Five Questions (Question 4)

What Now gave me five questions to answer, and I've been quite pokey in getting around to them, even though (or because?) they're good ones.

Here's the list:
1) What kind of old woman do you think you’ll be? Or would you like to be (if these are two different things)?
2) Do you ever think about writing a non-academic book? What would it be about?
3) What kind of little kid were you?
4) What’s the story with your blog title? I’ve always wondered.
5) What is the current shape or form of your spiritual life?

I'm going to start with the easy one: Question 4.

What's the story with the blog title? (That's a question I want to ask so many bloggers!) Two years ago, I found myself suddenly, overwhelmingly depressed. My brother shared with me his blog, and I immediately wanted to try blogging for myself. For some reason, I started thinking about an exhibit I’d seen of Yoko Ono’s early work, an exhibit called “Yes, Yoko Ono.” My brother hadn’t seen the exhibit with me, but I’d sent him a Yoko Ono book, because he was graduating and because I wished he could have been there. The Yoko Ono book was about getting un-stuck and seeing the world in fresh ways. In my funk, I wished that I had bought a second copy of the book for myself. Instead, I set up a blogger account called “Yes, YelloCello.”

YES was an homage to an Ono piece that required viewers to scale a ladder so as to read a tiny square of paper glued to the ceiling. The paper bore just one word, a whisper in 10-point font: "yes."

The YELLO was a lament for the grim, sunless place I was living. I liked how, without the “w,” the word could stand for sunlight and protest.

CELLO is my favorite instrument in all the world. It is the instrument I took up when I was starting my life all over again back in 1999/2000. Alas, lifelong devotion to an instrument doesn’t always translate into natural talent! Bizarre though this may sound, I sometimes feel like a cello. Or maybe I feel that a cello — in moods pensive, bold, giddy, or melancholy — could speak for me.