Why Minerva?

That's the first question I'm asked. Where did the name Minerva come from? It came about because I was a bookworm stuck on Greco-Roman mythology. As I bored my family silly with a comparison of the whole pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses to the Roman equivalents, my father said "you've graced us with enough wisdom for one night, Minerva," and sent me to bed. Embarrassed by the dismissal and detesting the name itself, I forbade my family from ever calling me by that name again. I mean, although Jennifer was the most generic name for a girl born in the early 1970's, Minerva was so unique that it landed on my worst names of all time list. I hated it. And because I hated it, naturally it stuck. As I grew older, I stopped minding so much. After all, Minerva (known as Pallas Athena to the Greeks), was the goddess of wisdom, poetry, medicine, commerce, crafts, and the inventor of music. Pretty impressive attributes for an ancient female deity. Ovid called her the "goddess of a thousand works." And seriously, there are days when keeping up with my family requires a thousand works. So although I don't hold any religious significance to the goddess the ancient Romans named Minerva, I wish I had most of her attributes. Life's too short for me to learn all I'd like to know and do all I'd like to do. But I'm always trying. Wisdom is not gained by a degree, but little by little in degrees. So I've named my blog, not after what I am, but what I'd like to become. And after all, doesn't every woman want to feel like a goddess sometimes?