My name

funny, I type "Dawn out" in the last post, and I think of something else I want to talk about

my name

When I was about, oof, 12 maybe?, around there, I had a buddy who had an older sister called Dawn. She was about 16 or 17, tall, blonde, gorgeous, mouthy, attitude, and the funny thing is, even though I went to this guy's house a few times, I only saw the girl once, but the name stuck.

For a long time before I realized what I was, I figured I would name my future daughter the name, there was something special in it, something I wanted to connect with. But, as these things go, as I started to browse on eBay for women's things as a later teen, and place orders, and chat online, I needed a female name to use, and instead of waiting for a child to bless with the name, I gave it to myself.

Around this time, I read, and re-read, a beautiful series of books by Arthur C Clarke, and Gentry Lee, known as the Rama series. The protagonist of books 2, 3 and 4 is a biracial woman called Nicole. I fell in love with this character, identified with her (without realizing what I was doing, I just thought she was cool and someone to look up to), and at one point, made the decision to give that name to my future daughter.

Well, I'm 35 now, and considering what I'm going through, I'm not going to be having kids any time soon, and really, there is a decent chance I'll never have em.

I've also come to realize, that with these names that I wanted to impose on a daughter, I also wanted to impose a character to her, a personality, I wanted her to become that powerful, rebellious, intelligent woman that I always wanted to be. And on one hand that's OK, we always want the best for our children, but on the other hand, I need to be able to let a child become who they need to become.

Finally, the third angle to what I'm getting at, is that here in Quebec, I meet a lot of people who I speak French with, and "Dawn" is simply unpronounceable for them, they always think at first that I'm giving a male name, and the confusion comes in immediately and I have to always work against that instead of them hearing a naturally female name. And at first I was all rah-rah fuck you if you can't pronounce it, but now I'm not so vehement, I feel like Dawn whether or not they call me it.

So....

I introduce myself to you all, Dawn Nicole Foran, and French people, you're going to start meeting me as Nicole, which is one of those names that work beautifully in either language.

and if one day I am blessed with a daughter (or a son, whatever, but ya know), I'll let her name come to me naturally, nothing to worry about, nothing to force upon her

taxi will be here in 10.... talk to you all soon