Driving

Driving through the southwestern United States has always emoted a romanticized narrative of the American dream. While trudging along, one is inevitably reminded of horse drawn buggies and oxen laden wagons that strewed the streets of many a town within the relatively small scope that is American history, and there is something that elicits a sense of solitude in these thoughts.

There is also something inspiring about the red and blue and pale green pastiche of color that is illuminated by the rising or setting sun in this part of the country. To stand on the high plains and look up at the soaring mountains and plateaus being piercing by the rays of the sun over an uninhabited and pristine landscape is like no other feeling I have experienced.

Maybe this is what pits this country one against the other. There is something I will never be able to call my own and it is the feeling of riding up to the top of one of these plateaus and look out onto the vastness below me and the land that has permanently blistered my hands. Although I can appreciate this feeling, it will never be something that I can own. This feeling of looking out onto the land below and knowing that there is nothing between you and the land.

But at the same time, I have my own. Looking out onto suburbia and feeling complete isolation despite the purported bonds of community that associate most people. While not as romantic as the prior, there is still a profound sense of self satisfaction in knowing that even in the mix of it all, you still have time to find yourself completely engrossed in nothing more than yourself and a personal reflection on your place within your community. The same or something similar can be said for the city dweller.

In a word, introversion comes to mind. More than that, however, it is the sense of independence which is so important to us all as Americans. This will never be taken from the American psyche, but we must also acknowledge how we were able to come about this. As the old saying goes, you can't raise a barn with only one person. The collective is an inevitability. Individualism is not a right, it is a privilege.

As I was driving through the Southwest I took some pictures from a first person perspective. I wanted to document a small portion of the ride and some of the landscapes that truly impacted my impression of this country, if only the purely aesthetic side of it.