What’s in a name?

Much has been written about the significance of our names, both last and first.

Some believe that our names are chosen unconsciously by our parents to reflect some trait. In my case, my first name was an accident. My mother’s favorite sister – the one that she protected the rest of her life when she and said sister were taken across country to live with the cousins when they were not yet 10 and 12 – had a name. Mine was meant to be a derivative of that name, but when the birth certificate came back, it was hers exactly!

(OK my mother’s birth certificate established by her father several months after her birth said that she was a male, but hey before computers things could get mixed up. Of course they still get mixed up but we now have machines to blame instead of people).

I digress.

Last names generations ago reflected in many parts of the world the person’s occupation.

Not a clue what my maiden name was supposed to represent although an internet search today shows that not only were and are there famous people holding that name, but there is also a small cove on one of the Orkney Islands (Scotland) that bears that name as well as a crater on the moon! OK when my parents first went to England way back in the 70s my father was sure that he could turn up some relatives by checking the phone book: at that point there were “only” some 20 pages in the London telephone book bearing that last name! According to Wikipedia it is a lowland Scottish personal name derived from “Adam”.

So a couple of hours later – once I start researching something I get lost online.

Then there is my husband’s last name. The original name was indeed derived from the familial occupation – smithies – they are easier to research as 1) of catholic persuasion, 2) with the exception of my husband and one of his cousins they have remained within a 30-mile radius of Cologne/Bonn in Germany. Still, unless one knows, one wouldn’t realize that the 4 children descended from Schmitz all ended up legally with different last names. The older son kept the simple Schmitz; the daughter married and changed to her husband’s name; my husband legally added his mother’s maiden name as it had died out and his younger brother did the same with the grandmother’s maiden name. Talk about complicated for ongoing genealogical research in 100 years!

Anyway this name often gets totally deformed as we live in a French-speaking area. What started this whole train of thought and the blog is one of the funnier mis-writings of my name. For KLM I am Mme. Schmitz Leaf Fen. I could simply unsubscribe as I haven’t taken a plane all year last year, but it makes me laugh every time I see it so we’ll wait awhile – and I certainly won’t be correcting it any time soon. I mean I love leaves and the thought that I could belong to a “fen” pleases me.

So perhaps my original point – that a name represents, even if subconsciously, a value of the person – is not too far wrong in my case!

Winter Solstice – Hope

“For the Northern Hemisphere, the moment of winter solstice is when the sun's elevation with respect to the North Pole is at its most negative value since the previous December. (The elevation with respect to the South Pole is at its greatest since the previous December). The hemisphere has its longest night and shortest day around the moment of solstice with the night within the Arctic being 24 hours long.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice

Already toward the end of November I personally start looking forward to the winter solstice – when the days will finally no longer get shorter. As luck would have it this year, not only did it fall on a sunny day, but this morning (the day after so to speak) thanks to our warm wind – the Foehn – one would think that winter will never arrive.

Now, we in the Northern Hemisphere know that there will still be dark, gray days; we know that if we are at the appropriate latitude that it will snow; here in Geneva we know that there will be days of our cold wind “La Bise”, but for now, we have hope.

Hope that as surely as the world turns on its axis, the days will lengthen, the nights shorten until we reach the apex six months later of Midsummer’s night. We hope that the coming light will also warm up relationships, will help combat the cold, will lead us to be friendlier.

If there are many celebrations around the theme of light, never mind Christmas, it is probably because since time immemorial mankind needed something to get them through the long dark nights, something to give them hope of better, longer days.

Continuing in the theme of being closer to family and friends, we have already celebrated Christmas, I have accepted many small (and larger) invitations to gather together with others, and as the days grow longer will also get up and get back out on my walking paths. If it isn’t “the mountains are calling and I must go” (John Muir) it is the lake beckoning where I can listen to the wavelets, look at the mountains across the way, observe nature in all its variety.

In the end the Winter Solstice brightens up my life.