Object of Inspiration

My object of inspiration is a replica of the Eiffel Tower I got when I was young. Thinking back on it now, it’s interested me and inspired me more than I had thought. One Christmas, my parents got me the replica, which was shipped from Paris to Springfield. I had always thought the Eiffel Tower was cool looking, and it made me want to visit Paris, for the sole reason of seeing it in person. I don’t think it’s an over exaggeration to say I drew more than one hundred pictures of it between the time I was five through eight. Drawing the same picture so many times has left me with the ability to draw it from memory, but I don’t draw it often anymore. Instead, all that drawing has taught me how to create a realistic picture, more than the nice kid drawings I had done before.

All I ever wanted to do was to see it in person. After a few years, the wanting to see it died down, mainly because it doesn’t seem like I would ever get to see it, or that if I do, it won’t be as great as when I was a kid. I did get the opportunities to go to Paris, but the trips were too expensive, so I didn’t get to go. To this day, I would still like to see it, but, not nearly as much as I did ten years ago, and it isn’t at the top of the list of things to do in my life. The thing I do still hold on to is the desire to travel. It never really struck me when I was little that there were so many places you can go, places outside of Springfield and Florida. I always wanted to go to Paris when I was little, just Paris. But now that I’m older and know that there’s so much more to see, and I want to see it. I’ve taken trips to Florida dozens of times, a trip to Alaska, New Brunswick and San Diego. As much as I hate the process of getting somewhere, the end result is always worth it when you get to experience something different than you’re accustomed to. Today, I have a long list of places around the world I would like to see.

Until I saw a picture Eiffel Tower for the first time, I really had no concept of the world; I didn’t even know Paris was in a different country until I was four or five. After seeing how big the world really is, it became hard for me not to be focused on something about geography. Learning about different countries and cities and cultures has held my interest for a long time, the easiest final I’ve had in high school was my Geography final, and that was naming every country in the world. It’s interesting to think that so many of the things I’ve been interested by through my life have, at least in part, been inspired by this tiny replica. Although all these things had interested me before I got it, and it doesn’t mean as much to me anymore, seeing how much of me came from that replica is mind boggling.