The Gathering of Names

I never really noticed the Carolina Jessamine, despite its abundance, until a friend gave me the name. Suddenly, I was aware of every one, thousands of them.  They had been there all along, of course, but unnamed things are easy to ignore.  It is for this that I gather names.  I do not wish to walk blindly through the world around me, never pausing to consider the anonymous life around me.

​Names are like a magical pair of eye glasses that bring a sudden focus.  I can see at last! I want to exclaim.  And behold! The wonders around me that I, presumably, have been missing all along. This is universal, I believe.  By which I mean, it is not just for plants.  For example, I once had never heard of Kratom.  Then, a friend-a recovering heroin addict-explained its use in recovery to me, and suddenly, I began to see “Kratom” advertised ubiquitously.  It had been this way for a long while, of course, but my ignorance of such made me blind to it.

I suppose the same must be true of people, as well.  I am a strong believer in name tags, especially in service establishments.  This allows me to suddenly see “Clarissa” or “Josue” instead of blindly checking out my groceries without even noticing an actual person there (don’t even get me started on self-checkout!).  And once I know Clarissa as a person rather than just the cashier, it’s likely that I’ll see her in other capacities in the community.  You know, a human with an actual life beyond her job at the grocery store.  

And so, I go about gathering names these days.  Trying to move slowly enough to discern the world around me, to keep the magical spectacles in place.

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