Posts Tagged ‘My Life’

In her recent article Mrs., Ms. or Miss: Addressing Modern Women , Nancy Gibbs ended with this statement

Feminists a generation ago fought for the title and dreamed of Freedom and Choice and Opportunity; maybe the surest sign that they’ve won is not which title we pick, but that we can have them all at once.

I also like the fact that how we choose to be addressed is now a matter of personal choice not societal mandate. I use Ms. for all things business; preferring the neutrality that it provides.  Whether I am married or single is irrelevant in my professional life.

For business I also use my family name of Crossland and that decision had nothing to do with patriarchy. I like the name and am proud of the English heritage behind it -

English (chiefly West Yorkshire): habitational name from a place in the parish of Almondbury, West Yorkshire, named Crosland, from Old English cros ‘cross’ + land ‘newly cultivated land’.

(English or Scandinavian) Belonging to Crosland/Crossland (Yorks) = the Land of the Cross [Middle English cros, Old Norse kross + land].

Early records of the name mention CROSLAND (without surname) who was recorded as a tenant in the Domesday Book of 1086.

In my own way I keep the family name in a state of perpetuation and part of me imagines how proud my father would have been to see the name being branded in my company and as the byline to my writing.

Googling one’s name is always interesting. Jill Crossland, the pianist comes up first and frequently but I manage to hold my own somewhere on the first page of the search.

For those personal matters such as banking, legal documents. Mrs.  Sadie married lady steps forward.

I have never liked the practice of hyphenating last names unless there is a cultural or social reason; as it gives one the impression of a need to try to please everyone. So this is the only time that you will ever see ……….. Jill Barbara Crossland-Pappageorgiou.

This past weekend was the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and my Saturday morning tweet read -  This Sat 40 years ago I was 15 and driving through Cape Cod with parents listening to Woodstock news reports on car radio.

It only took that 123 character post and the fact that it was a grey and rainy Saturday to leave me with a mantle of sadness; as my mind went back to the August weekend in one of my favorite places, shared with two people that I still miss today. Unlike many writers who like to present themselves as having risen from the dregs of dreadful childhoods, I had a good relationship with my parents. On the surface they may have been stereotypical of the distant English parents; in private they were supportive and loving giving me little fodder for even a mild case of teenage angst.

That evening Chris and I ate pasta, drank wine and caught up on the conversations that we didn’t have time for in the week.  We then watched the movie Defiance. I had originally wanted to rent it because it starred Daniel Craig, who is on my short list of men I would have an affair with but the story proved to be so much more than I expected.

It is a World War II movie that looks at the Holocaust from a unique perspective. Telling the true story of a group of Jews in Eastern Europe who fought back from there home deep in the forest and the Bielski brothers who led them. While not a perfect movie the story itself is remarkable.

Saturday ended with me thinking that the type of person we become is not only the result of the family we are born into but also the time in history. For me is was about being a teenager growing up in the sixties. One thing I realized is that I want to start having the right conversations and asking the pertinent questions. From the hindsight of the person that I am today what talks I would have with my parents!

Relationships must be so much more than mere everyday words. Remember that a really sick friend is not just her disease; part of her still wants to talk about clothes, grumble about her husband and laugh over the funny parts of 30 Rock.  Realizing that a grumpy co-worker or colleague might be troubled by something in her life and responding accordingly. It’s about asking parents and grandparents to share the early years of their lives and seeing how they intertwined with the events of the time.

And ultimately never forgetting that everyone has a story.