‘On the Road’ and Back Again - Columbia Daily Spectator

I haven't really been anywhere until recently. New York is a chaotic place, and everything I need is in my palm.

In that chaotic place, a train was winding along the west side. Walking all the way to the city is the slowest way for me to get home, but it is the way I take the most. I will get off at Christopher Street across the city and head aimlessly east, past my old library and the local elementary school on the corner of 11th Street and 6th Avenue. If I really want to stray, I can run through the dogs in Washington Square Park and watch for hours at a time. Eventually, I will reach the east and meet the church where I have been living. In the warm months, I used to sit in the courtyard of the church and paint for hours—Ironic, a young Jew found solace in the church.

I grew up only 7.5 miles from my former university dorm. Before I called my nearby home, I knew about the hills and broken concrete in the morning highlands. I can recall the black cherry trees lined up along the old hiking trails in Riverside Park, and the light snow that melted from my boots when the subway jumped over my stop on Sunday. When I trek home, my toes were cold and wet.

Morningside Heights is part of my city, even part of my town, but it still feels like a distant place-a place requires me to take two subway lines and a bus To arrive. It’s close enough to walk a long distance, but the thought of planning a train transfer and exposing myself to the cold bus is enough to get me away.

I mainly read public transportation and feel at ease with the fast rumbling and sardine-like anonymity. I have experienced

For the first time in high school, I went to school in a long Megabus home during the choir journey. At that time, Sal Paradise will always exist, about half the age, but my talent has not turned into blind imitation. Sal caused severe damage at every stop of the journey, but when the M1 bus passed the flickering Christmas lights on Fifth Avenue, I sank into my corner.

I have never been close to Jack Kerouac. He may be considered one of the greatest people in Colombia, but I did not find his experience. When encountering difficulties, Kerouac broke himself. He broke his leg in the second game of the first year of football and moaned until the green grass turned brown and the leaves floated down from the trees. For the remainder of the semester, he did not leave his room in Wallach Hall, and due to his unremitting arguments with the government, he did not participate in other competitions during his career at Columbia University. Even if I wish I did it, I don't think I have it.

I have no empathy for Sal, Kerouac or other manly pages. This is a book designed for financial analysts who want to feel hopeful in the future. I am a pretentious English major and I feel too much, so

Not suitable.

However, since my fate journey on the choir bus, I have read

On six different Megabuses, on the Greyhound, the passengers changed the driver, in three different libraries, on the Math Lawn, and now in my bed when I was a child, watching the world seem to be moving forward, I Back to the original position before my life really started. I can't tell you why, but about

Attracted me time and time again.

Now, the opportunity to travel by train on the bus route of Fifth Avenue or downtown is gone forever. If I really want it, I can, but I will do nothing in the pandemic, risking happiness worth $2.75.

Last time i read

Back to the dormitory where I lived before. When I was sitting on the mattress, I held a lot of hands, and when he left all his hands behind, I felt sorry for Sal Paradise (poor Kerouac).

But for now, I feel jealous instead of pity. I want to run away; I don't want to be nostalgic for a hand that cannot be held. I want to go to other places and drive aimlessly anywhere by bus. The most important thing is that I want to go back to that dorm and feel sorry for a fictional character and a dead person, instead of imagining that they have begun to feel sorry for me. It's hard to believe that I underestimated the power of 7.5 miles: that land covered a new abandoned life, restored the old life, and regretted not seeing the train reading and the train ride for more than 45 minutes.

I think it is necessary to read

At some point during this pandemic more than ever. I need to witness travel, interaction and change. I slowly began to understand Kerouac’s desire to travel because he could not mature at home. I feel stagnant when sitting at home, my head space is confined in my bedroom, and I cannot think about its four walls.

Although I have never been close to Jack Kerouac, I recently discovered that I have some wrong feelings about him, as if he yearns for me. I spent most of my time at Columbia University writing sports articles for the same book, walking on the same street, and reading the same designated books as he had in class. I feel cynical and get into trouble. What it means for me to really grow up.

In short, this is why Sal started on the road: he eventually grew up. Whenever I return to this book, I feel the excitement of his first takeoff, witnessing the disillusionment of him every time I travel, and watching him realize that things will be better when I get home . Maybe you don’t have to leave everyone behind in order to be someone, and you don’t have to chase people and ideas.

I wasted all the months spent in the apartment. Now, when I think about why it takes so much time

And hope to return to the new life of university when I have the opportunity to wait for me at home. I am trapped in familiar, sacrificed time and feel frustrated. Although this is the impact of the pandemic, I don't care about my anger. On most days, I feel (and still feel) stupid, then angry because I feel stupid, then stupid because I feel angry, and so on. When I didn't figure out what that meant, I couldn't reconcile how I should grow up. I am still in a new life. Why am I so afraid to experience the old elements?

At this point, I can hardly remember the feeling of walking down the crowded university trail. I can recall the splendid feeling more than anything else. The whole process of each semester is with people-there is no one eating, no quiet study time. In the past 10 months, there has been more time to eat alone. Now I am back on campus, but I am still eating.

The grown-ups of my big Sal Paradise will have to wait-hopefully not as long as Sal. However, this is not like my college life is a perfect-looking teenage growth experience. Distance did not make me meet new friends, because living away from home does not mean an increase in maturity. In the months of my desire to return to campus, I stupidly and naively couldn't believe the idea that when I drag my schoolbag onto the stairs of the dormitory building, my life might not return to its original state. Back on campus will not bring me a good time to realize myself, just as my return to East Village will not hinder me.

Perhaps, instead of becoming a new friend, I started to grow up and used my own brains to create a false reciprocity between family and immature. I don't have Dean Moriarty to get me into the dark side of Ruthings' decision-making, but when things get too difficult and encourage me to run away, I tend to undo.

As much

To find yourself, but also to lose yourself in the consequences. After causing chaos, everyone and everyone was left behind, Sal always jumped on the bus back to New Jersey and returned to his childhood home. Every time he seeks liberation, he will find liberation, but he has gone too far and must return to wandering aimlessly. I think I am too.

Sal has a bus back home. I have 1 train. When things get tough, I don’t hitchhike to the other side of the country, but I travel catastrophically and travel by myself. Cost-effectiveness makes it even more dangerous.

I can't help feeling that with

. My travel life has just begun, but in doing so, the previous life must end. This is Requiem.

Here, I’m sitting on the dorm bed,

Tucked between the frame and the drawer below. Locked in the audience’s office is a plastic blue-green bedside table with train ticket stubs for all the places I’ve been to, postcards of the places I want to go, and a small crumpled church photo across from my childhood house. , Filling the upper drawer. Those distance signs made me ambitious, but they also reminded me that my biggest feat is to move up half of the half marathon, even worse than my own state.

Sitting between the black cherry trees of my youth and the current university buildings, I felt lost. However, I can tell myself that my confusion is just the "growth pain" of becoming a real adult. Going back to my home between the dusty bookshelf and the window looking at the church, I feel equally lost. When I drag the suitcase onto the stairs of 116th Street Station, I don't expect these feelings to change. However, now I am not afraid to return to the city when the time is right. Distance has not made me smarter, but maybe time will.

However, I continue to fantasize about taking a simple way out. I wandered between cities and open roads and the people who lived in these two places. I looked at bus schedules and tickets that I would never buy, if I could, I would not. I am still about ten years younger than Sal Paradise, but I want to believe that I have learned more. There is no point in running away. Even within 7.5 miles, I have walked enough.

Compared with Kerouac, I write more sports articles. I have never been out to the west, and there are no imminent plans. I am totally different from this person, the legend he created or the scarred legacy he left behind. I also hope that I will never become him. Kerouac was angry, drunk, and far away from his heyday. The days of Greenwich Village and Haight-Ashbury are gone, replaced by a moldy town in Florida and strong hostility to politics. Not only did he grow up, but he also grew up. He is getting old. He is no longer the same man who wandered the temple in Colombia decades ago. Will I forget the feeling of walking up to the seventh floor of Hamilton? is it

I will never love Jack Kerouac, as I am sure he will never love me. My life can be defined as a trip across only one area of ​​New York, which is different from his chauvinistic frolics all over the country. However, I am nostalgic for his non-existent antique Americana, because maybe, maybe, it will teach me how to grow.

When I was about to leave my childhood bedroom for a neighbor I knew very well, I no longer felt the desire to separate the two. A week before I got my room key and meal plan again, I had a kind of reservedness, desire and desire. I took out the MetroCard and let the steady pace of the subway take me to the black cherry tree. It was late at night, but I wanted to read a place that was on the other side of the house.

Therefore, on the "low-altitude steps", when the sun finally rose and I was sitting on the old neoclassical stairs, looking at the rising sun over the Butler Library, I thought of Jack Kerouac. I think the young Jack Kerouac used to be a simple sports writer

. I think of Jack Kerouac.

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