Married with two names

I married Gustavo nearly two years ago and I'm still dithering about what to do with my name. I've fudged it for now by having two. I continue to use my maiden name at work and, depending on my mood, will sometimes use my married name - see blog title!

The problem is it is starting to cause confusion. At a gig on thursday night when the doorman was looking up my name on the guest list, do I give him Stone or Montes de Oca? Some friends have started using my married surname..I give him Lucy Stone as its easier to say, and out of habit. The doorman thought i was chancing it when he couldn't find me on the list and i then gave him another name.

But above the logistics is the principle. I want to have the same name as my husband as a symbol of our union. Yet I want to keep my identity and individuality whilst being part of a couple.

Does it belittle me taking my husbands name? Does it mean i'm subsuming my identity by assuming his? Or is it simply an extension of the joining together of us both in our marriage by sharing the same name?

Some people make up a new name, or merge their names as a solution. In Mexico I am Lucy Montes de Oca Stone. That's quite a mouthful and will inevitably be shortened to Lucy Montes or Montes de Oca.

For me though, the most important factor that is weighing over me is my namesake.

Lucy Stone was an amazing suffragete, fighting for women's rights and slave abolition. She was the first known woman not to take her husbands name after marriage.

She said, "My name is my identity and must not be lost."

In fact, doing a 'lucy stone' is to keep your maiden name after wedding.

 

She was not allowed to vote because she hadnt taken her husbands name and died before full rights of women to vote were established. She is a great hero for women.

So does it betray this proud association with Lucy Stone if I dont keep my name? Or is it in fact a sign of emancipation if after a century has passed I can now take my husbands name without any loss of rights?

Does it change my identity as Lucy Stone suggested? Well I dont think it does because my identity is now happily changed by being married to Gustavo.

Yet I love the name Lucy Stone. I love that it connects me to this inspirational figure.

I tried to honour her at my wedding day by speaking, that in itself still a pretty revolutionary thing for a bride to do at a wedding. Normally a bride focuses on looking beautiful, and everyone else talks about her beauty. The bride usually stays mute, smiling and staying demure.

I forced myself to speak to my friends and family because I was overwhelmed by the significance of the ritual of wedding, and wanted to thank my friends and family for creating it and being a part of it.

Gustavo was poetic and heroic. I mumbled about Lucy Stone and keeping her married name, I dont think anyone understood what I said, but it didnt matter. The point was that I stood up and confirmed that I was more than a bride in a beautiful dress. I was Lucy Stone.

So what do I do? What have others done? Can I keep both names that I love so much. But I also so want to be Mr and Mrs something.

Perhaps we could be Mr and Mrs Lucy Stone Montes de Oca.

On living a balanced life

At a party on friday night I was chatting to someone I had just met. He was a tall good looking guy describing his apparently perfect life; his successful career making feature films, a wife he loved and a healthy small daughter. Yet his wife had moved to Bristol and they met at weekends. They decided there was no point in her staying in London when he worked such long hours that he didnt see her or the daughter, passing each as they came and went in their busy life. This was a solution to him keeping his job and losing the guilt, and her having a less urban life that she craved. Yet she was now struggling with having to work and look after the child. They were having to keep working hard at high salaries to pay for their two houses and travel backwards and forwards from the two cities. Perhaps they will find this will work out. But it struck me that they were in this familiar trap of success.

To me the ultimate sign of success, as I define it, is being able to spend most of the time doing the things you love, and that includes being paid to do the things you love, being paid enough to be able to take time to do things you love that dont pay! Having time to play the piano, write your blog, spend a day helping a friend, making curtains, spending time with your child or partner.

Making curtains!

Gustavo bee-keeping

Flexible working is an essential ingredient to redressing the appalling in-balance of women in senior positions in the workplace when they have returned to work a mother. This is not just about ensuring women can balance a senior job and being a mother by providing good part-time jobs. Its also about ensuring men also want to take part time jobs to be a father too. It hadnt occured to the film-maker father that now he was in a senior position at work that he could negotiate reduced hours. Yet I bet he would be used to negotiating better pay at work or promotions.

We have never been more wealthy now in 2011. We have far higher expectations of comfort levels and technology to make chores quicker. Yet I cant understand why more people aren't aiming to work less hours a week as part of their vision of 'success' that they work towards. Its not just a parenting issue, but a question of having time in your life to do your hobbies, to be a friend, to volunteer, to grow veg, or just to enjoy the seasons. This inevitably also means living on slightly less. But that's not necessarily a sacrifice, just a question of being more careful and clever about the money you do have - by making and growing more of our gifts, home decorations or food. All things that apparently everyone wants to be doing more, but doesnt have the time. Hence Jamie Oliver's 30 minute cook book being a roaring success.

Gustavo and I are both now working part time, not because we are sharing child care, but partly a response to pragmatic circumstances working at charities with limited budgets, and mainly due to a desire to have other time to work on side projects, to work with neighbours growing food on our estate, and to tend to his bees. I supposed Cameron would like to think we are a model Big Society couple as we are both setting up social enterprises part of the time we are not in our paid jobs. But really this seems to us the only way we can really live a balanced happy life. It means we can take a risk with a social enterprise without sacrificing our careers. And I can start writing again without worrying if its a viable career option, but just because its what I like to do. We've only just begun this part time life, and are definitely having to be more frugal or creative (depending on the energy levels!) and cant go out as much as we did. So lets see how it works out. But so far I am finding it hard to imagine wanting to go back to full time, if I am lucky enough to be able to keep finding good part time jobs.

I'm going to keep a track on inspiring stories of people who are living on part time jobs. I have read about a few men in law firms setting this trend. Here is one for starters.

The New Economics Foundation recently published a report about the 21 hour week, arguing that it would help tackle unemployment - more jobs to share - as well as help reduce environmental impacts (less travel to work?), and better health - less stress, more time to exercise and cook and grow food.

I have a friend making a documentary about the 21 hour week. Will this be a future trend? Lets make it happen.

True Romance

One of the perks of part time jobs meant that on Valentine's Day we could take off for a lovely long walk in Hampstead Heath, browse a book shop with a coffee, duck into a pub at 4pm, and then relax into a film at the cinema. Lucky our choice was well rewarded. True Grit was a fantastic treat; to watch a film beautifully made, and a good tale well told. Although I love Jeff Bridges, and he was so enjoying playing Rooster Cogburn, he's really a supporting role to the fantastic Mattie played by Hailee Steinfeld. It was so great to watch a female character stealing the limelight, not because of her youthful looks or cynical wit that comes with age, but because of her intelligence, strength and sense of justice. I love the character and wish there were more like that.

Its funny that Gustavo and I met on Valentine's Day because we now mark that as the day we met, despite the fact that neither of us care that much about the concept of a valentine's day. Romance is a daily surprise to me and something I will try to write about without being gushing or bragging but because I think its something to celebrate and enjoy. And because its actually pretty rare to encounter in its pure, genuine form without some form of cynicism.

I've been inspired by the protests, from the success at protesting against forestry sell off to the Egyptian youth overthrowing their President. And it strikes me there is a common thread between pure passion for justice and pure expression of love (whether at the world or a person). Its a really refreshing change from decades of the dominant culture of cynicism. Dont get me wrong, there is a place for that, and for questioning and for laughing at absurdity and people who take themselves too seriously. But this surely must be balanced with passion for the truth and innocence? I think we need more of this innocence, of idealism.

simplicity

One of the nice things i've done at work recently, judging a film competition for young people. The winner, a beautiful animation by young children at a London school says it all really. We are all connected. Give the colours back to the earth people!

21st Century Wooden Houses

I've been hoping the fashion for glass and steel would wear out for years. It depresses me every time I see another massive glass and steel box going up in London. They all look the same to me, so unimaginative, the only excitement over childish competition for the 'biggest yet' or a novelty shape - ooh, a 'shard', ooh, a 'gerkin'. But they are all so cold and shiny, with all those strip lights glaring out. I don't hate all glass and steel buildings, and I love the contrast of glass against old stone. But could we not have some more variety and texture, and some more imagination.

And the intensity of the process, the extraction of the resources, the manufacture, transport, construction, the labour, makes you wince.

So I was intrigued to read about the first wooden high rise building in my neighbourhood in Hackney. Looks great and is so much more environmentally friendly. Hope its a great place to live.

Dressing my husband

Thanks Jazmin for telling me about your friends label, Percival, a perfect fit with my new years resolution - well made clothes, made in London from good material. If only they did women's clothes.

Beautiful and Sustainable

My new year’s resolution is to try to buy just a few, well chosen, well made clothes, made from sustainable material, have been made by people paid a decent wage, and are pieces that I really love and will treasure and last. Ideally I'd like to support UK designers/craftspeople. I want to by just a few items this year. Is this even possible? I am bored of having four imperfect cheap black skirts, made poorly in factories, that won’t last. I could have bought one really beautiful expensive skirt that I really love to wear. And shouldn't we support enterprise and talent with good wages when we are lucky enough to have a good wage ourselves?

It didnt start well. I headed to Ascention in Oxford Street, only to find it replaced with another shop. I guess the recession was harsh on ethical shops. 

Sunday Gustavo and I emerged from our flat on a beautiful sunny cold day, walked down to the canal, said hello to his bees, noticing buildings now knocked down and those growing up. We came out from the canal  at Islington, me hoping to detour to the sale at Equa clothing. Nope - it too was closed and full of packing boxes. Hard times. I need to think laterally. Fashion Grads? WI knitting circles?! I'm not so fussed about organic. Good quality material, well made and a good wage are my three magic ingredients.

We ambled down Copenhagen street, diverting past giant murals and a jumble of old estates, trying to find the Pangolin Gallery to see Lynn Chadwick’s bold sculptures. We found a strange public square with a giants playground full of large colourful wooden piles – too big to play on. Walking past a beautiful square we stopped a moment to hear joyous singing and drumming echoing out of an old large church. That part between Islington and Kings Cross is a great London mix, changing all the time in some parts, and elsewhere has been the same for decades. The whole area awaits the anticipated ‘regeneration’.

The gallery inside shiny new Kings Place was closed - how can it be closed on a Sunday? Instead we enjoyed Keith Pattinson’s black and white photography exhibition of the miners’ strike in Durham.

Some very moving photographs, capturing the frustration, determination and solidarity of the workers. Some fantastic tight jeaned men with swagger and patterned jumpers, girls with big hair and large tucked in shirts reminded me of my sisters in the 80s. But the backdrop of the mines, the grey sky and the exhaustion after weeks of striking created some very atmospheric, powerful, beautiful images.