Someone once told me that we should never name an animal or an object. Instead, we should try to figure out what the name already is.
I find that notion intriguing. Are some things easy to name only because we’ve simply hit upon the name that already belongs to them in some cosmic sense?
Yesterday, for example, my husband and I were skiing, and suddenly he stopped, put his fingers to his lips in a “shhhhh” gesture, and motioned me to come forward quietly. There, on the other side of the small bowl, were two gigantic moose. Their racks were enormous and shiny, as if they had been polished. They actually gleamed in the sunshine. It was an awesome sight—awesome in the traditional, not slangy, sense of the word.
On the way home, I started calling the moose Felipe and Myron. I didn’t have to think about it. It just seems that their names are Felipe and Myron.
Some things are easy to name, and some are not. Maybe the easy ones are simply a discovery, not a naming. I drove Vivian Volkswagen for years, and it seems that her name was Vivian from the moment I got her. My follow-up car, though, a nondescript used Oldsmobile Firenza, resisted every attempt to name her. It seems that she just didn’t have the personality for it. But then I mentioned my new car to an acquaintance, and he said, “Oh, the PTA mom’s car out there? That’s yours?” Forevermore, she became “The PTA Mom’s Car.”
I grew up on a farm with many dogs, and one of them was always called “The Dog.” We tried to call him by his name, “George,” but it never stuck. He was always “The Dog.” Maybe the problem was that “George” wasn’t really his name. Maybe he was really, at heart, a “Charlie” or a “Spike” and we just didn’t know it.
Now I’m wondering about my Subaru. I’ve been calling it “The Subaru”—such a cold thing to call such a friendly car with such wonderful heated seats. I suspect that it’s giving me hints as to its identity, and I just need to pay more attention. Someday it will let me know its name.
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