American Winds
September 2015
Heart broken from a city and hating the things I've done to people. Confused and lost with little to hope for, I decided I needed to get out of Toronto and drive. To discover some truth that I've never known and maybe live the cliche of finding myself. Well I never did find myself but I saw things I still wrestle with and maybe that's why I've put off for three years to share those things or maybe it's laziness.
High hopes and excitement started me off. A weight was lifted and I felt limitless in my exploration of America’s west. Images flashed in my memory of the bright and colourful pages in National Geographic’s vivid magazines. Travel advertisements of green mountains and crystal lakes with wide smiles of those that go there. “The West” as how marketing professionals would have it- glossy and picturesque. How could I not only see beauty on this trip?
The American West seemed as different and as far as I could go to escape. To drive freely and with excitement of being detached from what I was leaving behind. Along the trip though I felt loneliness and fear. I saw abandoned towns with gutted houses. No one was to be seen, with everywhere eerily void of sound. The wind slowly decaying the wood was all that I could hear. I also saw beautiful vistas and towering rock structures. The wind shaping slowly these ancient monuments. This duality confused me: how in the presence of undeniable beauty be so close to a feeling of loss and emptiness. Pass lives of families with hopes and dreams seemed to be all but forgotten, left in ruins of their old crumbling homes. The air was hot and dry but the chill on the back of my neck was all I could feel.
As I drove away from Chicago and all the traffic, I swept into rolling hills and farmlands in Iowa to Nebraska. I came upon a small towns. Everything had a stillness as the fog held in place the fields and the old cars from another generation. I felt peace.