What’s in a name (continued)?
Gathering, as a theme, feels very apropos for what I want this exercise to capture. It won’t be surprising to most, I am sure, that “Gather” has already been spoken for by many fellow bloggers as well as by restaurateurs, chefs, and other people who came up with that idea first and will no doubt execute it more adeptly than myself.
But as I turned the idea around in my mind, I thought of how the word “gather” has made a home in our language, insinuating itself into some of our most evocative phrases. We gather together. We gather our wits. We gather steam.
In collecting all the phrases I could find related to this idea of gathering, I realized that a number of these phrases touch on ideas of time - how we experience it, how we spend it, and what it means to us - in ways that fell much closer to home than they might have before the pandemic.
MOSS
A picture of a moss-covered stone with a moss-covered log laying on Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
To be very honest, I have never completely understood the meaning of the phrase “a rolling stone gathers no moss”. Apparently I’m not alone; every instance of its use relays a different idea of the value of moss. Was the intention to convey that moss is good, and an itinerant stone loses the opportunity to gather it? Or is gathering moss bad for a stone, and a healthy amount of rolling will keep a stone nice and clean? Are rolling stones hip and free (irrespective of the consequences for those around them?). I suppose this ambiguity is a reflection of the diversity among us and what we find important. But however one values moss, a stone does not roll on its own, nor can a stone be inherently rolling or still. With a big enough lever, any stone can be rolled. But a stone cannot keep itself rolling for long.
For many years of my life I was a rolling stone; traveling frequently and far for work. But I always craved some rootedness. I hated missing the seasons of things that seemed so fleeting and special.
WOOL
A pile of clean but uncombed wool.
Photo by Johnstons of Elgin on Unsplash
The phrase “gathering wool,” on the other hand, seems pretty judgy to me. When people are gathering wool they are distracted, daydreaming, lost in thought - wasting time. The origins of the phrase don’t evoke fecklessness so much as a desperate sort of ingenuity. Enterprising individuals (or perhaps those who simply had few options for earning an income) followed behind the herds of sheep being moved from one pasture to another and picked the bits of wool that had gotten stuck on the brambles and branches they’d passed. A wool-gatherer may have looked aimless to the outside observer; but what could be more resourceful than making use of those pieces left behind? And what is wrong with daydreaming, anyway?
ROSEBUDS
In the mid 17th century, an Anglican cleric named Robert Herrick wrote a poem called “To the virgins, to make much of time”. You may not have heard of Herrick the cleric, or of this particular poem. But you’ve likely heard its opening line: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” The poem is in the so-called “carpe diem” genre; it doesn’t require a close reading of the text to understand why (though you can find the full text here [link] if you’d like one). I will admit that it took me many years of passing familiarity with the line to realize that the poem was about more than the ideal time to collect rosebuds and not wasting the season. Bird in the hand and all that. I was more inclined to wonder what they planned to do with all those rosebuds than to ponder the subtext. Did they use them for tea? To make rosewater? In bonnets?
As it turns out, the poem is more about reminding women not to wait too long to get married and have kids. This revelation did not endear the poem to me; but I still find myself attracted to the phrase. I do love a nice rosebud tea. And whatever one’s plan in life may be (whether it includes marriage, kids, climbing Mount Everest, writing a book, finishing that PhD, learning to ride a motorcycle, finally buying that camper and going on the road, or yes, even starting a blog), I think the past two years have taught us that we may not have forever to pursue those dreams.
Moss, wool, and rosebuds. All things we gather. Moss, when we find our roots and stay in one place. Wool, when we take the time to daydream and make use of the things others have left behind. Rosebuds, when we make the most of the time that we have.
