It was the day before my twentieth birthday, and I was in York, England, on a study abroad. I was standing with three other students and one of our professors, looking up at Clifford’s Tower, the keep of York’s medieval castle. It looked down at us, round, beige, and heavy from the top of a green hill. We were trying to decide where to go next. We had spent our morning walking on the walls of the city, and now we were looking for something else to see, something that we hoped wouldn’t come with a hefty price tag.
We eventually drifted into the museum near the tower, discovered its daunting entrance fee, and drifted right back out. As we left the museum, we passed a painter standing behind his easel and looking out over the square toward the tower. Our professor stopped and asked if we could take a look at the man’s painting. We were surprised when the painter seemed embarrassed. He held up his arm as if he didn’t want us to see his work, but eventually we persuaded him to let us step behind his easel.
The painting was a Monet-esque image of the tower on the green hill and the people walking below. The people were daubs of different-colored clothing with heads and arms, walking right and left in the street below the tower. And there we were. It took us several seconds to notice, but the artist had captured all five of us there in his painting. Although we had been reduced to a few smudges of paint, we recognized elements of ourselves. I recognized myself by my height and the silver stripe on my blue backpack. I was glad to see myself there.
It’s interesting that somewhere on the other side of the ocean there’s a painting with me in it on the last day I was 19. Travel allows me to broaden my life, to see the world, and to be a greater part of the world. Sometimes it’s easy for me to forget, as I move around from place to place and from site to site. But what’s most important isn’t where we’ve been—it’s that we’ve made an appearance.
—Sarah Syphus
West Jordan, UT