Why “Wynds?”

I wasn't regularly called by a diminutive of my name until my social group in college shortened "Lyndsey" to "Lynds." My friend, Sus, took the nickname one step further to an endearment - "Wynds." Usually used in the statement, "Oh, Wynds." (For the full effect, insert appropriate pause after the "Oh" and linger on the long i sound.) Somewhere down the line I learned that "wynds" is a legitimate word and works wonderfully on the Scrabble board.


The phrase "a narrow lane or alley" brings to my mind images of the lanes of Philadelphia, which neither technology nor time have fundamentally changed. Of rutted dirt roads along open fields in the British countryside. Of the alleys that still exist where I live in the semi-rural, semi-urban Lehigh Valley where garages sit directly on the one-car-wide roadways and long yards lead up to porch-covered backs of houses.


I like being a wynd. A functional, off-the-beaten path, no-nonsense, sometimes quaint, sometimes rough, object with a purpose. A connection between two houses, or arguments, or points of view.

I wrote the above definition in early 2008 as the intro to a conceptualized public blog in which I might analyze what happens when I stumble along my path or meet an obstacle coming towards me on that one-car-wide thoroughfare. Thoughts on how to fit my experiences into a larger context. I view history as a process by which a specific is perceived by an audience, set within a context, and then retold. You are welcome to join me on my journey of interpreting, analyzing, and refining that process.