***

This is how I learned that America, while beautiful, is in profound ways deeply broken.

Miles, lots of miles, overland; so naturally, an American byway I’ve traveled and paused to photograph is how my little personal webspace must begin.

While the next picture in the camera was the (then) untraveled terrain ahead, this particular photograph looks back, over the road just traveled; it’s an apt metaphor for how we got here. (Though no doubt this little gray space of mine will look forward quite often as well.)

Despite having spent the better part of the last decade writing and traveling around North America, (constantly in some relation to the net), I’ve never really bothered with my own personal webpage before now. I’ve never tried to corral my disparate notions or facets of my writings into one singular space, so if this comes out a bit disjointed (chronologically, topically, geographically, etc.) it’s purely due to the multitude of ways in which my own life is so deeply varied (and at times conflicted).

I’m not a website designer, nor brilliant writer, certainly not as structured writing goes, anyway. I was once accused of being the best ’stream of consciousness’ writer a certain friend of mine had ever read, but I’m not altogether certain that’s a useful thing in the real world.

No, when I write, it usually has more to do with the burning necessity of getting words and ideas out of me. If I’m lucky enough to find someone on the receiving end, getting those ideas beyond me, beyond a friend or two, out into the world; well, it never ceases to amaze me, in no small part because I’m aware of how I oftentimes approach things quite differently, due to the very nature of who I am and where I’ve been. I’m quite happily a demographic of one, (not unlike “Tigger”).

Mainly, though, I write because I’ve been (happily!) accused of making people think, and on a few rare occasions even change their minds about people or things, and in this day and age, in America, when it comes to politics, sex and religion, that’s a rare feat indeed.

But the road? Well, the road is the one constant. It is both how I became who I am, and how I came to understand what little inklings I have about what went wrong along the way.

Airplanes and trains are all very well and fine, at times romantic and convenient and all, they may take you there, but without spending time, lots of time in ‘flyover land’ I don’t think it’s possible to come to some of the conclusions I have.

So as a starting place, I am Sabina. Although these days, I often sign some of my political writings “Stormcoming”. I’ve worn many names, but these two are enough for the here and now.