I am the sliver of you where God lives. Remember that story? The one where those men tried to hide God where no one could find him? They tucked him in nooks of the human race. I know you are reading this and trying to outthink it. You want to say that God lingers in your little pug Edith. That too is true. Let’s not over analyze the situation, Jennifer.
I cringe at being cliche, but this is life and death. More eloquently said, this is the scuffle between paintbrush and trigger.
You ran to those fields in Auvers-sur-Oise, saw where your Vincent took his life. Maybe the easel stood slanted that day. Perhaps he didn’t possess the desired shades of blue. Or his heart ached for Marguerite. The crows swarmed. A revolver swathed in turpentine stained muslin. He pulled it out and placed it against his chest the way you have stuck those needles in your arms.
It was not a matter of choice.
You have been tethered to Vincent for years, romanticized his struggles, but the truth is, you are now three years older than he was when he took his life and you have been taking your own life for years now. You are just as sick as Van Gogh. The difference is that you are a mother to three little girls.
Perhaps initially there was a choice, but in some haze you don’t recall, you tumbled across a line and there you have resided in heroin’s cocoon of delusion. There is an enemy in this story. Your mother thought it was the drugs. You thought it was the world. You rebelled against it. But the villain was never the world. It was and is your very own mind trying to kill you.
Jen, your brain is a lying bitch.
It seeks to tell you that you chose to thieve these recent years from your daughters, but you know better. You must forgive yourself the way you do Gwynnie when she fibs, Kathryn when she bites, or Evelyn when she does that pterodactyl scream that machetes through your ears.
They know not what they do. They are brand new, just as you are on this day.
This is where you take the road Van Gogh couldn’t. This is where Vincent put down the brush. This is where you put down the rig and pick up the pen. Love isn’t in the brain or the heart. It’s lodged like a sparrow in the throat, and for too long, you have been voiceless.
The time is today. Just think of the possibilities. Impasto the world with words again. There are songs to sing, stories to tell.
Let go. Let go. Let go.
Thanks for starting this. I think you might be interested to know that, in all likelihood, Vincent was not a suicide. Recent evidence seems to indicated he died by misadventure, hanging out with the local mayor’s sons and that youth’s friends. Apparently a large amount of booze and the misuse of a firearm resulted in Vincent’s death. The manslaughter was covered up by the local authorities at the behest of the mayor. I will hunt down the links to substantiate this. There is no question Vincent was mentally ill at the time, that his mental illness had worsened, and that he was very depressed. But whether he would engage in self-murder is also quite questionable. It is far more likely he was self-medicating.
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I have spent years reading about him, but I haven’t bought into that recent argument. I must admit that the biography written by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith that proposes a possible manslaughter is one hell of a great book. I agree with you wholeheartedly that he didn’t shoot himself as an act of suicide. I find it similar to the self medicating that I did for years. Thanks so much for commenting, Gerald.
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Loved reading and look forward to more. I’ve been squabbling with the idea of getting back into writing, into art, back into a life worth living (for me).. But the medicine that is (supposed to be) preventing my total and utter psychological defeat is the same medicine – a. K. A. stranglehold, that has my creativity mostly suffocated.
But writers and humans like yourself are what give me hope and inspiration.. Which I so treasure.
❤️
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Thank you so much. Honestly, this blog is going to hold me accountable. While I am so grateful to be in recovery, there are still moments, even hours where the world feels like a cat on my chest, suffocating me. What I am trying to say is that I understand how you feel. I don’t like to give advice, but I hope you throw yourself into making things. ❤️
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