sarah eve kelly

I’m wrapped up in my jersey housecoat and my Hudson’s Bay blanket and my pink and red cloud socks. They were all gifts, and they’re what keep me warm without central heating. I’m a lucky girl to have the friends I do.

I just finished watching The Royal Tenenbaums. It was my second time; the first time was in the theatre, however many years ago that was. It was one of those rare confections I was willing to take a chance on, based on the posters and nothing more (I’m a cautious reader, and a cautious viewer). I saw it and loved it and then forgot what it was about; that’s not unusual - one of the quotidian blessing/curse coins of being me. I watched it again tonight because I was tremendously depressed and wanted to see depression in eyeliner and sepia. I like to see depression a little more streamlined than the kind I experience.

I’m not going to get into navel-gazing, at least not the kind suggested by this opener. The flat is quiet and dark, and I’m having a Bailey’s and coffee in one of the mugs Mike bought me today (’I want you to stop drinking coffee out anything with its own spout,’ he said, with a lot more love than such an admonition usually carries), and the combination of Bailey’s and hot drinks makes me a little loopy. I could drink an entire bottle of vodka and not feel this way.

End of Aside, good God. The movie.

The movie begins and ends with the word Tenenbaum. The name, I suppose. They have a family plot at the cemetery. One sees many maiden names, but Tenenbaum is the dominant name, always.

The names co-opted by my family, in various branches, at various stages:

Jordan
Kelly
Huberman
Dale
Brewer
Clements

… and so on. There is a Jordan family plot outside Louisa, Kentucky; I’m not sure about the rest.

I went through agony when I got married. I had been practicing ‘Sarah Chalk’ in the margins of my notebooks for years, literally - I had the signature down with a flourish. I imagined signing permission slips for my children, signing a mortgage, signing landing cards, signing passports. The name had even been road-tested by that chick on Scrubs.

What I could not imagine was an office door that read ‘Sarah Chalk’. A parchment, a novel. My name is Sarah Eve Kelly; I file my accomplishments under the name I was born with.

Two weeks after Mike and I were married, we flew to England and I had my first chance to try out my new signature for real. It was novel; it was titillating; Mike squeezed my hand. We were married: the landing card said so. I wasn’t Sarah Eve Kelly anymore; now I was Sarah Chalk, Member of a Family.

In London, we got housewarming cards in the post. ‘Sarah and Michael Chalk’. That was novel too.

The first unnerving moment came when I got a bit of post addressed to me alone: ‘Sarah Chalk’. I had always thought that people took new names like donning a new coat, but the woman this card was addressed to wasn’t me. And that’s hypocrisy - that’s ridiculous. When I was growing up, my mom was Patte Kelly. To say ‘Patte Jordan’ - the name she grew up with - sounded absurd to me. So too with Mike’s mother. She’s Janet M Chalk, not Janet M Clark. I don’t think of those names as husbands’ names; I don’t find their identities diminished because at some juncture these women changed their names.

I decided to stay a Kelly anyway. I know it’s my dad’s name - I know it’s another man’s name. My beautiful brother was gifted with both names - John Jordan Kelly. But Jordan, too - just another man’s name.

But what family plot? That’s the question.

I was asked if I would consider hyphenating my name. That’s always been a no; even if Kelly-Chalk didn’t sound absolutely shiteous, it’s too messy. Besides, why hyphenate my name when Mike wouldn’t hyphenate his? That would make me feel more divided, not less.

The thing is that my mom did stop being Patte Kelly, when I was eleven. For a little while she was Patte Jordan; then she married my stepfather and became Patte Jordan Huberman. I was living with Irwin Huberman and Patte Jordan Huberman. Same arrangement as always, but suddenly I was the only Kelly in the house. I didn’t even like my name! I used to fantasize about the rococo surname I would marry into (my luck I fell for a guy named Chalk). But I became attached to Kelly: it was a part of my individuality in that house. And when I got married, I found I wasn’t willing to give it up.

It’s not a big deal, really, until we have children. They’re going to be Chalks, and they’ll wonder why I’m not, and it’ll be a good story. I talked to my mother-in-law about this, sage in all things. She said that she’d never expected that I’d consider changing my name, that she didn’t think that was done anymore, and certainly not by someone like me. She asked, kindly, how I would like my post addressed. I gave a queer answer: if it was only for me, ‘Sarah Kelly’; if it was to both of us, ‘Michael and Sarah Chalk’. The Queen of Reason gave this her blessing, for which I was surprised and grateful. It means I don’t have to think about it for a while.

I dunno, man. Maybe I’m just jealous of the name Tenenbaum. Maybe I’m jealous of the name Margot. Maybe it’s time for bed. But no matter how many women keep their names, it still flummoxes the fuckers at the bank and at the porter’s lodge. And it’s still conventional and polite for people to ask me why my name is different from my husband’s name. I don’t give an answer, but I think it’s this, at least for now: I’m an ocean away from my family. The one I grew up with, the Jordan-Kelly-Huberman-Dale diaspora. They’re far away, and I never see them. I take the the name I was born with to this damp, faraway, grey, beautiful place and carry it like a talisman so that I still feel connected to them, even though I’ve disappeared.

There’s still the matter of the headstone, though.

Bedtime.

Till next time, if God wills it, &c &c.

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