on your journey, i will bless you...

I got the call from my mom about an hour ago. My grandma died about two hours ago.

"We do best homage to our dead when we live our lives most fully, even in the shadow of our loss." This is a line from The Blessing of Memory, one of the prayers we read before Kaddish in our siddur. It always reminds me of this scene between Ponette and her mother at the end of Ponette:

La mère: Pourquoi t'es vivante? Pour avoir envie tout. C'est pour ça que je suis revenue. T'a peur de la vie, ma fille?
Ponette: Non.
La mère: Non, la vie, c'est pas trop forte pour ma fille. On n'aime pas des enfants negligents. Et c'est quoi, un enfant negligent?
Ponette: C'est... un enfant qui oblit de rire?
La mère: Exactement! C'est un enfant qui oblit de rire. Alors, un peut mourir, mais il faut mourir vivant! Très vivant. Et avant, tout est à toi. Il faut que tu goûtes à tout, à tous, à toutes, et après, tu peux mourir.
Ponette: Oui, il faut goûter à tout!
La mère: Et Ponette, quand tu voudras, tu saut et puis attraper un souvenir de moi. D'accord?
Ponette: D'accord.

Edited to add: Sara asked me what this meant in English, so here is a video with English subtitles. The conversation I quoted starts around 3:30, but the whole thing is worth watching. Thank you, Jacques Doillon (tangently related to the Birkins), for helping us all learn how to grieve.

On Tuesday evening, I attended my first meeting of the women's group our temple. I was a little blown away by how much work these women put into running the temple, fundraising, planning dinners and events, organizing the religious classes, sending food to members who sick or grieving, etc. They are a force to be reckoned with! I was so impressed.
 
I have to say, maybe because it was my first meeting, but I felt very out-of-place. First of all, the meeting was held at one lady's house in Swanky Subdivision Land. Honestly, it was probably one of the nicest houses I've ever been in. I kept wanting to say, "No, you don't understand! I love junk food and collect cans and shop at Goodwill!" Also, every other woman there was old enough to be my mother (or grandmother) and I had nothing to contribute when they talked about their husbands, kids, grandkids, and gardens. But they were all so sweet to me that I feel I have to go back for the next meeting. Mrs. Cohen, who sat next to me, said she was "adopting" me and appointing herself as my "meddling Jewish mother." (Haha! Cohen, just what my last name always gets misheard as!)

Still, it was hard. How can just visiting a house in the town where I've lived for so long feel more foreign going to than France?

The other downside is that the meetings seem to be held on Tuesday evenings, so I missed seeing NCIS "live." I watched this week's episode (Two-Faced - my notes are at the bottom, and they're long as heck!) online twice, and it just blew my mind. You can find excellent (better) summaries here by kew121 and here by littlesammy.

On Wednesday and Friday mornings, I had two job interviews. The interesting thing is that they were both positions I didn't apply for; the employers had seen my resume online and called me in. This has never happened before, and I'd like to think it's a good sign, but I also don't want to get my hopes up. Today I went straight to temple from work, and from there, straight to Grandma's house for a dinner of sloppy joes and cake. Yum.

I'm typing up some fanficiton in another window right now. Strange that in 2010, I wrote twelve stories in six months, while this is only my fourth story of 2011. I suppose I must have more of a life this year than I did then. Who'd have thought?

So I'm thinking about changing my name. I've wanted to do it for a long time, in the sort of half-hearted way of most people who aren't totally happy with their name. I mean, I think it's common to hear people say they hate their name or want to change it, but rare to see anyone actually follow through and do it. For years I've been saying I want to change my name, but lately I've been giving serious thought. I don't know why now.

I love my first name and identify strongly with it. I love the sound of it -- dynamic, strong, and bold; even though I might not possess those qualities in abundance, I'm glad my name does, and I can't imagine I won't always feel this way. (And I'll always be grateful to my dad for giving it to me and not letting Mom go through with Jessica or whatever name she wanted.) According to one of Sara's baby name bibles: "Tender and graceful, Rebecca has long been a literary favorite. Recently, biblical 'rediscoveries' like Hannah and Abigail have been more popular, but Rebecca remains an unquestioned classic." (Gah, listen to me talking about names! But this is what living with Sara does to you.)

I like my middle name well enough. It's my last name that's the problem. The sound of the it, and having it constantly mispronounced, and always having to spell it for people -- those things don't really bother me anymore because I've gotten used to them. My last name wouldn't be so bad by itself, but it just clashes horribly with Rebecca. Sometime in college, in one of my French classes, we were learning about how the French language is basically built around avoiding cacophonies, and I realized that my first and last names create a cacophony! (I remember thinking, "How in the hell can I go to France with a cacophony in the middle of my name? They'll laugh me out of the country!" While in France, no one ever mentioned it, but I knew it was there, and that bothered me. But not as much as the boo-hiddy haircut I had while I was there.)

As I said, I've thought pretty hard about this, and I've decided that changing my name wouldn't feel like renouncing who I was and everything I did under my previous name. Probably because, again, I've never identified that much with my last name. It also wouldn't feel like I was separating myself from my family, since the new last name -- which I've had picked out since high school -- is also a family name, my grandmother's maiden name. (Even though none of the relatives that I'm close to/see regularly have this name.) It would probably present the same problems of getting mispronounced and misspelt, but it would go much better with Rebecca and give me a last name that I like as much as my first.

But of course, it turns out that changing your name is easier said than done. The process but varies by state, but it usually involves filing a name change petition, getting it approved, possibly paying some fee, then getting a new driver's lisence and social security card (and possibly a new birth certificate, and if I ever leave the country again, a new passport) -- plus changing records with your bank and employer.

I guess the question comes down to whether I want a new name enough to go through a buttload of paperwork for it. Feedback on this would be appreciated.