Three Americas (and counting...)

We’ve just spent four days driving over a thousand miles across five states. And I still haven’t seen anything that makes me think I’m in the same country as New York City.

I mention this because tonight we’re in Roanoke, Virgina – a little more than 200 miles from Washington DC, a paltry 400 (or so) from NYC itself. Things are becoming compacted as the nation gets squeezed up into its New England natal tract, like galaxies shrinking as Time is rewound towards a colonial Big Bang. After driving across Texas in the Spring, and managing to drive out of the Lone Star State on Saturday, this is a heady experience. Tomorrow I think we hit four states in one trip – I may explode.

I think – and I'm still exploring so I may well change my mind – that there are three Americas. Please let me know if I’ve missed any.

There’s the Wilderness: the deserts of Western Texas, the empty prairies, the endless mountains and forests that we have driven through today, all these evoke the vastness and unspoilt natural wonder that was enjoyed for so long by the Native American Indians, and which so enraptured the European settlers who came after. Such awesome vistas are not unique to North America, let alone the USA. But the nature of the ‘discovery’ of this continent and the idea of the ‘New World’ are such unshakeable cornerstones of modern western culture that it is impossible not to look on these deserts, mountains and forests as anything other than an echo of an earlier world, untainted by the mistakes of developed human society. It’s powerful stuff that does ‘catch the heart off-guard, and blow it open.’

Secondly, there’s Small Town America. My least favourite bit, because I have my own prejudices. Nearly everybody I know comes from a small town of some sort, and it seems to be the most prevalent of the Three Americas. I don’t like it because, to me, it is either a) the Wilderness Spoilt or b) New York Under-developed. Small Town America is not so very different from Small Town Anywhere Else except that it must always hint at the wondrous pre-colonial continent, whilst simultaneously lacking the effervescence and vibrancy of the metropolis. This is also where I live: Houston, albeit a vast city, is merely the biggest Small Town I’ve ever seen.

Thirdly, but maybe not lastly – I’ve still much to discover – there’s New York, of course: the Metropolis. I haven’t been to Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or Chicago but all great American cities have this in common: their towers were raised from the soil of the New World and propelled into the sky by myriad different peoples, from Europe, Africa and Asia. Their ambitions, stories and traditions continue to mix and overlap each other in these exciting places. They are incredible human achievements.

I feel familiar now with the boundary between the America of the Wilderness and that of the Small Towns. We made this journey again, today, this time from the forests of the Smoky Mountains to the curvaceous farmland of Virginia.

As we move further north, I hope, I’ll be able to join the dots, to understand how these both can be connected to Metropolitan America.