Being on the road for over a week now, I can understand how politicians can feel out of touch. It's a challenge to stay grounded, healthy, in tune with what's real versus what's being fed to me by the media and by my surrounding environment; who's brainwashing whom anymore? Where is the meeting of the minds, what's the truth? It's a navigational challenge that goes beyond my GPS.
The last few days I've crossed paths with both presidential candidates. They were both campaigning in Ohio, just miles from where I landed for the evening. One thing is for sure, no matter where the presidential candidates land - nobody is interested in talking about this election any more. It's over. We are ready to re-connect to what matters without being told we are any lesser for it. We carry on with our business, trying to make it in this world, hoping for a better future.
People are innately good people; Americans are kind and generous. Sure there's fear in there, and that's natural, that's human. I'm pretty sure we all have that in common - even these people we've put on a pedestal. These things I am understanding more and more as I interact with all sorts. This is what I'm seeing.
Coming from the west and entering what most people call the east coast, America from my car window so far looks like this: the beautiful expansive land of farms and prairie express intense (but interrupted) outward support for Trump, scattered excitement for Bernie Sanders in some surprising places (yes, still), and the entirety of the landscape is peppered with little blue Hillary signs mostly close to the more urban areas, though no overwhelmingly fervent support. NOTE! Signage is still quite few and far between as compared to a similar journey in the last two elections.
For the record, this is not a scientific study. I'm not trying to be technical, not trying to be partial, not trying to be political. I'm not taking a poll. I'm not counting. I'm stopping randomly in random places for random reasons. What I'm looking for is something I haven't quite found just yet: an image that, in one shot, captures our time and place alongside the emotive qualities that have penetrated American culture. It's an image that encapsulates a crossroads: of metropolitan and rural places, of colliding cultures within America, of sadness and disunity and change. I'm not just taking pictures of signs, they are just the marker in time that represent a piece of the intensely complex picture that has come to light.
The image I'm looking for is potentially abstract, potentially un-find-able. It's an outward exploration of an inward feeling of an individual's place in our world, of my place in the world, of yours. This image I'm looking for - I'm not sure it exists. Every intersection I reach, I keep my eyes peeled. Each crossroads, each crossing path, I'm still looking.