A Name
On day seven of the young gelding’s tenancy here in Colorado, I woke up still unsure of what to name him. I had been waiting for the right one to come to me, figuring it will just “click” and I will think to myself, “Yes! That’s who you are.” But it hadn't happened. Part of the issue, I think, is my tendency to overthink things, but part of it also is that each time I spend time with him I see another facet of his personality. He is so young and though I think we all have a sense of his kind, trusting soul and his playfulness, he is coming into himself in his new environment and I think as he does we will learn more and more. He certainly is clever and also a quick study.
My initial list had a number of homages to his South Dakota heritage. He comes from the land of the Lakota/Sioux, so names like Dakotah (“friend” or “ally” in Lakota and also a nod to his birthplace) seemed fitting. I realized quickly, though, that in the west there are many horses with some variation of that name, and though I liked it (and Cody for short) it seemed fair to try to think of something a little more original. I then turned to great literary characters, writers, and poets, just because those are my go-to mentors and models. Atticus was a name I considered for a while, but though I am sure this horse has strong moral character, at the moment he needs a nickname that it a little softer and Atty is the nickname of a friend’s son (which can be nice--some of my dearest friends have a son named Rory, named after a mutual friend who is also Rory, so we have Little Rory, Big Rory and Horse Rory). Big Atty sounds like a failed hip-hop name, and when I tried the formal "Atticus" out on him it didn’t quite land, so I went back to the drawing board. I added names in the middle of the night, and over lunch and...well you get the picture.
Today, I settled on Oliver, which is a name I keep coming back to, though I am not sure why. It just seems to fit him, at least Ollie does for now. I have a feeling he will grow nicely into an Oliver; you can see it from certain angles.
*We did a lot of great work in the arena today from grooming to work with the mounting block (so much incredible progress!), but I will put it together in a post with what we do tomorrow when I can capture it with a clearer mind.
