Names and Naming (A Tiny Home/Land Development Report)

As I write this, it is exactly one year since I became the official steward of my land.

I am planning to move my tiny home there soon and I am facing the incredible stress of that process. There is almost nothing I find harder than moving. And in this I am not alone. Moving, losing a loved one (to death or heartbreak) and starting a new job are frequently cited as the three things human beings find most stressful.

But that is not what I want to write about today. No, today is a day for celebration! I have accomplished a great deal in one year. I have shaped my land, thought about my site, assisted in the cutting down of many trees, moved wood and brush and had a driveway excavated. I have gathered the materials I need to start a garden and have gotten a quote on a shed to hook power up to.

Many tasks lie ahead, too. Oh, I keep coming back to that don't I? I am feeling a little daunted these days, I admit.

But, that is not what I want to write about today!

A friend of mine, who is a writer and a storyteller, wrote to me in response to my last blog post, asking me why I had not yet given my land a name.

I responded that I had, but that I had not yet started using the name on my blog. I promised the big reveal would come very soon.

So, here's the story:

There is a quote attributed to Tom Waits that goes like this:

My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day. (If you're in the mood for more unsourced Tom Waits quotes, click here.)

On my three acre plot, there are five magnificent, twisty old pine trees. Two people have to collaborate to give each of these trees a hug. (Three of them I have named Orwen, Orduu and Orgoch, after the fates from the Chronicles of Prydain. Two of them are currently unnamed.)

One of my twisted sisters;
I believe this is a photo of Orduu.

And there is one splendid twisty old maple, whom an 8-year-old friend of mine has dubbed Father Maple.

Father Maple

So, we are namers – me, my friends and my family – and humans in general, for that matter.

I believe human beings name things to help fix their meanings. When I studied psychotherapy back a bunch of years ago, we often used the word hermeneutics to refer to the process of creating meaning through interpretation of the things we read and, by extension, from our feelings and experiences.

So, in honour of a (very possibly, totally fake) "Tom Waits" quote along with the proven truth of how crooked trees survive loggers and the meaning that I interpret from that truth, I have named my land The Crooked Wood.

My Wholehearted House in The Crooked Wood (very soon, I hope!).

I hope my house will always remind me to live life with my whole heart and that the woods will always remind me to honour myself for who I am: unique, somewhat screwed up and absolutely unchoppable.

(This post is most especially for you, Frank! Thanks for asking!)