America

In the summer of '93 I had what I consider to be my experience of America. As mentioned in my previous post, I drove 'cross-country' (from So. Cal. to Oklahoma) with my girlfriend, Michelle, and her family. About 90% of the view on that trip resembled the landscape above. But the wide open expanse struck me. Without having any foreign experiences to compare this to, I still felt that this was a singularly American experience- I don't know how else to describe it. The wide open frontier, that amidst all the overpopulation of places like Southern California, still existed as largely wide and open. And it was accompanied by a soundtrack of a uniquely American band- R.E.M.
The following two songs, Nightswimming and Find the River from their album Automatic For the People, have a quality about them that I think would make you feel nostalgic even if you had nothing to feel nostalgic about. They brought me to a reflective place where I was free to roam in the empty landscape around me. And they helped define America for me- a definition that I cannot express in words, but is a feeling that I get when a I look at pictures like the one above, and listen to the songs below.


Nightswimming


Find the River