Shouldn't…but Do

A friend mentioned over the weekend I am strange.  I could not agree more, but simply had to ask why.

I name things.  This computer happens to be Phil.   An old computer?  Fergus.  The composter?  Earl.  And so on.

Quaint.  Animated universe.  Sometimes names don’t stick, and the name falls away, its subject becoming a mere object.  The washer and dryer were like that.

Sometimes the name sticks. The Frost King enables me to buy meat, cheese and breads  at sale prices I can afford, dutifully freezing foodstuffs in an otherwise sweltering garage.

An act of recognition, naming is a spontaneous, primitive act.   Containment.  Essence captured in the walls and ceilings of letters, numbers, notes.  Committed, arranged, decided.  A caged tune.

We grasp, we explore the named, for the landscape there is defined.  Complete with edges – that some people find bothersome – so they change their name, or go by another, a more suitable name, a more suitable landscape.

There are secret names, between lovers, friends or a secret self.  They tread more sacred space, carry more power.

In the vast terrain of the internet, naming blurs, its distinction the ability to confer anonymity.  Without power, without face, safe, undecided, transient identity.

But none of these are why I name.

In my strange mind, to name is to sensorially see, to recognize an other.  A thing named steps forward out of static, out of the rain, steps forward not to be contained, but released from mindless time.  Breathed into existence, reciprocity, regardless of physical state.  Ich-Du, I-Thou, be it Christmas tree, resident garden toad or automobile.

It is not homogeneous transcendence I seek, but archaic correspondence with  glowing bits of a previously unnoticed background, immanence.  To become, one must be held, and let go.  Being is not enough.

And so I name, and so I am strange.

The lawn is high, the gas level in H.H. Silver is low.  Off to procure petroleum products in Buckbeak.  Such is my life.