What's in a Name?

Juliet famously asks this question after meeting her star crossed lover, and asks us if a rose would smell so sweet if it was called, say, “frog”. Though Shakespeare seems to think a name means little (or at least lets his heroine believe so), I disagree. A name means a lot. A name is how we're known, how we're identified by friends and family and how we present ourselves to our society. I'm a firm believer in names. Do I think names predetermine our futures? Maybe not, but I think names are important and deserve thought and time. That being said, my poor children will probably lay around nameless for God knows how long, while I “try on” possible names for them. Hope they like “baby” in the meantime.

Though perhaps not as important as living things, a blog deserves a good name too. And THIS blog deserves a really good name. For years, I have dreamed of going on a road trip. And by road trip, I mean Road Trip. In high school I wrote short stories about road tripping cross country and learning about not only oneself, but the world in which we live (embarrassingly enough, I'm not joking, that's really what they were about. Most of my stories also involved red jeeps....guess I haven't changed much). In college, I planned road trips, mini-road tripped to Ohio, Virginia and Philly, and often thought of simply using 4 wheels to escape whatever ailed me. Needless to say, road trips have long appealed to me, so when Kt mentioned going to California this summer, and I shuttered at the thought of another stagnate summer in Florida, a neon sign lit in my mind and the words it so beautifully flashed were: Road. Trip. Kt was game and our plans began to form.

It was not until this weekend when things finally calmed down enough for both of us to be able to sit down and start planning definitively. We breakfasted Saturday and, while sipping coffee and sneaking bites of blueberry pancakes, we began to actually write down our plans. Later that afternoon, between booking our hotel in New Orleans and yelling out names of random cities that called to us, “Loving, New Mexico! We have to stop there!” Kt began loading her new iPod with music. Now, if you've spent more than twenty minutes with me, you're probably aware of my Counting Crows/Adam Duritz obsession, (I. LOVE. THEM.) so when August and Everything After began playing, I felt some sort of divine intervention. As we planned, and sang along with Adam, so many feelings ran around in my head...road trip....3,0000,0000,008 things to see....California...the Painted Desert...Mt. Rushmore?...I can go anywhere. I am about to live the life I imagined. (So cheesy I just gagged, but so true it had to be said).

The Counting Crows' song, Omaha, is a song about starting over, life going on, and beginning again even when we think we can't. It's a sort of redemption song about what really matters, as opposed to all the crap that usually chokes us up, messies up our lives, and distracts us, or makes us feel worthless. Like when we think we'll never achieve those things we dreamed of, when life begins to get monotonous, or when we want to get our money back at the door, Omaha reminds us there is another; there's more. It's also an ironic song, because while seeming to deep-down offer hope, at times, it definitely seems more hopeless. But, man, I love my irony. And in that vein, the irony was not lost on me when Kt and I loudly sang, “Omaha, somewhere in middle America...” It was also no coincidence when Kt later sent me a link to Roadtripusa.com with the comment: “Start threading the needle”, as that's exactly what we're about to do as we sew our paths, stitch by stitch, across the middle, outside and inside of America. As that phrase keeps repeating itself, I realized...that's the name. So tonight, as I book our home away from home campsite in the Grand Canyon, I realize, I'm threading that needle, I'm putting one more connection, making one more stitch through this crazy life, and that's what names are all about. Connection.

So, what's in a name? Quite a lot.