Secret Vespers

It’s certainly a freer existence than most, though doubtless it would eventually catch up to her. Someone who knew her by one name would meet her while she was going by another and the whole mess would fall to pieces.

I sometimes wonder about people like this, though, the type who can pick themselves up and plop themselves down as easily as breathing, drifting like tumbleweed, never attached or connected to other people for longer than they choose to stay. I don’t think I could do that. I’m more the sort of tree that absorbs all its water through its roots; try to cut me out and I’d wither away.

This is somewhat admirable. Whoever this woman is has the chance to reinvent herself whenever she feels like doing so. She can completely erase who she was with a whole new name. This woman keeps track of who she was with each name, hence how she knew a person by what name they called her. She remembers what kind of person she was just be recalling the name. She could revisit that person and disappear inside that name and become someone new for five minutes, an hour, a day. Then, when the time comes, she returns to her most recent name.

I like this.