Because It Is My Name

There was never any question I would keep my name if I married.  I grew up in the 70’s, an ardent feminist from girlhood, clutching Ms. Magazine and affronted at the very idea of “taking” someone else’s name. The person I loved would never expect me to relinquish a crucial aspect of my identity. And he didn’t, of course.

It’s not that I love Klotz as a mellifluous name.  As a child, I tired of the inevitable “blood clots” teasing and having people call me “Klutz,” but this is part of childhood, part of people looking for our vulnerabilities and torturing us.  But even in the midst of middle school shenanigans, I understood that I’m a John Proctor kind of girl--at the very end of The Crucible, he cannot, even to save his own life, sign his name to a lie. He exclaims:

“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!”

Proctor’s passionate declaration of integrity, his heroism in choosing what is right over what is easy is bound up in his identity.  He dies, of course, but he dies because he will not pretend or live a lie.  His name represents his self.

My father was the only son of an only son.  Our brother was my father’s only son.  Some months after my brother died in 1975, I found my father weeping.  It was a strange moment.  I didn’t want to comfort my dad; I was too too numb with grief myself, but in the conversation, my dad shared how sad he was that his name, his line, would die with him.  I said,  “You have me, Daddy.  I’m a Klotz, too, and I always will be.” 

He smiled, but I knew, even at fifteen, what I offered was insufficient; I was a girl; the name would not continue. 

And it didn’t.  Once married, my husband, Seth, and I flirted briefly with hyphenation, we feared combining Klotz, my surname, with my husband’s surname, Orbach, would result in our children having a name that sounded like Clorox. 

Though I remain committed to my own name, both personally and professionally, when we had children, I wanted them to have my husband’s last name.  I can trace my lineage on both sides back many generations.  In Seth’s family, pogroms and the Holocaust annihilated too many relatives. It seemed right to me that our kids carry his name forward—so many bearing his name, his mother’s family name, had been lost.

Here are the times I’ve regretted or questioned my choice.  In the hospital, when our first daughter was born, the nurse would not allow Seth to bring her to me because her wristband said Baby Klotz, not Baby Orbach.  We had to wait for a patient nurse to retrieve her as I woke, groggy, from anesthesia.  Even half out of it, I was angry—I understood the need for safety and security, but we had filled out millions of forms—couldn’t someone have figured out that Seth really was her father?  I felt indignant that my wristband was an obstacle right at the start of our parenting adventures. 

When we fly as a family, still in 2017, there are snarls because I have a different name. Even recently, I was questioned at the United counter—of course it was United.  The clerk was not so sure I could check in my son since our names were different.  I was wild—tense anyway about missing the flight and furious that my motherhood was insufficient to vouch for my twelve year old son, who does not need his own ID to fly with me.  To my son’s horror, I lost it, offering a feminist diatribe to the clerk who claimed only to be doing his job.  “And that is what I am doing, too,” I fumed, “doing my job, raising my son, keeping my own name, educating you that I have every right to take this child with me wherever I want to go…I want to see your supervisor right now!”  The thing, as we say, may not have been the thing.  In fact, I was spoiling for a fight. I was anxious about not missing the plane and I’ve waited too long for the world to get in line.  Fortunately, the supervisor, alerted by my raised voice, smiled calmly and informed the clerk, “The lady’s right—their names don’t need to match.  Have a nice flight, ma’am.”

As we walked towards the TSA line, I knew I had embarrassed my son; I had made a scene—and it was uncalled for, too dramatic. What exactly unhinged me?  Having my rights as a mother questioned?  Or having to defend my choice, once again, to keep my own name? Or the forces of the patriarchy?  Or a tense afternoon at work followed by air travel?  I did not behave well with the clerk, and I felt ashamed that I wasn’t patient, courteous, calm.  Later, Atticus, my boy, told his father, “Mom was crazy at the United counter, Dad. She really doesn't like when people mess with her about her name being different from ours.”  Busted.  It’s not just my own name; it’s that my name is different from the name that the rest of them carry.  Sometimes, a small angry part of me feels they are wearing matching t-shirts and mine is different.  The Sesame Street lyric:  “One of these things is not like the other.”  No, she isn’t and she doesn’t want to be—most of the time.

Long ago in an English classroom in a girls’ school in NYC, one of my tenth graders asked my why my husband and I had different names.

“Why should we?” I asked, buying time.

“Well, he must not love you very much if he didn’t make you change your name.  My mother has been married three times, and each of her husbands made her change her name.”

“Well—I—um…you know,” I faltered, aware of sixteen sets of eyes fixed on me.  “What’s great is that we can make choices.  I chose to keep my name and my husband never would have considered asking me to change it.  That’s how we love each other.  But some people want to have the whole family have the same name, so the mom—most often it’s the mom, but not always—changes her name.  Some women don’t want to carry their fathers’ names, so they choose a new name all together—like Judy Chicago.  She’s an amazing artist.  Some women prefer the sound of their husbands’ names, so they are happy to change their name—there are lots of possibilities, so be careful not to make assumptions.”

Sermon concluded, we went back to class.  I suspect most of the girls have forgotten my rant, my fierce desire to inspire in them the courage to do what they wanted to do.

I rail at being called Mrs. Orbach.  Our culture insists that women of a certain age accompanied by children be called Mrs. I have never been a Mrs., but once we had children with Orbach as their surname, people assumed I must be Mrs. Orbach. Correcting people sounds pedantic, even righteous, and wearies me. Sometimes, I go with the flow in order not to embarrass my own children and the person choosing convention over my preference, but when I am silent, I feel like an imposter, as if I am passing as something I reject.  I do not want to be Mrs. Orbach.  I want to be who I am with the title I have chosen: Ms. Klotz.

Last week, a former student of mine, newly married and thinking about babies, reached out to me on Facebook: 

Hey AVK, I'm having some serious internal battles with changing my name. My mom never did and she regretted not naming us with her last name. My husband doesn't mind if I change my name- he knows I'm struggling. The newest conversation is around when we have babies, whose name will they take? Mine or his-- assuming I don't change mine?

And suddenly, it all swam up again—that moment in the classroom with the tenth grade girl, the encounter with the airline clerk, my dad crying about his son, my identity as a feminist, my frustration that we have not come very far as a culture. 

Long ago, my mother explained that the polite thing to do is to ask someone what he or she wants to be called.  If an older person says, “Please call me by my first name,” you do it, even if it makes you uncomfortable.  If someone is a doctor, you use his or her title—hard work went into acquiring that degree. A person, in my mother’s worldview, gets to choose his or her article, his or her last name, and you, out of respect and courtesy, ask and then uphold that person’s choice.  When we follow Mom’s protocol, dignity, power and choice remain with person being named.  When we assume, we can make mistakes.

I wrote back to my student and said I needed a little time to think about her questions.  I have no wisdom, but I understand more about my dad’s sorrow.  It is lonesome to be the only one, infuriating not to have people respect my choice.   Culture shifts much more slowly than we hope.

Names matter.  “Call me Ishmael.”  Call me Ms. Klotz.  Call me Ann.  Let me decide. 

No Tornado Today

On Thursday, we have a tornado drill.  This is the one where the girls must crouch on their knees, arms overhead, in a space that does not have windows.  It’s generally one of the fastest drills we do, much less scary that the Lockdown drills which we practice fervently, hoping that familiarity would help us all if a shooter came into our school.

When the drill concludes, I find the Kindergarten heading back to class from the restroom where they sheltered.  One child’s eyes brim with tears.  Her teacher explains, “Octavia thought it was a real drill; she wanted her daddy.”

I nod, sympathetically.  “You go with the other girls,” I offer to the teacher. “Octavia and I will sit here for a minute.”

Octavia takes my hand.  Trusting, her lip trembling, tears spilling.  Maybe my sympathy has made it worse.

“Tell me,” I say gently. We sit.  I breathe, waiting, looking at her golden hair, remembering my three dark haired children—our Kindergarten daughter, on 9/11, clutching a young friend of ours like a limpet when we arrived home on that horrific day.  Fear is real. 

“I thought there was a tornado,” she begins, “and once I saw one on TV—“ She gasps a little, tears spilling.  “And it was really scary and I wanted my daddy to come and get me because I was scared, but it’s not real?”  She scrutinizes the sky behind us suspiciously.  It is grey, but without any twister. 

“It wasn’t real,” I say.  “It was practice.”

“So we would know just what to do?”

“Exactly.  So we would know just what to do.  Like fire drills.  Do you remember fire drills.”

She nods.  Her nose begins to run.

“When we have fire drills, we practice what we would do if there was a fire here at school.”  I slip my handkerchief from the wristband of my watch and wipe her tears and then her nose.  She is brave and she is tiny.

“It wasn’t real?” she quavers again.

“No, it wasn’t real.  But I understand why it was scary.  It’s a loud noise over the loud speaker and you didn’t know it was coming, and it is sort of silly that you have to sit in a little ball with your arms over your head.”

She smiles tremulously, but it’s a smile, so I keep talking.

“We all want you to be safe at school, Octavia.  Your teachers want that and your daddy and I want that.” 

“And that’s why we practice?”

“Yes.  Ready to go back to class?”

“I needed my daddy.”

“I know you did, but Daddy will be glad that you are safe.”

Taking my hand, she walked across the hall into her classroom and rejoined her class.  I whisper to her teacher, check to be sure she is okay, soothed by the comforting routines of her class and slip away. 

I tucked my soggy hankie back into my watchband and walked down the corridor towards my office.

I wish we did not have to have so many drills, so many reasons that make five year olds feel afraid, that make Headmistresses feel afraid, too.  When I became a teacher, I did not understand what it meant to hold a child’s fears.  When I became a Headmistress, I had no idea that part of the job would be holding fear for the whole community and finding a path forward despite our collective apprehension.

Thank you, Octavia, for our moments together on the radiator, for reminding me what it is to be a teacher—to take the time to listen, to comfort a child, to wipe her tears, to be fully present—a few authentic loving moments in a day filled with other kinds of obligations.  Your little face swims before me:  earnest, emotions flickering across your eyes, full of trust.  I wish I could take away your fear. 

Early Days

Today, I visit my daughter’s third grade class.  We leave the Upper West Side in a dark, damp dawn, fueled by iced coffee, happy (finally) to find a cab and we head across town, and in through the polished wooden doors of 100 East End.

 It is only the second full week of school, but the little girls clearly know what’s expected, how to come into the room, greet Ms. Orbach, deposit their “communication” folders in the blue basket in the center of the rug and read the morning message.  They are switching seats today, so each girl moves her own chair to a new table.  One child asks if, her tasks accomplished, she could read. Miranda gives permission, and the child she bends, bangs over her eyes, close to The Lightning Thief.

 I am not in charge.  In fact, I am largely invisible, which offers its own kind of pleasure.  Miranda’s head teacher, Malini, is in charge, her affection for her girls and her high standards evident.  I sit quietly at Miranda’s desk and enjoy watching my own daughter with twenty little girls, who have already found their way to her heart.  All weekend, she shared her observations about each child, her impressions and hopes for each girl, connections she had made, worries, stories.  She has fallen hard for this teaching business.  In morning meeting, I am introduced, the girls’ eyes wide that Ms. Orbach has a mother. It occurs to me that her third grade and my third graders at Laurel could be penpals.  “Have any of you ever been to Ohio?” I ask. Heads shake no.  We have a tiny geography lesson about the Midwest.  Then, Malini explains the upcoming fire drill, and I realize I should scoot out before that event, so as not to be late for a meeting down town.  I leave reluctantly, trying to remember names and faces, so when Miranda calls to talk about her girls, I can bring each child to mind.

It is time-warp-ish to me to have her teaching where I taught for two decades.  I went to The Chapin School when I was twenty-three one hundred years ago.  I arrived on a rainy spring afternoon, mud splattering my white stockings—it was the 80’s—we wore white tights and lots of Laura Ashley dresses.  Chapin gave me mentors and friends, opportunities to grow and try new things.  In many ways, I came of age there before heading to Ohio to lead Laurel, a girls’ school I’ve come to love with as much devotion as I had for Chapin. 

On her first day of teacher meetings, Miranda was overwhelmed to begin with—a new job in a new profession in a setting she remembered from childhood but didn’t really know.  Once she arrived, she was overwhelmed at being known by so many people she could not remember—twelve years is a long time when you leave at 11—and it was not her school; it was my school, where she came often, to be sure, but still…the faces swam up, delighted to claim her, welcome her, tell her they knew her when she was a little girl, but now she is grown and her own person, not mine by association, though, of course, she is mine by association, in this school where I taught for a long time, a long time when I longed for her arrival, a long time afterwards.  A long, longing time. 

 She has her own tidy desk in the classroom, a sure sign that her Head teacher will value her, will respect what she can bring to the third grade.  She will want to be of use, will want to feel like a partner, rather than a handmaiden.  She is taking in the culture, breathing it in—opening meeting in the Gordon Room—in my day, we met in the Assembly Room, but that is under construction, I understand.  Once, I tell her, in 1986, we did not have lunch for a year—I think they were building the Gordon Room that year, and we had lunch in Room 26 in brown paper bags—maybe that was when they built the gym.  Memory blurs.  But we ate our lunches and all was well.  In my school the Upper School is upside down; we are building, too, but not on such a grand scale and going both up and down in Manhattan.  The cost makes me shudder, but it is different in New York.  Lots is different in NY.

In these first weeks, she is tired.  It is like drinking from a fire hose, I tell her, wondering how those new to my school are feeling this Monday night, their third week with the girls.  Are they tired, too?  I am.  Every year, at the beginning, I am keyed up, happy to see the girls, weary when things are bumpy, but no longer startled—things are often bumpy at the beginning, in the middle, at the end, along the way—bumps are to be expected.  I try to welcome the bumps, not fight them or pretend they’re not there.  We have a girl who cannot manage her last period class—yet.  I am ever optimistic.  We make a plan.  She needs a little more TLC just now.  And we can do that; it’s within our power to do that, to accommodate, to consider what each child needs.  Even Seniors are still girls, who need our help—girl-women.  I think of them as young women; yet I most often call them girls. What is that?  Forty-plus years in girls’ schools?  Probably.  Of course, some of them don’t feel like girls or women—some of them are on different journeys, hard ones—in all our schools—and they need more than a work around for math last period. I don’t always feel we have enough to offer girls whose identities feel fragile, who learn too much about families that are shattering around them, who have sick moms or dads who have lost their jobs or siblings who have other huge needs…it takes a village, really, for each one of them.  Sometimes we can know what she might need; often, we can only guess.

After her first faculty meeting, Miranda wrote me. She liked what the diversity director has said.  What if we were to bathe our classrooms in empathy?  I Google the expression—“bathe in empathy.” I get lots of hits about empathy, but nothing with that exact phrasing.  I think about the talk I gave to the Upper School ten days ago on Wednesday—about school culture in trying times with a tricky election and polarized views.  I had an old talk I wrote ten years ago about my fabulous professor who had a single theme, “man’s inhumanity to man,” the opposite of empathy, I think. 

 This morning, watching her, I felt giddy that one of my daughters is a teacher, envious that it is all ahead of her, happy that I know the contours of the landscape she now inhabits, if not the details of her world that was once my own. 

First Day Blues

This month, I start my thirty-fifth year of teaching school, my thirteenth as Head at Laurel.  Over the years, I have taught English and drama, mostly, with a fair number of College Guidance classes sprinkled in.  I think back over Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Ethan Frome, Tess, The Scarlet Letter, Huck, Great Expectations, Beloved, Woman Warrior, Tell the Wolves I’m Home, a lot of Shakespeare, tons of poetry, more plays and the occasional short story and essay.  My new Juniors and my Sophomores at Northfield Mount Hermon in my earliest years as a teacher were indulgent, kind.  A few years later at Chapin, in drama, we began always in a circle spending time getting to know each other before jumping into acting exercises.  Teaching is the place I know myself best; it is like oxygen.  I love leading a school, but teaching is actually where I find myself on steadiest ground, understand my purpose and my role.  For me, teaching has always been a sort of second-skin.

Until last year.  Last year, I taught 9th grade English as I have for the past twelve years at Laurel—and my class met last period—every day.  The girls were marvelous—full of curiosity and kind with one another—mostly.  They were also fried after a long day.  And their teacher was not so marvelous.  Too often, I was cranky and fatigued, stressed after a day of managing the day-to-day life of the school.  I fell behind in my correcting too often and felt inadequate.  I loved being with them, but I didn’t feel like my best English-teacher self.  Turns out, I’m not at my best at 2:30 and I found myself more curt, a little less elastic in my dealings with my girls. I discovered that I would benefit from a schedule that tumbled as much as the girls would. In the fall, when we were tackling Oedipus Rex, I had the fleeting thought that I might gouge out my own eyes if I had to teach this particular tragedy again—though I love it.  And, in the midst of The Odyssey, I had to resist my strong impulse to yell at Odysseus, saying, “Get a compass and get the heck home to your wife and stop sleeping with everyone in a skirt on the way.”  I don’t think it’s a great sign to want to berate the Epic Hero. I have loved teaching texts I know well, but there comes a point when one needs a change. 

So, I decided to step back, take a year away from the English classroom.  I’ll still teach drama in the spring when the little girls and I make a play together.  And, a stint of maternity-subbing has come my way, so I’ll get to teach Lifeskills to some 9th graders in the winter.  But, I am already feeling sorry for myself in an unbecoming way.  No one exiled me.  I exiled myself, so I wouldn’t be sour and cross.  This year, I’ll be able to watch more classes around the building, be able to travel a bit more to raise money for this school I love so much, be able to write at night instead of making up assessments or grading essays.  But as the first day came and went and I did not meet a new crop of girls—expectant, maybe a little nervous about having the Head as their English teacher until they realized how delighted I was to be on their journey with them.  I’m hoping my self-imposed sabbatical will be good for me and for the school, but I can already tell you, I think I may have blown it.  Perhaps I could have taught a different tragedy, found a different epic, taught at another hour of the day.  But, perhaps I’ll feel all the more joyous next year when I’m setting up my grade book and meeting a new group of girls.  What a privilege it is to teach.