davidclaudon

email davey175@comcast.net

What's in a name? asked Shakespeare

What's the power of a name? In the 2001 Japanese film Spirited Away, the human heroine Chihiro loses her name after signing a contract with the witch Yubaba, becoming Sen, a servant. According to the film, if Sen forgets her real name, Chihiro will be trapped in her nightmare world forever. In the climax, when Chihiro helps Haku remember his real name, he is freed from the curse he had been under.

Most Americans accept the name given them at birth and grow into that vision. Others let a nickname stand for the sum of them. Still others may change the spelling to help redefine themselves. But Western culture has a rich tradition regarding names.

In Genesis numerous people change their name to signify a special change in life which God had brought about; i.e., Abram becomes Abraham, Sarai, Sarah; Jacob, Israel. [I wonder if Abram had to go around to his friends and say, "Oh, by the way, call me Abraham from now on."]

American writer Henry David Thoreau was actually called David Henry Thoreau, but he preferred his middle name... like me. Thoreau's mother In The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail, accepts that he is being strange. Thoreau's mother says "When you were baptized, they tell you who you are." He responds, "I wasn't listening."

How do names define us? Modern Roman Catholics continue that tradition by taking a confirmation name. I, for example, took the name Raphael (God has healed) for mine.

Native Americans are said to have two names--the name they are given by their parents and their true name which only they know.

Western culture is not the only one with a tradition of changing one's name. According to the Penguin Classics edition of Shen Fu's Six Records of a Floating Life:

In addition to a childhood name and a proper given name, all educated Chinese of the Imperial period had at least two others--a 'literary name' taken to express usually, a desired attribute (Shu-chen means something like 'precious virtue') and a 'style', a sort of formal nickname. Both could be changed at will, making life interesting for later scholars.

Bending like the Bamboo

My name is David. I have always been David, but I haven't always used the name. My parents named me Charles David Claudon. So until I got to college, I was Charles. I hated the name...it seemed really formal and much too stuffy. My first day at college, when asked what my name was, I chose to use Chuck --my grandfather's nickname--and that's how I was known for 25 years.[I always know the people who only knew me from my hometown because they still call me Charles.]

When I began with AOL, I had the chance to take any name, so I took my middle name. I found I liked the name David a lot... it felt comfortable and fit. So when my wife and I separated in 1995, I decided to lose "Chuck" and move to Wicker Park in Chicago. The name is really me and always has been. [It was funny to have friends tell me, "You know, you look like a David," or "You know, you don't look like a Chuck."] In August 1995 my journey to find myself continued and I moved out of Chicago to the western suburb of Berwyn, where I've grown and emerged as a more complete person. I volunteer extensively with my church, St. Bernardine Church, as head of Art and Environment, a choir member and a cantor.

In 2003, I moved from Berwyn to Oak Park, home of Victorian elegance and Frank Lloyd Wright and prairie school houses. In fact, I'm within two blocks of Wright's studio. My new apartment, in a building originally designed by E. E.Roberts in Medieval Revival style, has 1920's details and gargoyles looking down onto the courtyard. It's just down the street from the new library and across from a great park.

Drama has always seemed to define my life. I received my BS from Illinois State University (1966) in Speech and my MA from University of Illinois (1970) in Drama. I started teaching in 1966 at MacArthur High School in Decatur, IL, and moved in 1969 to Rich East High School, located in a southern Chicago suburb, Park Forest, where I was the drama director. I directed drama until around 1984. For the next ten years I taught English courses, helped create History and Thought of Western Man, a course for academically gifted sophomores and juniors, and worked with gifted students. From 1998 to 2000, I returned to my roots and directed plays. At the end of last year, I had three students ask if I would return and do the plays for their senior year. I did.

	Our first production in 2002 was Our Town. Sticking to primarily a black and white palate for props and costumes, the play allowed the students to work on their serious acting.
	We ended the 2002-2003 season with a fun version of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play was done in 1960s drag, with fairies as hippies and bikers, Hipolyta as a Black Panther, and Theseus as a mythical military dictator.

We used projected settings and two fantastic pillars with designs inspired by the great pop artist, Peter Max.

The audience responded to the high energy and enthusiastic cast and it was one of my most successful shows, having over 40 kids and a collective audience that exceeded over 800 people.

In November 2003, we did Lawrence and Lee's The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, which received great reviews from the people who came. The play concentrates on the night Thoreau spent in jail in Concord, Massachusetts for refusing to pay his taxes. The theme of marching to one's own drummer seems as appropriate for today's audiences as it was when written in the 1970s.
		Our cast was primarily a younger cast. Thoreau was a sophomore as were many of the leads. We used a minimal setting with projected scenery throughout.
		In April 2004, I directed The Taming of the Shrew--Texas Style. We had a fairly elaborate set and I rewrote the play in modern Texas dialect, setting the play in 1948. The play proved very popular and Shakespeare play was taught in all the English classes.
		In November 2004 we presented The Man Who Came to Dinner, complete with Christmas decorations, mummy case and penguins.
		The 2005 Rich East Shakespeare play was 12th Night, which became Shakespeare's Boogie Nights, set on the mythical island of Illyria, replete with 1970s disco and island wear. The script was updated to 1970.

Small Accomplishments. In 1966, I took a scene design course and ended up making 6 1/2-inch=1-foot scale models. Since then I have created miniature rooms, written numerous articles for various national magazines on miniatures, run my own miniatures business [The Butterfly Cat Studio], and eventually, became heavily involved with the National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts. During the late 1980s and 1990s I even served on the board of directors and eventually served as president.

		One of my miniature creations from 1985, called Work Companions, was recently featured in a national miniatures magazine, Miniature Collector. The wonderful old lady cleaning was by Mary Penet and Phil Levigne. The room box was an old doctor's wood case. The wicker sette was by Californian Carolyn Lockwood. The fireplace was a souvenir of the 1980 NAME Washington Houseparty, redone by me. I painted the firescreen and created the rug. I also created the all the cats.
To see a larger picture, click on picture. Photo © 2003 Miniature Collector.		Other rooms and creations can be seen on my website, David's Gallimauphry .

My journey continues. Over the years I've learned that Life is not a goal, it is a journey. It is our actions along that journey that define who we are. Some things I would like to have done better, but there was no road map for me to follow, and I had to make it up as I went along. I realize now that all our actions, both good and bad, make us into the complex people that we are.

In this year, major changes have come about in my journey. I no longer live following others' expectations for me. I have come out at school and helped found a gay/straight alliance with the students. My wife and I have divorced, and I am now living life on my own terms, alone-- ready for the next chapter of my life. And although I'm alone, I feel a little like Thoreau who says in the play, "I am no more lonely... than the first spider in a new house."

Each step along my path is a new discovery into who I am and who I can become. Recently I contemplated a teacup--don't laugh--and realized it was a size and shape that was unique to its purpose. It was not a mug. You didn't fill it with liter after liter of tea. You poured a small amount into it and savored the flavor. Perhaps I have too much lived my life believing that I should shape myself into someone else rather than accepting the person God made me. Sometimes being a teacup is enough.

I have learned from experience the power of Mary Cassatt's observation: "Acceptance on someone else's terms is worse than rejection."

Summer 2005 update

I always say that every year God gives you something or takes something away. This summer was no exception. As summer began I noticed some heaviness in my chest as I walked for coffee. My doctor suggested a stress-test. Failing the stress-test, they immediately did an angiogram where they found one artery was 100 percent blocked and two were at 95 percent blockage. The next morning I had a triple bypass which proved highly successful. I have been up walking since the day after the bypass and am doing very well. I consider myself very lucky to have gone for the stress-test.