What's In a Name

I spent an appalling amount of time deciding that “New Moon Hazel” was the perfect name for my blog. The process, condensed, probably took 48 hours. At first, I was wedded to a phrase I’m not going to disclose here. I didn’t make it up, though it’s far from cliché. But it's such a treasure that I wanted to use it for something big someday, like a book. I also considered using Latin in the title, figuring this would give the whole enterprise some dignity. But you walk a fine line, employing Latin in American English. Ad Astra Per Aspera, I concluded, was waaay pretentious. Dead languages are too much for a medium in which most people can’t get it up for punctuation.

Then I thought in terms of gaining wild popularity. In order to recruit by way of Google the most possible readers, I would make up a good, solid, pornographic title. That would attract everyone from tortured souls to my own friends to conservative congresspersons. Maybe I'd mention Oprah somewhere in there, to snag all the rest. It was a good idea, for half a minute. (In the end, um, ew.)

Next idea, I stole a line from Tennyson. In an effort to refresh my knowledge of nineteenth century British poetry*, I'd been doing some reading. I was especially taken with the poem “In Memoriam”, which Tennyson wrote – struggled with for years – after the death of his best friend. It’s raw and exhausting in the style of a teenager’s epic diary entry, but with literacy.

Listen to this:

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
     Confusions of a wasted youth;
     Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.

Wow! Half prayer, half apology. Dude could write the forward to my autobiography. So I took “Wandering Cries” and made it my title, forgetting temporarily that I was trying to shed my gloomy, perpetually self-and-otherwise-deprecated image. Better not to reference the Brits, then.

This 'New Moon Hazel' thing came to me by chance. I was roaming around a renaissance festival (go for the Shakespeare, stay for the meat) and wandered into one of those vendor tents where crafty people sell weird stuff. There was a display of the Celtic Tree Zodiac. I found that, according to ancient Celtic astrologers, I am represented by the Hazel Tree. Specifically, I'm a new moon Hazel, because I was born in the first two weeks of the Hazel sign. (As opposed to the last two weeks, which go under the full moon designation.) Although I've never believed in astrology totally, I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that both my Leo and Rooster traits are fairly well-pronounced. And this Celtic branch had me even more accurately pegged. Or so I hoped; snippets of the diagnosis told me everything I wanted to hear: “perceptive and clever”, “desire to acquire knowledge”, “great deal of imagination”, “idealistic thinker”, “abundance of nervous energy”, “keen observer of the truth”, “dislike of pretense”, and, my favorite, “excellent debater and writer.” Down with self-deprecation! This identity was exactly what I was going for.

And now - thank you, Blogger - I have it.

* I used to have some, I swear. There was a term paper – when was that? Eighth, ninth grade? Really good stuff, I uncovered. Really good. Really.