The Name Game

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet." 

Romeo and Juliet


Those of you who know me from my "before" know that Gita Rose is not my given name. It is Marjorie Rose. The Spanish translation of my name is Margarita. I was spending time with a musician friend from Spain, he was one of those people who became more of a mirror and a teacher than anything in my life. He called me Gita. Once. I loved it, the name struck some chord within me. And it wasn't because he had said some cute nickname in foreign accent, no, the name touched my soul and felt right. I looked it up and sure enough, it is most associated with the Bhagavad Gita, a spiritual text sacred to many people around the world. Damn it...I can't use that name I thought. And then I kept reading and saw that it's direct translation from Sanskrit  means "song" or in some cases "bird of song" Well, no matter what I am called, I will always sing. So I was still intrigued with the name.

Why did I feel the desire to rename myself at all? Well, I never got the chance to name myself in the first place, none of us do. I was given a beautiful and thoughtful name, a name fit to appear in lights. But, that's what my original name came to mean to me, the name of an actor, not a person. I spent a good solid 15 years of my life in the entertainment arts. Stage theater, dance, small film and commercial work ....always playing someone else, I did not know who I was. I was not comfortable with playing the actor or the channel anymore either, I wanted to be me. To find my character. The realization that I didn't know myself as an individual entity happened simultaneously with the realization that reality may be far more than I ever dreamed or feared. The pillars of everything I ever thought to be true fell down. I was laying naked, not even on a foundation, maybe on a holographic blueprint spiraling out into the vast void.




The name of Gita Rose stuck in my head. Keeping the Rose was important to me. The part of my name I always really liked, my parents said that they almost gave me that as a first name. The rose symbolizing the love I have always had, it gave me roots as I added this new and slightly alien name atop myself. She is a character I am still learning to play, to make myself. With a name from the heavens, she feels like the part of my spirit that knows all my personality forgot. She is her own force, her own teacher. She is brave and beautiful. Creative and compassionate. With a quietness that seems foreign to me. Gita never has to "perform". She is the embodiment of one the quotes that has most affected me. 


"Acting is natural response in imaginary circumstances" -Ray Verda. Acting professor. AMDA NYC

I now understood this to be an analogy for how the real word may actually work! Real life may be far more a work of fiction and fantasy than I had ever guessed. To respond naturally is all any good actor wants to be able to do. Gita said she could show me how. I trusted her, me. I was finally writing and creating myself a character, I decided to play along.

When I came to Hawai'i for the first time I introduced myself as Gita. That was easy, no one knew me otherwise. However, I came to the fast realization that this really was a loaded name, truly full of it's own energy and importance. I would have to learn much about understanding and patience if I was going to carry this name. Upon introducing myself, people would instantly connect to the name. Some would correlate it right away to the famous text, most of these people new aged type hippies with glassy eyes, "oh, wow beautiful..like the Bhagavad Gita?"

"Sure, I guess, that has been one use of the name, I've never read it, honestly." I would respond to the questioner, kicking myself for choosing this loaded name. My brain would spiral...why do people need to classify and correlate??? Can we just let a name be a name? Then Gita would wink at me from my heart...you made your bed...now play nice.

The more it ticked me off that people associated the name directly to the Sanskrit text the more and more, of coarse, it happened. The people who asked , like the "Bhagavad?" always seemed to be the blissed out type with a strange mix of sincerity and fear in their eyes. My stock response to these people became, "it is Sanskrit for song" it angered and saddened me that most of these people, who made themselves appear so familiar with the text, did not know what the word simply translated too.

I still have never read the text. I know that it is very long and elaborate. My guess is that it's core teachings are the same as all other religions. Treat people the way you wish to be treated.

If people didn't connect it to the Bhagavad right away, they still wanted to know "where does that come from?" Is it German? Is it this? is it that? How do you spell that?  Oh...like Guitar??  Ahh!! its letters and sounds that we give our brains to identify each other!!! Just call me ..grunt...I don't fucking care anymore!!!

 I had to really learn how to not be mad at people who instantly wanted to box and label my new, well...label..

It was an ironic and perfect lesson the new name created for me.

The more I learned to ground and be compassionate in my responses to these questions the more I met people who would ask me very seriously, "Was that name given to you by someone? That is a very sacred name"Ahh....shit, I am a phony and a fake. I would think at first.. then, I trusted the unconventional way this name was given to me...over a beer and music talk in Fairfax, CA

"It was given to me" I would say "but not in the way you might think, one of the best guitar players I have ever met called me this. I am a singer, the word means song, you know." They would nod "but he made me promise that if I was going to use this name, I would have to learn how to play guitar and learn to just play in life!" He really didn't make me promise this, but I think he would agree and it just makes for a better story.

At the end of the day, I really don't care what people call me. I know it is kinda weird that I just up and changed my name, many people still refer to me as Marjorie, or Margie or the biggest one for me to swallow, Marge..People here in Hawai'i call me Gita, or Geeda, or sometimes I just roll with G, and newest..variation, Geets. Call me what you are comfortable with, it is only just a way for our linguistic society to avoid confusion.


 To me, I am unnamed. I am learning from a character that I am creating. I am learning to rise up to the Gita Rose.

I will read the Bhagavad one of these days. The translation by Christopher Isherwood will be the one I go for. As synchronicity will have it, he was the creator of one of the characters I have had the hardest time getting out of my soul. One I played, and not well I think, because she was too close to me then and I was uncomfortable responding naturally. Sally Bowles. Christopher Isherwood wrote the "Berlin Stories" a slightly fictionalized memoir about the tumultuous times during the end of the Jazz Era and into the rise of the Third Reich. Sally Bowles became the most famous character in these stories. She inspired the creation of the stage play, "I am a Camera" and later the variation we would most recognize today, "Cabaret" I think she is a woman who ultimately fell victim to her own self destruction. While the world was crashing down around her, she chose to stay at the party. Now, while I do think life may be more of a Cabaret than we realize and the word certainly is a stage, I think it is important to take evaluation of our characters. I don't think Sally Bowles would have ever been brave enough to do this.

 I want to be brave. One day I will read that text. I think it will teach me much or maybe nothing at all. I am more interested in the fact that through layers of translation the man that created Sally Bowles will help define the character of Gita Rose. That to me, is "perfectly marvelous"

And to the Spaniard, Gracias. Estoy aprendiendo a tocar la vida y tocar la guitarra!!!

"I am a camera with it's shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed." 

-Christopher Isherwood, "Goodbye to Berlin"