The Brooklyn Adventurer: Inspiration Fridays: I Just Want a Castle...

Friday, January 13, 2012

Inspiration Fridays: I Just Want a Castle...

Who doesn't want to live in a castle? I do. Castles are the coolest.

While I was studying in London, I was able to visit many of them, including Canterbury Castle, below. I wrote a post about it soon after visiting, but the structure was incredible. By incredible, I mean it was old, historically important, and crumbling to bits. Though it had been a residence of the monarchy of England, it apparently wasn't important enough to charge money for entry, or even to be guarded. We walked right in. I climbed around in it. I stole a rock from off the ground, which was part of the Roman wall that surrounded it. This was legal, apparently, because were there cops or Unesco Heritage Site guards or anything? Nope. It was a big, open space that, you know, happened to have a castle in the middle of it. No big deal. The UK has tons of those.

As an American, this pretty much blows my mind. Living in a castle, or seeing one, is one of the pinnacles of existence, as far as I'm concerned. I was in awe of every structure I had the pleasure to view that was built before about 1550AD because we just don't have any of those on our continent. At some point during the first couple weeks I was living in London, I took a moment and bragged to one of my English friends that I had lived across the street from one of the oldest pubs in New York- it was founded in 1865! With an utterly straight face she said something along the lines of "Yeah, whatever, my building is fifty years older than that and it's the newest building on my block"... It's just different.

But, this post is about castles, not pubs. Once again, as I have hypothesized during basically every Inspiration Friday post from the past few monthes, I may only be inspired by castles because I read too many fantasy and historical fiction books, watch too many fantasy and historical fiction films, and play too many fantasy video games. I'd play historical fiction video games if more of them existed. Or, maybe I do all of those things because I love fantasy and historical fiction with a passion. Honestly, I'm rather certain this is the reason. I almost accidentally acquired a minor in medieval and renaissance history in college. If I had been paying attention, I would have achieved that, but frankly, I didn't notice I had done it until I was about to graduate. I just gravitate towards this stuff. Reminders of times gone by, times in which I did not live, excite me. Or, maybe I did live there. Who knows the true nature of our existence?

Yet someday, I want to climb a castle tower in the middle of the forest and gaze out over the land. I want to feel the wind whip through my hair as I do this; I wish to watch a hawk circle overhead.