What’s In a Name?

I overheard a conversation not long ago in which a woman was complaining to her companion about her name. She said, “My mother had no imagination. My sisters and I…We are Peggy, Betty, and Mary. Now, how plain is that?” Perhaps her mother came from a long line of conformists, but I will have to say that the typical Southern mother has quite an array of monikers to choose from when naming her baby.

For instance, it is the Southern Mother’s duty (I mean choice) to create a clever combination from a multi-generational pedigree - the all important family name that has been handed down for the last 50 years. Sometimes she elects to use a family surname to provide a first name for some poor unsuspecting baby. Usually it’s the girl babies who are crowned with such glorious names as Tucker, Bennett, Claiborne or Carson. Some kids can really carry off a name like that…Others…well…Bless their hearts. They just get beat up on the play ground.

Depending on the mother’s goal for the child, she might name him or her to stand out in the kindergarten roll call (Vestavia Raquel or Thaddeus Sheridan). Or perhaps she wants her child’s name to blend in with all the other Little Leaguers (Bubba, Junior, Buddy, Sissy). Honestly…there are many Bubba’s on birth certificates all over this state!

Now, some mothers-to-be might take a page from Southern Literature and recall names such as Tennessee William’s “Blanche”, or Will Faulkner’s “Dewey Dell”, or the ever-popular Rhett, Ashley and Scarlett from Margarett Mitchell. Or how about Pat Conroy’s “Ledare” or Harper Lee’s “Scout”. (You see, Demi and Bruce were not the first to use that name.)

Of course we Southerners are always a sucker for the double named child. Martha Ann, John Ross, Betty Jo, John Mark, Carl Lee, Mary Sue, Joe Dan, Anna Claire , etc. Or perhaps the family name is so outdated but is required by generational pressure that the mother opts to use initials only. A.J., J.C., A.C., J.D., C.J., B.J. The world may never know that little B.J.’s real name is Bascomb Jedidiah.

Now a trip to your local nursing home will show you just how imaginative our foremothers actually were. Why, there is quite an assortment of one-of-kind names just waiting for the forward thinking mother to choose from. Orma Rue, Alden, Alabama Lee, Eulalia (rhymes with Australia), Ulysses, Jerusala, Percival, Flora Mae, Hazel Gwinnette, Horace, and Thelberta Louise. Just how original do you want to be in 2007?

You know I’m just a little bit sorry I wasn’t named after my two grandmothers as my mother had always threatened. I’m sure I would have been the only Reba Willette in the entire state of Tennessee.

Bathroom Prisoner vs. Hermit's Cabin

As far from idyllic as our lives may seem at times, we are who we are by a product of what we have experienced. And we as Mothers have experienced a lot. Our children demand an extraordinary amount of time…Most of which we are glad to give, but at times, I admit, I do crave just 10 minutes alone in the bathroom. I have finally started locking the door to keep the wandering pre-schooler out during my daily ablutions.

I sometimes daydream of a small cabin tucked away in the Colorado Rockies… My hermit's retreat. If I actually lived there alone all the time, would I revel in my precious serenity as a cat twists and turns in ecstasy before finally lying down? Or would I be overcome in a seemingly endless boredom. Why read that book or piece that quilt or write that short story now, when I have a thousand more days just like today in which to accomplish something? Or nothing at all!
PROCRASTINATION: Constant companion of the bored or the catalyst for the productive.

As it is…my life is 180 degrees from a hermit's life in a secluded cabin. I suspect yours is too. Sometime between all of the "Mommmeee!" 's and the "Honey, where is the…" I try to find time just to shower and get my make-up on. Forget about trying to write anything, sew anything or be creative in any way. Sometimes after the homework is completed, swim practice over, supper cooked and eaten, kitchen cleaned, and laundry folded, paperwork completed and checks written… I do manage to get a few thoughts on paper. Even now as I write, I have locked myself into the bathroom and am sitting on the cold tile floor with pencil and pad.

Living within the confines of the family dynamic, I must say, there is such rich fodder for the written word. The family is such an interesting place to reside… to observe every emotion you could ever hope to conjure on paper…love, anger, jealousy, selflessness and selfishness, fights and more fights and that's just the kids…

So… cold-tiled floor withstanding, I wouldn't trade my life for the hermit's…after all, I am who I am by virtue of the stresses in my life. What does that writer-hermit write about anyway????