Becoming Isabelle: on pen names and writing vulnerably
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By the time I arrived in this world, the sixth and last biological daughter of my family, my parents were tired of naming girls, so they passed the task on to my sisters. Two of them, Irish twins then in primary school, offered up Lindsay and Joy, inspired by classmates they would know for a short time and never think of again.
So, on March 5, 1990, I became Lindsay. Middle name Joy.
I didn’t like being Lindsay. In my tiny Christian high school, there were three Lindsays—one of whom I considered my natural enemy, because, despite knowing each other since infancy, she always called me by my full name. I also didn’t like how the consonant cluster sounded in my croaky Pacific Northwest accent.
I liked my dad calling me Lindso-matic. My friends, Linds. My sister, Lindsay-bug.
I was wholly Lindsay throughout my undergraduate studies in creative writing, and I published fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in various literary magazines as Lindsay until I was 29. During those years of writing out in the open, even when my work was only rooted in the painful truth of my childhood, it hurt my sisters. There were outbursts of anger and shame that hindered me as both an artist and a person.
And I didn’t want everyone to know everything about me.
And I felt guilty telling other people’s stories.
And I hadn’t forgiven my mother.
And maybe I never would.
And exposure goaded suicide.
And. And. And.
So, in June 2019, I became Isabelle Correa.
I chose Correa because it seemed part family secret, part myth—my mother never spoke of her biological father, even when I pried, but one day I saw his name on her birth certificate—Alberto Correa. My grandmother was less resistant to talking about him only because it was a chance to air his dirty laundry about how he had another wife and kid in another state, and when she went to confront him, he ran from her, hopped a train, and disappeared.
I don’t remember why I chose Isabelle; maybe Isabelle chose me.
Isabelle means devoted to God, and Correa is from the Latin corrigia 'fastening.' If you know me and my work, then you know this is eerily accurate—I have always been obsessed with the divine. Fastened to it.
Now, as Isabelle, I tell other people’s stories along with my own. As Lindsay, I edit essays for college admissions. As Lindsay, I fly to NY, where I read poems about desire as Isabelle, then kiss a stranger by the water as both.
Do you feel like I’ve betrayed you, dear reader?
I’ve made a name for myself as a poet who writes vulnerably. I am only keeping myself safe.
Last night, a man I’m seeing told me the story of his name. A breech birth, he had to be plucked by the head with piper forceps. Fearing he wouldn’t survive the night, his devout aunt slipped into the ICU like a sweet Catholic criminal and had him baptized as Juan after his father. But his parents had wanted Andrés, so he became Juan Andrés and they called him Andrés, never Juan.
In bed, he tells me that the scars from the extraction are visible on a brain scan. I stroke his hair as if I can see them—little raised eyebrows, little death-scuff, little god-kiss—and tell him, I’m so happy you lived.
I’m so happy I lived.
Thank you for reading/for being here. A few announcements before we go—
i’ve never read anything so good and raw and Isabelle (in all accounts)
This was so incredibly beautiful ❤️