I’ve always hated it.
I guess that hatred is part of the more melancholy side of my personality: change marks history. What is former is forever and permanently relegated to the past and, unless the change is Needed, and Anticipated, and Good (like, say, having your baby finally sleep through the night), that which is former might be–always–missed.
Maybe you don’t share this view.
You are probably All The Healthier for it.
But despite my hatred of change, I have made one. Yes, I Have.
Do you see it?
I’ve changed the name of this blog. And I’m not sad about it At All.
I never really loved the name of the blog. It wasn’t, for one, clever. And I Love Clever. My friend Beth has a clever name for her blog: OJ. And it isn’t about orange juice. It’s about her darlings, Olivia and Jack. So her blog is named for them, and the name is Very Clever. And Lynne’s blog is clever, too. It began because her family was adding a fourth child to their family via adoption. So the blog is named for that addition, and it is taken from a wonderful poem by A.A. Milne: “Now We Are Six.”
Clever.
“Birches,” on the other hand, I took from a poem of the same name by Robert Frost. It’s a great poem. The imagery is rich, the language simple, the interpretations many. I love that poem. But its application to my blog is, for most readers perhaps, vague and, frankly, insignificant.
Not that it has to be significant. But Still.
And then there’s the other reason to dislike the name “Birches,” and this came to me via a friend who was trying to be helpful and funny at the same time. He pointed out that the simple exchange of one letter in the word “birches” transforms it to something that many would regard as vulgar.
Hmmm.
When he pointed that out, I decided I Really Didn’t Like the name anymore.
But that was over a year ago.
And then, this morning, it hit me. I knew I would change it to what it is now, and that would be Good.
I’ve loved the verse for a long time. It has been the signature under my name in my e-mail for years. I love it because it reminds me that, no matter how I love it Here, no matter how seriously I take myself, no matter, really, what I think about anything, All Of This Present Here And Now is only a hint of what is Real. It is representation at best, a mirror’s reflection, the shadows cast upon the wall of Plato’s cave.
And so I’ve made this change so that I can be further reminded of what I long for: the time when I shall see Him Face To Face.
Happy New Year.
