I was frightened. I was shaken up by what I was doing. I didn't really know what it was I was doing or exactly why. All I knew was that, at the time, it was the only option. I felt stuck. It doesn't matter why, it just matters that I moved because I had to do something about that utterly stuck feeling.
I took my futon with me to the apartment I was moving into. After it was set-up, I sat on it and took in my surroundings. I let the cold unease of not knowing what lay ahead, with no insurance, no money, no job, let alone not being in college, not having a plan at all, settle into my bones. I did know I had someone who could take care of me for a little while.
I probably needed therapy but didn't know enough at that time to seek it out. And even if I could, I wouldn't have been able to afford the travel there or the therapy itself. I chain-smoked my cigarettes with the window open, letting the soft bright light from my room shine out into the frigid air and onto the moving cars, bikes, and bundled up people.
At least my futon bed felt clean and fresh. But I was fearful. I was surviving another Chicago winter, but this time away from the only home I knew. I anticipated the next morning as I sat there staring out. I had to wake up extremely early to catch the Pace bus so I could start looking for jobs. But I dreaded it with a heavy depression that crept through my body like death. First of all, I didn't know where I was going to go. Secondly, I didn't know what kind of job I was looking for.
I wanted and needed rest, but I didn't know how to go about getting it. How does one "get" rest? It shouldn't be something a person must attain. It should be something acquired over time, something that a person has in reserve for a long day (now, I'm lucky enough to know how that feels). Maybe someday I'll write about rest, but this time my intention is to write about something I found in the garbage.
On my way to this apartment, before I even set foot in it, me and my then boyfriend found something sticking out of a dumpster. It was rolled up and we took it out (don't ask me what our rationality was at that time, but I guess we would sometimes look through the city trash for something interesting). The rolled up paper happened to reveal a print of Van Gogh's famous painting "The Starry Night". Or it was "Starry Night Over The Rhone". I can't really remember. Most of it is a blur. I remember the blueness of it. Such a blue.
After some urging, I took it with me. That print was the first thing I placed on the wall of that empty room. I placed it onto the dry wall and slowly, quietly, pressed in each thumbtack. Finally, looking up at it from my bed, I remember feeling, amidst all that fear and uncertainty and thoughts of a dire, useless life, a peace - a calm - that filled the air. That even if I had done this horrible thing, even though I may not make it in the world, even though I didn't know what was going on or what I was doing, that I could feel. I felt love and kindness and gentleness along with all the confusion and sorrow of wanting something that I couldn't describe because I didn't understand and didn't have the words for my own thoughts. The print of Van Gogh's painting gave my soul a focal point for a subdued excitement that maybe not now, but some time, everything would be alright.
I knew nothing of Van Gogh (I don't know much now either). But I realize that art took me away from that scary place and placed me outside of it, somewhere bigger, somewhere where I was able to connect with the world in a way that just... made sense.
In memoriam of that time, here are two versions of "Vincent" which touch my heart: the original by Don McLean and a cover by James Blake.
- F
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