empowering | simplygiselle

Cancer Is not Pink lead by Swoosieque have nominated my blog for the One Lovely Blog Award.

I started following her blog because of the Daily Post question regarding food. Her writing and subject matter brought back many memories of growing up and my own mother’s cooking (which wasn’t always a good thing).

This is what writing is all about, yes? Touching your audience, for good or bad, but making them pause, reflect, laugh… it touches something inside them and a connection is made.

Without knowing her, I can say she is a strong woman. Without knowing me, I can tell her I work in Cancer Biology and maybe that is our ‘other’ connection in this world.

In any event, there are guidelines to being nominated and I will do my best to abide by them. I must share 7 facts about myself (and in no particular order).

1. I currently work in Cancer Biology
2. I love animals to a fault (i.e. one of ‘those’ people that would stop traffic to let a mother duck and her babies stroll across the highway and proudly get a ticket for it)
3. I talk to inanimate objects, knowing they won’t talk back but maybe they do hear me (ok look copy machine, I know you have a long day but just one more color copy would be awesome)
4. My daughter and I are like one (only she is smarter, prettier and with much more wit!)
5. I used to ski; and was pretty darn good at it (at least my daughter thinks so)
6. I love wine. Love it. The taste, the smell, the color and how it is made
7. I love to laugh; it is one of the few things you can feel from the inside out

I have taken to blogging not only to work on writing better but to share a piece of me with everyone ‘out there’. I hope you have the room for one more blog to follow and you choose me 🙂

I follow quite a few different blogs to inspire me and hand me a question for which to write and today’s question made me pause. “Say your name”. Sounds simple enough. The assignment is to edit your name and tag line, but I can’t and ultimately I won’t.

When I was young, and for many, many years, I disliked my name so much. Most people could not pronounce it so it became a nuisance to the point of not even correcting them. Others, who were much older, would recall an actress by the same name well before I was born and I didn’t care who she was for I was bored with the same story over and over.

My parents were very clear on how I received this name for it was not a whim, in fact, it was an all out brawl between my mother, her sisters, and ultimately my father stepped in and took control. You see, this is not a family name, nor was it the first choice. Giselle is the name of a ballet, beautiful, tragic, complex, with music that ebbs and flows and all the time while watching or listening to it, you are transported to another place. Wow that is so much to live up to, yes? On the same note (pardon the pun) it is also an amazing story which will stay with me as long as I can tell it.

More specifically, after my parents brought me home from the hospital with no name, my mother gave it her all and stuck to her guns and told everyone, her name will be Eugenie (and you though Giselle was a mouthful, right?) As a woman from a family of eight siblings, the sisters all voiced their concerns, mainly the relentless teasing from all the children in school and the community. After several days, my father came home from his long day of work to hear the ballet playing on the stereo. The rest is history.

In recent years something magical happened; I grew into the name, embraced it, became one of a kind. Although many people still mispronounce it, I don’t care because I know chances of them meeting another Giselle in person are slim.

So you see, I cannot change SimplyGiselle because that is exactly who I am, SimplyGiselle…no more, no less, and I have the story to prove it.

Say your name