"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
Contextually, Juliet was referring to Romeo’s name, his family name specifically. But let’s forget about the context for now.
I once fell in love with “…a Capulet in the balcony of [my] mind” (Semisonic – Singing in My Sleep). And, whether it was just my perception (my mind) or the actual girl who changed (or both), something definitely changed. I feel awkwardly attached to something that just plain blatantly doesn’t exist.
I say “something” and not “someone” because, as of this writing, I still can’t say if it’s Juliet or the idea of Juliet or even just the predicament that I miss.
It’s a bit like the feeling I get after reading or watching a favorite novel or a feature film. For all intents and purposes, be it based on true life or true fantasy, novels are, by nature, fictive. They’re lies, great lies but lies. They’re made up. So, no matter how badly I want to joust with Sir Elrich, befriend Leslie Burke or pick Howard Roark’s brain, I never will. I remember curling up into a ball eating chocolate while reading the third Harry Potter book for the second time and tearing up for no apparent reason when I realized the true power of suspension of disbelief.
And, after all, that’s what I’m doing now. Suspending my disbelief. Who is Juliet now that we each stop talking when one walks in on the other’s conversation? Who is she now that we no longer update each other with one another’s lives and talk about our dreams? Hearing her name used to make my face blush and my heart swell. Now, I imagine, it makes my face fall and my heart – fill in the blank.
The Juliet I knew is fiction now. She might as well have been made up too. The way that I talk about her, the way that I still insist on projecting her image onto the brains in the heads of unwitting shoulders, the way that I still catch myself thinking about her every day is little more than fiction now.
For what is in a name? It works both ways. You can call a daisy a rose but at the end of the day, you’re only fooling yourself.
Despite the logic, here I am.
