I don’t know why I thought about the title so early, or for such a short amount of time. The title which I decided upon then (early October 2008) was Sunflowers, and it looks like it will probably be the final title.
The short version of how I chose Sunflowers as my book’s title is that one of the pictures above my desk was of Shane taking a picture of a sunflower field somewhere in South Dakota on the way to Mt. Rushmore.
The long version is only slightly more complicated. It involves the meaning those Sunflowers Shane was photographing held for me:
Why I don’t like stopping on trips
Man, I can be a real bitch sometimes. If I am on my way to a place many hours away by car, I can’t help but count every minute we would lose if we stopped to pee, to get gas, or even to eat. On this trip, we had an itinerary that made sense and was — short of any unexpected traffic — completely reasonable. But 4 days into the trip we were already arriving hours late to each of our destinations. Sometimes only 1 or 2 hours, other times 3 or 4 hours, but every time I would curse under my breath that we couldn’t figure out a way to arrive when we said we would, especially if it inconveniences another person who is graciously hosting us.
In this particular case, with the sunflowers, we were on our way to see Mt. Rushmore before camping nearby. This drive would take us nearly the entire length of South Dakota, which should only take about 5 hours; 5 hours was nothing on a trip that would routinely see us driving 8 or more hours straight between destinations. We got off to a late start after finding out the hard way that it takes more than an hour to pack the car back up, eat some breakfast, change, wash faces for those that believe in such things, and get on the road. That’s fine: we allowed for some generous leeway in our itinerary on most days.
On this day, however, we found a way to stretch a 5-hour drive into something more like 7ish hours before arrival. This was due to a combination of sunflowers, gassing up Katrina, eating, and a freaky place called “Wall Drug.” The real killer for me though were those damn sunflowers. I couldn’t think of a more useless way to waste our time, at least that’s how I was thinking at the time the idea was proposed to stop and take pictures of the giant things. I didn’t really have a say in the matter though, because I was in the back seat.
So there we were, on the side of the road, Shane taking pictures of sunflowers, Zach too, and Ben taking pictures of Shane taking pictures. And me sitting in the car fuming to myself about how much sooner we could be there, watching cars whiz by at breakneck speeds while we stood still.
Why my attitude sucked
Looking back, I realize that those sunflowers represented everything that the trip was supposed to be about. We were on a trip to see the United States, to see whatever we could possibly see in 3 weeks of that massive country, and I was more worried about sitting down and relaxing knowing that we’re on schedule and where we thought we would be at the time we thought we would be there.
I regret being such a stubborn jerk when it came to the sunflowers, and other stops like them. So choosing the title Sunflowers serves as a reminder of what was important, and that sometimes it is for the best to “stop and smell the flowers,” literally and figuratively, whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Other possibilities
The only other title under consideration currently is Corduroying, borrowing the meaning from the obscure verb form of the word “corduroy”. From the Random House Unabridged Dictionary 2006 Edition:
5. to form (a road or the like) by laying logs transversely.
I love that verb. It gives the feeling that you lay your own life out in front of you as you go along, working hard to keep going on the path you desire. And it is how I like to look at my travels. You make all the plans in the world, but you have to work hard to meet your goals, and just as in building a real log road, your expectations and outcomes change wildly with every bump you encounter along the way.