Lot of talk about digital footprints these days. Lot of talk about increasing the size of them. Debates about whether this is good or bad to do. My footprint is a run-of-the-mill size 7. I have an album out that very few people know is there. I forget to take pictures during my most documentable moments. I hAtE eDiTiNg TiKtOkS. I tend to my house plants but neglect my yard, read 4 books at once, argue both too often and not enough, find metaphors in almost everything, and nearly subsist on dried mango and peanut butter (not together- maybe will try this). Mostly, I write, and once I realized that I do not write with my size 7 digital feet but with my brain and my relatively dexterous fingers (guitar player), I thought perhaps now is a good time to start that hypothetical blog.
Beginning at the beginning, my name is Jordyn Kay Shellhart, Jordyn with a Y.
This has been my name since I was 3 years old. Before that my name was Jordan Kay Shellhart, Jordan with an A. The standardized tests in middle school and my passport application conspired once to reveal to me that I was and am still legally Jordan Kay Shellhart, Jordan with an A. My mother never bothered to change it when she changed it. Then I guess neither did I. But it’s the looping of the Y in my cursive handwriting, the way it seems to suggest something feminine and fluid, how it appears twice when I write out my not-quite-name in full that affirms I am Jordyn except on the most high stakes governmental occasions.
My big brother named me after Michael Jordan. I possess none of my name sake’s athletic ability but am saddled with a bit of his competitiveness, as much as I’ve tried to shake that off like biting fleas my entire life (please don’t try to tell me it’s because I’m an Aries as this happens to be my least favorite subject on the planet, whatever the planet suggests about my immutable personality). Jordan means flowing, ascending - the Jordan River. Languid and winding, like a cursive Y. Michael Jordan means striving, pushing within an inch of your life. Fast and daring and wielding voracity as a sword, or a basketball.
I desire to be a river, worried not about where it is going, but trusting fully that it is going somewhere. Peaceably gurgling over pebbles and dancing with the light in flashes of blue and gold. Jordyn, flexible, wandering. Still, Jordan, seeking that next shot, sizing up the court and forcing her way to the net is always somewhere under the surface, never quite letting me forget that she is there - a birth certificate, a passport, a record deal DocuSigned alone on a tour bus somewhere in DC, the ambition that keeps me up at night, mocking me while I watch dreams elude my grasp like the ephemeral mist that they are and leaving me looking up at the sky with the same question on my lips: still not my time, huh?
Maybe that Jordan leads somewhere beautiful too, just with more white foam and rapids. They both led me here, I suppose.
I don’t know really what this blog will shape up to be, but it will be here. I will be here, with probably meandering thoughts painting the walls of my little corner of the universe. I think it will be a simple corner, usually unobtrusive, a couple of plush armchairs and a fireplace, cups of tea and saucers (I am not English but don’t tell that to my imagination). I can’t promise the dishes won’t end up strewn about haphazardly, but if you’d like, you’re welcome to sit and drink. I’d love the company.
