My bubble of safety. It smells slightly of peppermint and processed air. Nestled in the slick suede of the passenger seat, no past or future, fairies or demons, or the weather's impalements can interrupt me; I am 60mph invincible down the highway expanse. I relax and sink into the dependable drone of automotive horsepower. But whether my seatbelt straps me to safety or chains me to a wicked, superficial utopia, I do not know.
I am leaving small-town U.S.A. There was nothing good in our town except maybe [name] Medical Hospital, our constantly expanding modern amenity that earned most of its revenue from the obesity of our residents. We had our centers of pleasure: the bowling alley and rollerblading rink, a Wendy's and a Subway franchise, a few old places to buy things. A circuit through our main street took you past the FNB bank, the craft store, the shop windows of the Dollar Store and the Sal Val. The Old Forge wafted an intoxicating smell of beer and hamburgers in your face, the scent bounded under a silhouette of sagging power lines touted by interspersed wood poles. We refer to that main street of town as Downtown, but that is a misnomer. [name of town] contains no direction of up or down, past or future. In an effort to be less boring, some nights I convinced my mom that she needed to drive to Wal-Mart to buy some groceries. If it worked, we slammed the screen door of our modest one-story home and drove the fifteen minutes over to Pennsyltucky's Consumer Capital.
Here comes the dream. The ignition starts. The purple van whizzes through the night, its highway path lit by fluorescent orange markers and forest trees in a hallucinogenic rolling film. The Eggplant, as we nicknamed my mom's van, didn't have the greatest aerodynamics, but in the spontaneity of night, the clunky engine became a saddle horse and a rocket. It synergized the old, good notion of acceleration on as a rider on its horse, and the rocket's soared on a fantasy impromptu that transcended smalltown routines. The windowshield fights a voracious battle against the unforgiving air friction, nothing giving way, a race in all thought and machine.
The lull of NPR emits through stereo speakers, and I blink. There are the curvatures of grey, industrial plastic interior. I feel the hum of tires on pavement. The windows roll a film of purple jagged cliffs and evergreens.
In another hour, I will be leaving this pod and re-entering my campus utopia. How is it possible that just three hours on the road can change everything in my life? As I sit under the seatbelt across my torso, I don't feel like I am in a magical purple van. I feel grounded on the right, strong path, on the movement towards something greater. But while I collect responsibilities and new experiences at [name of school], my reverie takes me back into [name of town], in my simple childhood life in rural suburbia. I had to leave my small town sometime, and now that I am, it's inevitable that I miss it.
But the car is my constant, and I enjoy my mental disjoint from the world for as long as I can. The condensation of my breath forms a light gauze on the glass. I look at my reflection on the glass, the wisps of insects, in the cold air conditioning. Distancing a couple of inches from the crystal, my facial reflection looks back at me.
The rolling film, now showing academic lawns and brick buildings, rolls to its last frame.The volume knob turns on the voices of students and parents and squeaking, clumsy suitcases.
My reverie has ended, my moment of interlude gone past me like the evergreens that lined the highway. My moments of oneness, peace, and simultaneous power are important to me, but I have to divest my power into some type of reality. I stretch, glance out the window, and unclick my seatbelt.
NOTE: this answers common app's "most meaningful place & why"
I am leaving small-town U.S.A. There was nothing good in our town except maybe [name] Medical Hospital, our constantly expanding modern amenity that earned most of its revenue from the obesity of our residents. We had our centers of pleasure: the bowling alley and rollerblading rink, a Wendy's and a Subway franchise, a few old places to buy things. A circuit through our main street took you past the FNB bank, the craft store, the shop windows of the Dollar Store and the Sal Val. The Old Forge wafted an intoxicating smell of beer and hamburgers in your face, the scent bounded under a silhouette of sagging power lines touted by interspersed wood poles. We refer to that main street of town as Downtown, but that is a misnomer. [name of town] contains no direction of up or down, past or future. In an effort to be less boring, some nights I convinced my mom that she needed to drive to Wal-Mart to buy some groceries. If it worked, we slammed the screen door of our modest one-story home and drove the fifteen minutes over to Pennsyltucky's Consumer Capital.
Here comes the dream. The ignition starts. The purple van whizzes through the night, its highway path lit by fluorescent orange markers and forest trees in a hallucinogenic rolling film. The Eggplant, as we nicknamed my mom's van, didn't have the greatest aerodynamics, but in the spontaneity of night, the clunky engine became a saddle horse and a rocket. It synergized the old, good notion of acceleration on as a rider on its horse, and the rocket's soared on a fantasy impromptu that transcended smalltown routines. The windowshield fights a voracious battle against the unforgiving air friction, nothing giving way, a race in all thought and machine.
The lull of NPR emits through stereo speakers, and I blink. There are the curvatures of grey, industrial plastic interior. I feel the hum of tires on pavement. The windows roll a film of purple jagged cliffs and evergreens.
In another hour, I will be leaving this pod and re-entering my campus utopia. How is it possible that just three hours on the road can change everything in my life? As I sit under the seatbelt across my torso, I don't feel like I am in a magical purple van. I feel grounded on the right, strong path, on the movement towards something greater. But while I collect responsibilities and new experiences at [name of school], my reverie takes me back into [name of town], in my simple childhood life in rural suburbia. I had to leave my small town sometime, and now that I am, it's inevitable that I miss it.
But the car is my constant, and I enjoy my mental disjoint from the world for as long as I can. The condensation of my breath forms a light gauze on the glass. I look at my reflection on the glass, the wisps of insects, in the cold air conditioning. Distancing a couple of inches from the crystal, my facial reflection looks back at me.
The rolling film, now showing academic lawns and brick buildings, rolls to its last frame.The volume knob turns on the voices of students and parents and squeaking, clumsy suitcases.
My reverie has ended, my moment of interlude gone past me like the evergreens that lined the highway. My moments of oneness, peace, and simultaneous power are important to me, but I have to divest my power into some type of reality. I stretch, glance out the window, and unclick my seatbelt.
NOTE: this answers common app's "most meaningful place & why"
