What’s in a Name?

    Okay, first of all, let me explain the name.  A few years ago, during one of my many, many talk therapy sessions, my counselor asked me to make three lists: one with at least ten adjectives that I liked, one with at least ten present participles (verbs ending in “ing”) that I liked, and one with at least ten nouns that I liked.  Alright, so, not that hard, but I was feeling pretty grumpy at the time (I was in talk therapy for a reason after all), so I went ahead and chose such inspiring words as muddy, cantankerous, weeping, and door.  But then the better part of me got the better of me (I can’t explain it, but somehow it usually does), and I started choosing words like expanding, soaring, chanting, sunshine, music, rife, compassionate, and succulent. 

    So I brought these words to my sainted counselor, and she told me to write each word down on a small piece of paper, keeping each category separate, in it’s own pile.  Then she asked me if I wanted to hear a slightly off-color and possibly politically incorrect joke.  I’m pretty sure my face was a mixture of bemusement and bewilderment as I shrugged and said, “What the hell?”  So she told me about a young man who goes to see his tribe’s shaman to ask how each person in the tribe gets his or her name.  And the shaman explained, “When a baby is born, the shaman goes to visit it, and the first thing the shaman sees as he exits the infant’s home becomes the newborn’s name.  So, why do you ask, Two Dogs Screwing?”

     And then my counselor asked me to pick, without looking, one piece of paper from each of those three little piles. 

    Audacious Singing Moonlight—my new moniker, for what purpose I couldn’t then imagine.  Even now, it’s seems a tiny bit erroneous and not a little, um, what’s the word . . . new-age-y?

    I suppose I can deal with the Singing bit  It’s a little sappy, but the truth is that I am a singer and I love singing. 

    Moonlight?  Well, my given name is Diana, so I guess I come by that one fairly honestly as well (vampire narratives notwithstanding). 

    But Audacious?  I’m really not very, if at all.  I’m a rule follower.  I even obey the speed limit—most of the time.  And I’m scared of just about everything—starting this blog for instance.  But you know, it could have been worse.  I had clandestine and sweaty on that list of adjectives, too.  My new alias could have been Macabre Laughing Tree.  No kidding.

    So I guess I’ll just have to find a way to grow into this Audacious Singing Moonlight persona.  And, if you’re up for it, I invite you to come with, to read along as I challenge myself to write this blog in not more than one hour per day (I have other, hopefully more profitable, writing I’m supposed to be doing), but to also keep it fresh and meaningful and, well, good writing.  I bid you to accompany me as I dare myself to express my audacity (it must be in there somewhere) and to sing my moonlight.

    Oh, God help me, I really am sappy.  (Sigh.)