high school? That is what a sunbreak feels like.
Last Friday, during an extended sunbreak, I found myself parked on a ferry, sitting inside what must surely be one of the last Nissan models to come with a CD player. I had brought a music CD with me, Maurice André’s Music for Trumpet and Organ. Having bought the CD used, but intending to give it as a Christmas present, I wanted to listen to it to make sure there were no noticeable quality issues.
Now you might claim to dislike the church organ or be bored by Baroque music in general, but I ask you to reconsider this position, because Music for Trumpet and Organ is one of the best CDs ever recorded by any musician—classical or other. And not only was Maurice André a supremely talented trumpet player, and a gift to music in general, he happened to carry a fantastic name.
As the ferry started out, I looked out the driver’s side window, noticing the open view across the bed of a white truck parked on my left. I put the CD in the player (almost forgot how to do that), turned up the volume, rolled down the window, and listened…
To Go for Bobeo
Names are both arbitrary and consequential. A name doesn’t represent a person in their entirety, but it does reveal an outline. Names have history, they elicit emotions; a person’s name is like her coat of arms or pirate flag. You are telling the world something solid, something considerable about you when you pronounce your name out loud.
I admit to forgetting or mispronouncing other people’s names, even after I’ve met them several times. So I don’t get upset when someone I’ve been introduced to hours earlier says to me, “It was great to meet you, Amanda” or “I hope we get a chance to talk again, Andrea.” It’s possible ‘Angela’ doesn’t suit my physical being, but I don’t know. I think most of us are a little bit lazy in this regard and don’t make that much of an effort to put the right name to a new face.
I love the variations of names across cultures and popularity swings through generations. Some names come in and out of fashion and others seem to never go out of fashion. Is it possible to have a crush on a name? I don’t know, but I think I have done so. In elementary school, I declared that when I grew up, I would marry a Todd or a Paul, as those were my favorite names for boys. I got close.
Some people carry names that are consistently misheard or mis-spelled; names that are uniquely crafted or not common in the local language; given names that end up confounding everyone but the person who lives inside it and their closest kin. Sometimes, these regularly misheard names are just slightly different than a very common name, and so all the more confusing for the listener or frazzled Starbuck’s employee.
Take my beloved, for instance. His name is not common in English, but it does have both vowels and consonants in it, and isn’t that different than many Western European names to which it is related. And yet…
I’ve started a collection of the misinterpretations of his first name. Most of them from the local sandwich shop where we frequently order take-out. Honestly, some of those mis-documented names are pretty great. As in, I might want to use one or two—for a future pet, or new coyote spotted on the trail. Or a new nickname for my Beloved.
So, thank you to Kimberly’s iPad for giving me this latest offering, ‘Bobeo.’
I’m still debating how to pronounce this nickname, but am leaning strongly toward Bo-BAY-oh. BAH-bee-oh is a little too country-western for my particular buck, though there’s a lot of room for interpretation on this. Maybe this Kimberly, or her iPad, has (secretly) in their heart of hearts, always wanted to fall in love with a Bobeo, and until that day comes, crafting a beautifully stuffed Bahn Mi to go for someone whose name is a little bit similar will just have to do.
Do people say your name wrong? Mistakenly call you by a different name? Do you secretly (or not so secretly) wish you had a different name? I’d love to know.