Quiet Mountain Essays
Copyright ©, 2004
What's In A Name?
by Laura Jaques Dulaney
Meshuggenah. The name is visited upon me in a dream. I claim it with pride without
knowing its meaning. “Meshuggenah!” I cry. “I’m Meshuggenah!” I know inherently that it
is a good thing.
The next day I search for the word in a dictionary. Just what is this new title I have claimed for
myself? I look in a Yiddish dictionary online, for it is a Yiddish word. That in itself fascinates
me, good protestant white southern child that I was reared.
“Crazy.” I stare at the word on the screen. Is the universe taunting me? For years, maybe
my whole life, I’ve accepted that others perceived me as “weird”, but weird was a term I could
deal with. Sure, I laughed at odd moments and danced to silent tunes in my head, but I wasn’
t so far out there as to be a full-fledged eccentric.
But now, now I’d had a calling, and it seemed to be telling me that I was worse off than I’d
realized. I had never believed that I was really crazy. I checked another dictionary; “a crazy
person.” Confirmation.
My breath came short, internal panic rising.
Stubbornness, a sheer refusal to accept that the universe would go to such lengths simply to
tell me I was nuts, led me to contact a Jewish friend of mine. “I need your help,” I said into the
phone. Blessed man that he is, he researched and responded. “One who does not see the
mundane but is a dreamer; unrealistic by standards of the community; chance taker;
impractical; outside of accepted actions and routines.”
Ah, yes, the odd visionary. Odd in the world of a socially constructed reality, a world of other
people’s thoughts and dreams and expectations, rules and regulations. Yes, that made
complete sense, felt familiar even.
But with this dream-visitation, this gift of a moniker, my oddness had now been converted
into a crown, a banner that I wished to wear across my chest to proudly display my title -
Meshuggenah.
“What is in a name?” asked Juliet. Everything, my dear, everything. In the beginning was
the word, lest we forget. And the word was made God, and God was the word. I am
Meshuggenah, and while much of the world may choose to limit its comprehension of this
term to the simplest definition of crazy, I will expand my heart to realize all of the possibilities
that Meshuggenah carries within it.
Postscript: Or maybe I’ve totally misinterpreted this dream, and the point is that I should not
align myself with things without first having researched to find out what they are. ;)
Contributor's Notes...
Laura Jaques Dulaney is a writer living in St. Petersburg, FL. She has a BA from Furman University and
an MA from Virginia Tech, with smatterings of graduate studies at UVA, Columbia Un., and Santiago de
Compostela, Spain. (She likes to learn so it's an ever evolving list.) Her latest short story, "Like a Bowl
Full of Jelly," is in Christmas Stories from Louisiana, (University.Press of Mississippi). She
encourages everyone to vote.
