An old story, written in August.

Sometimes you just have to get it off your chest.  Get it out of your mind by writing it down, before you forget.  What I have to say is not earth shattering, drastic, or anything of the kind.  It’s about a face to face conversation (getting rarer and rarer) I had today, with a human being.

You may or may not have noticed, I like names, and when I see someone wearing a name tag and it seems unique to me, I ask: “Is there a story to your name?”  This was the case with Willow, a few weeks ago, and now again today.  If the story is boring to you, you can stop reading right now.  I won’t care one iota.  The point of my rapping out letters and words on the computer right now is that I must tell you about the girl at the grocery story whose name tag read “Lotus.”   You must admit that’s a very unusual name.  I never met anyone name Lotus, (Have you?) so as she rang up the items and I emptied my cart, I asked;  “Is there a story to your name?”  What do you think she said?  Of course, she said “Yes!” and proceeded to say that when she was born, she was given the name Isabella, because that’s what her father wanted her to be named.  But, her mother begged to differ, and she wanted to name her Lotus.  The girl then informed me that a lotus is a flower (which I already knew, but pretended I didn’t). Her mother knew that the lotus grows in water and pushes itself from the depths of mud below the surface, and blooms into a beautiful blossom.  (I didn’t know the part about the mud).  So the mother and father agreed that their daughter would be named Isabella Lotus, and the checkout girl said she elected to sign with Lotus, because true to the characteristic of the flower, she used to play in the mud, when small, and was always pulling herself up and out of the gooey brown stuff.  It seemed only right that she should go by Lotus. (No offense to her dad.)  I said to her “I bet you get that question a lot about your name.”  She said, “Actually, no.”  I wondered why people weren’t more curious, or maybe not everybody is as gutsy as I am to ask strangers personal questions.  By the time she was done with her story, she finished checking out all my things, and she and I worked merrily, naturally placing items  into the reusable bags I had brought in, and agreeing this thing went better in this bag than the other, that we should lighten up one bag putting the eggs and bread on top, so they wouldn’t get squished and broken.  Finally, when Lotus got to the end, and I had paid, she said she felt really good as she energetically pulled the receipt out of the machine to give to me, and asked if I needed any help carrying my groceries out.  I said “No, thank you.”  She said she has to ask everyone the same question even if they have only one thing.  Store policy!  She didn’t mind though.  I bade good bye, and she told me to have a nice day.

T.C.