We speak a language of distraction to ignore the world around us. We miss moments of Americana metaphorically reflective of a troubled and isolated psyche: the abandoned train, evening traffic on wet roads, or a sunset over a busy highway. The American identity resides in these moments, not in vacuous status updates or tweets. Those are merely welcome diversions used to avoid looking away from the computer screen, and out the window at the America we've created.
The American landscape has harsh, even unsightly moments. However, those same moments often provide powerful and poetic tableaux, where our humanity is most highlighted. It is an experiential paradox, where the scenes that are often ignored or dismissed are the ones most acutely expressive of the desolation and longing we feel. Be it a herd of trucks struggling to keep warm, or school buses stranded in a flood, these vehicles become characters - anthropomorphized - representative of our own desperation for connectedness.