Since losing my mother at the age of 15, I've found myself trying to unravel the mystery of who she was as a woman, a teenager and a little girl. There are many ways to navigate this murky terrain. My main source of information comes from her photo albums. Through these photographs, I've been able to process my grief and also come closer to knowing who my mother was before she was my mother � as a young girl and as a teenager trying to understand herself.

Born in 1936 in Knoxville, Tenn., ShirLee Caldwell came of age in the late 1940s and early 50s. My mother was a typical Southern belle. Perfecting her beauty and manners became her duty as a woman; she embraced this process with a passion. This passion wore off on me only in my art. Theatrical photography has been a very safe place for me to experiment with the many different roles available to us as women.

In my first series about my mother I'm wearing a ball gown she wore to her last social function. I play with the idea of the fairy tale ball and the dream of a young girl hoping to be discovered by her dream man. For my mother, who was married eight times, this theme was a constant in her life.

The second series also uses the ball gown as the main symbol. Here I want to explore the realm of death and rebirth � both my mother's and mine. I also try to release myself from my anger and her anger � from my pain as an only child left motherless (and fatherless) and her pain as a mother leaving this world and her daughter.

In the third series I want simply to get closer to her as a girl � to find a common ground we share. Here I use projections of photos from her childhood. I have created an installation which I can enter, and which she can enter as well. The main theme is the frustration of stretching as far as I can back into these fragments of her history � almost touching her but not being able to completely bond with her.

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Monikers for Meowers/span>
by Karin Schuchman

�So who do we have here today?� �Scrotie.� �That�s an unusual name. How did you choose it?� �My boyfriend named him; it�s short for �scrotum.�� Warning � cat naming is not something to be taken lightly. Most people take the task of naming a child very seriously, so why would naming a pet be any different? You�ll have your friend (hopefully) for well over ten years, and going through the above conversation over and over could become tiresome. Some people feel pet names are not that important -- if you fall into this category, skip to the next article -- and that people who spend time poring over this subject should get a hobby. (I fall into this category, and cats are my hobby.)

I work as an assistant in a veterinary hospital in Minnesota, and I care for my furry companions as if they were my children. I work with clients and their pets on a daily basis and have learned some tips for choosing names. For the purposes of this article I will stick to cat names, although the ideas discussed here could be applied to almost any pet. (Some of the examples given are dog names.) The names mentioned here are real pet names, but I won�t use any client names to protect privacy. My cats are noted by #s 1- 6.

Who gets to name her?
Obviously, since I feel choosing a name is so important, this should not be left up to just anyone. The family should be involved, but try to steer the little ones away from easy outs such as Kitty and Tabby � just tell them you had a cat named Tabby when you were younger, and it would be too sad for you to have another one. (Kids are easy.) My sister used the democratic solution to naming their last dog; everyone in the family wrote down five names and brought them to the table for discussion. Everybody felt involved and agreed on the new name � Miles.

Keeping vs. changing
Sometimes, when you get a cat from the Humane Society (which I highly recommend) or a friend, he already has a name that you may not like. I think it�s easy to change a cat�s name, because half the time they don�t listen to you anyway. When I adopted my cat Alle (#3) from the Humane Society, I just changed the spelling to make it my own. Sometimes a name has to be changed after it has been chosen, since it is often hard to tell the sex of very young kittens (and that�s a whole new article.) Ten years ago, I rescued a five-week old kitten and wanted to name him Eddie, but I was told he was female. Eddie became Eduina, then just Duina. After a trip to the vet, I found out Eddie would have been fine, but by then Duina (#1) had stuck.

Traditional names: Max, Buddy, Tigger
Let�s face it, there are a thousand Buddys out there � do we really need another one? These names are fine for the average cat owner, and some of them can be really sweet, just not that creative. If you have a family member bent on a traditional name, try adding another name or a title to it to make it more fun. Lord, Baron or Lady are guaranteed to spice up an everyday name. My husband and I joke about naming our children �Mittens� and �Mr. Whiskers.�

�People� names: Agnes, Charles, Sam
Some �people� names lend themselves well to cats and some don�t. I don�t completely understand the nuances of this; I guess it has more to do with gut feelings than any kind of logic. Write to me in care of Nervy Girl! if you need help with specifics. Some common names work well, like Zoe (#2), but they are just that � common. Try something more unusual for fun: Otto, Isabella, Clyde, Mordiecai (#5). Some names that really don�t work: John, Stacy, or Chris.

Descriptive names: Genius, Melonhead, Walking Rug, Puddles...
These can be a lot of fun, and kids seem to pick them more than others. These sometimes take a while to reveal themselves, since you have to get to know the cat first. I fostered a cat for the Humane Society that was hit by a car, and she earned the name Roller Girl (#4). My favorite: Sticks-Out-Tongue.

Funny/Unusual names: Acorn, Tibet, Broccoli, Cloudy, Artemis...
This list could go on and on, and it is the most dangerous of all categories. This is the area where spouses get embarrassed at saying their pet�s name out loud. Great sources for these names are geography and the media � especially movies (i.e. Roller Girl). Do you remember the head orangutan from the original Planet of the Apes? Dr. Zaius (#6).

Nicknames and middle names
Once you�ve chosen a regular name for your cat, the nicknames aren�t far behind. Peanut becomes Nut then Nutty-nut-nut, and sometimes nicknames get used more often than the pet�s given name. Just a note from the veterinary receptionist�s point of view...use the cat�s original name when you call for an appointment, otherwise we spend forever trying to find your file. Middle names are nice to honor someone � we gave our two newest boys our father�s names as their middle names. We let Zoe keep her Humane Society name as her middle name (Topaz) to remember her roots. Match up the rest of them: Gretel (#3), Elmore (#1), George (#5) and Ramon (#6). I�m still trying to decide if Roller Girl needs a middle name.

Well, by now you know how many cats I have, and that I might have a little too much time on my hands to spend thinking about names. Just remember: Your friend is just as unique as a person and deserves a well-chosen name.

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The Presence of the Past
by Joanna Present Wolfe

�To say THE TIGER is to say the tigers that begot it, the deer and turtles devoured by it, the grass on which the deer fed, the earth that was mother to the grass, the heaven that gave birth to the earth.�
- Jorge Luis Borges

��with everything that we do alone, without supporters and participants, we begin (her) who we shall not live to know, even as our forbears could not live to know us. And yet they, who are long gone, are in us, as predisposition, as burden upon our destiny, as blood that pulsates, and as gesture that rises up out of the depths of time.�
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Not Alone
I was looking at some art � dismembered parts of a Mickey Mouse assembled on white gravel like stones in a japanese garden, specifically. I meditated on it. Even when we appreciate something like a foreign art form, we see ourselves in it. We project ourselves; we see through the lens of our culture. It�s inevitable. I heard the receptionist on the phone in the next room, clear as a bell: �Mom and Dad.�
Sometimes I find I don�t know myself. I will be charismatic, inspired, romantic�transgressive, disloyal, insensitive�Hi Dad. I will find my comfort zone in fear and cower from the ones I love. Hi Mom. In my efforts to have intimacy, my abilities and failures all go back to my earliest relationships. What drives me? My �natural emotional responses� often prove, in retrospect, to be conditioned emotional responses, patterns. What may strike me first as an intrinsically spiritual connection often ends up being a deliberate construction on the part of a psyche trying to meet other needs. I can choose a belief system in which I find sense and beauty, but when I am most vulnerable, how do I act? What do I say? How do I survive? Hi Mom, Hi Dad.
The question of whether we are doomed to repeat the past is scoffed at by many of us idealists, feminists, self-created Americans. After all, this culture of ours was founded on the premise that we create our own destinies. But the individual, willful though she may be, still had to come from someplace, someone, something. In Tibetan Buddhist thought, there is a central concept called �dependent uprising.� It says that no element exists separate from those which caused and created it. In many indigenous cultures, ancestor worship is a central tenet of religious practice. In some parts of Africa, ancestors are revered as gods and prayed to daily. The voices that resonate from the past to the present are honored rather than denied, and great power (or great fear!) can be drawn from this connection.

Exercise 1:
Create a family tree. Write what descriptive words most vividly capture the essence of each person in your family � charismatic, verbal, disloyal; cowardly, beautiful, psychic; etc. Notice which traits you feel most strongly about, like or dislike, approve or disapprove. Ask yourself the question, �How does this trait manifest in me?� Write down your answers.

Exercise 2:
Belief system. What do you feel is important, meaningful, noteworthy? Write a list of ten words that come to mind. Perhaps some of the traits you find in Exercise 1 are clues to what you find intrinsically worthwhile. Write a few sentences on why you consider each of your ten precepts important. Note if the value is based on an unquestioned belief that you inherited or one you consciously chose. If you chose it, did you choose it as a reactionary response to an unquestioned belief in your family?

Exercise 3:
Heirloom Recipes. Cooking has been a central element of daily life far beyond anyone's memory, particularly for women. Food is a fundamental which can connect us to memory in uncanny ways; we humans remember best through our sense of smell. Find a recipe that's been in your family for at least two generations. Your grandmother or great-grandmother made this dish. It can be a staple or a special occasion dish. Choose whatever inspires you and feels most familiar. Now, you make it. Follow the directions, use the same ingredients...pay attention to how you feel.

When I finally see how some of what I have inherited does not serve me, I understand that self-knowledge is of central importance. But what exactly is me in this collage of traits and impulses? What is my authentic �nature�? How much do my family and culture define me? How far does my individuality go? If I am going to be honest, I have to start with total uncertainty. It takes a lot of courage to let go of the comfortable illusion of knowing. It�s a risk. It is humbling. It brings up lots and lots of questions. But from this place, sometimes I can see where my thoughts come from. �My� thoughts. My expectations, my judgments, my fears. I can smile lovingly: Hi Mom, Hi Dad. The presence of these thoughts may be inevitable, but my response to them is distinctly my own.

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