What's in a name?

Recently, I have read a reply to a blog post 'On the naming and not naming of things' cricket7642.wordpress.com. The reply by anhrefn.blogspot.com stimulated me to re-examine the question of possession, the ownership of all things by defining, labelling, classifying and categorising them to file away, and ultimately control. Then moving onto the next mystery and starting again.

I showed a photograph of flowers which grow near the dacha to my friends at work.
They have always grown there flowering in the spring and looking breathtakingly beautiful. The leaves are lavish and fleshy. Sturdy veins can be traced easily on their surfaces. Rain bounces off them with gusto and never penetrates. Then, within weeks, the flowers elongate, wither and transmute into brown twigs with a bowed heads of scraggly bells. Only the leaves maintain their plumpness and look rather disturbing supporting the dead.

“What is it?” was the collective enquiry... My reply was qualitative, full of superlatives and aesthetics and did not supply what was required; the name! A massive search ensued involving a number of interested parties. It became really important that the plant was named, categorised, de-mystified and catalogued. The ingenuity of the researches was remarkable. Words, images, video footage was sought and then discarded. Exhausted, the investigators looked deflated and non-too-pleased with me! Somehow, I seemed to have tricked them, their disappointed sidelong glances said. The flower was elusive, without identity, wild, challenging. In some way it did not belong in the classified and clearly labelled world. And because it did not have a name, it could not be owned, controlled and filed away under the letter ‘what letter?’

At school an old nun amazed me with her infallible memory. By the second week in September she knew every girl in school by name. She was never mistaken, her voice resounding in corridors and assemblies, making us stop automatically at the sound of our name articulated in that impervious tone. As I did not have an unhealthy respect for authority and I was very interested in her talent for remembering names, one day I asked how she remembers us all, and more importantly why? She didn’t bother with my former question but was very quick to answer the latter. “If I know their name, I can control them, own them. I'm in charge!” I can see her standing in the corridor, towering over me, showing her displeasure.

Displeasure at my questioning?

No! Displeasure and annoyance at not being able to pronounce my name!

What's in a name?

One day two apple trees travelled north by train

A man who knows about trees in East Anglia chose two apple trees for my little wild garden at the dacha.

They travelled north by the train, in the corridor of the first class carriage. I sat in the standard class thinking of them.

They were planted the very next day and for three years teased me with abundance of foliage, tiny crop of minute apples, and worried me with the absence of blossom. Then one year, almost overnight, after a spring of most magical flower they bore fruit. And what fruit it was! Shiny, red, crisp, shapely globes, with real skin and pink taint in their juicy flesh. There were hundreds of them. The little branches groaned under the multitude. I loved them, the birds loved them..

Next winter was very hard. Deer came down into the gardens to look for food. They nibbled at anything not covered by snow. Branches of evergreens, shrubbery and tree bark. Apple tree bark! One of the little trees was beyond help, its bark gnawed, ringed. It was ailing all spring and finally died in the autumn. The other survived and grew higher and stronger but did not bear apples that year.

This spring my apple tree is covered in most beautiful blooms. They are delicately pink and cover the branches like a kaleidoscope of butterflies fluttering in the warm breeze...

I could say that I can’t wait until autumn harvest but I do not want to rush the seasons. So, for now I will just enjoy the blossom as I linger in the shade of my not-so-little apple tree reading a poem by a lovely Irish lyricist...

THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS WENT out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread;   And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.   When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire a-flame, But something rustled on the floor, And some one called me by my name: It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossom in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air.   Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

Not talking about the meaning of life

Today I went to the dacha in the gently undulating hills of Scottish borders. The dacha is really just a wooden hut, charmingly rustic and totally relaxing, without running water or electricity. My friend and I sat under an apple tree in the sunshine, drank vanilla tea, played few games of chess and talked very little, mostly about the surrounding countryside. It was too beautiful to talk about what we should do in the future, about the trials and tribulations of work, parents in need, the meaning of life or lack of it.. It was utterly satisfactory just to be, light of spirit and slightly intoxicated by primavera and the sweet coconut scent of yellow gorse.

                       

I have been reading my friends’ blogs and the blogs they are following, and the blogs listed there and so on.. Through them I had entered another world. It is a strange world, an exhilarating, yet alien landscape with a diverse population. My friends’ blogs excite my imagination, stimulate my creativity and give me further insight into their individuality. Yet some of the other inhabitants seem to live entirely in the realms of their own blog-topography. Theirs is a virtual world of words and images. Some have not visited Earth for a while. Others are permanently on-line. They share inside of their heads with the other population of planet BLOG. I am now one of these inhabitants of BLOG:- reading, reflecting, adding, discussing, agreeing, questioning. Yet when it comes to sharing me, I tread guardedly, my feet stepping on this alien planet lightly, my lips tasting and testing the air, touching the shapes within it.. Sometime I feel like Alice Through the Looking Glass where things are not exactly as they seem, where ordinary fascinates and mystery becomes commonplace. .  But  I think I like this new world of sharing!

Who do you write for?

I have been talking to my friends about blogging before tentatively dipping my toe in the big blog ocean.. How does it feel? I do not know yet. At the moment all is tranquil... But there are hidden depths, fast currents, uncharted shallows and dead calm..

Some of my friends are bloggers already; some are contemplating blogging; others are vehemently against any form of social media. No one seems neutral. Everyone has an opinion.

So, 'Who do you you write your blog for?' I write for myself was a reply heard often. A diary, then? No, not a diary but still intrinsically a reflection of life experienced, reinterpreted, even reinvented. A form of catharsis using words and images.  But then, if we write for ourselves why publish it at all? The cathartic element is provided by the simple act of writing it down. So again, why publish?

I am following some blogs written by friends and strangers. Some are confessional and well written, others are beautiful, original, thought provoking and feed my soul, yet others are surprising, self indulgent and funny.. In some cases a lot of time seems to be spent in front of the computer writing about inner world, rather than reflecting on what has been heard, tasted, touched, seen. And then I will stumble upon the blog that looks more like a list of things to do before you die.. It is fascinating, occasionally unreal and infinitely varied. 

Perhaps what I am asking is wrong. Perhaps what I am trying to grasp, to discover can be formulated into a different question.

What do you hope for when you write your blog?

I will go to bed now and think about answering my own query: What did I hope for when I pressed Publish Post?