[제 2회 드림에세이 수상작] Grace Lee -'Pointed Roofs'

Grade: 12 / High School: Granada Hills Charter High School

Whenever my family and I take a road trip we always manage to take the wrong exit or end up veering onto a whole other freeway. We have to then take an exit and find the entrance to the opposite direction of the highway. This is after we stop pointing in all sorts of directions, claiming each knows the right way, and after we all feel a tinge of hunger or boredom driving past a local eatery only an hour after lunch. While all that may sound entertaining, the best part about going on a road trip with directions memorized by my dad is experiencing a town I would otherwise probably never visit. Although it may lie a mere fifty miles north of where I live, even the slightest details aggregate to make the city seem so foreign to me. The McDonald's in my hometown has a flat roof over it's towering play area; here, the roof has brick red tiles and is pointed; I gape like the stereotype of a country girl visiting Hollywood and act as if I've never seen such a roof before: "Mom, look at the architecture on the roof! What a look this city has." She glances over it quickly, as if I constantly point out unnecessary things, and focuses her attention on getting back on the freeway.

Perhaps I do point out silly things at every wrong exit we take. But by the end of the trip, I wonder if others who stumble into our town think in similar ways. On a larger scale, I wonder if those who find themselves in America from other nations, too, hold the same fascination I have on these excursions. Does a building with a large golden arch serving food in a quick three minutes frighten them? Or if such establishments are familiar to them, how about the 79 cent supersize upgrade option? And how about the too-large-for-our-own-good medium fries? Besides the fact that obesity has become a sad association with our nation, sometimes, our inability to imagine ourselves from an outsider's view is even more alarming. As an American, I find myself so self-absorbed with wearing the latest jeans and finishing my homework so I can socialize on Facebook for hours. It is ridiculous, the amount of time my peers and I spend within the bubbles of our world. We only pick up newspapers once a week for quick 30 minute current event assignments. We bypass the local park and instead roam around the mall we trudged through only last week. Thinking about all the knowledge we are losing about our world, and all the stories we opt not to hear from people in all walks of life is a scarier characteristic of modern America than obesity.

Living in America, however, is not reduced to french fries and ignorance. The saying that America is an opportunistic land holds true despite the problems we face. In fact, the opportunities are so bountiful that all it takes is an open heart to trying new things and an expectation for spontaneity to flip our American story around. A trip spent with family to the woods, a walk to the public library, a visit to Chinatown or a city you've never experienced before. These are simple yet powerful ways to set our minds into a larger scope of the greater world. Who knows what sort of people you might interact with? Who knows what ancient volume of poetry you might chance upon? Living in this blessed country means that despite our temporary blindnesses or shortcomings, a path that liberates us is always readily available. Who knows, for you might just end up amidst strange roofed McDonald's and a renewed perspective about living in America.