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I do.
I try to write with thickness of emotion. Placing what I see on paper in amounts that leave one wondering what prompts such depth.
What I write seems to differ from reality at times. Opposes it, perhaps for it seems so unnatural as it is. So different than what I remember it once being.
Reality shifts and dances like night shadows before a fire. I resent its confusion, trying hard to straighten it out, and make it better somehow, though I don’t know why I think I can.
I write in colors that disagree. Green sunsets and blue mornings. People in awkward hues that make them stand out, perhaps too much or maybe not enough. We all are colored to suit what we remember of ourselves. Bright purples, vibrant reds, and orange that tantalize and get the attention of other creatures as we walk through our lives.
Vincent saw the world in joyous amounts, painfully too as flowers became thick with passion and understanding that its life was brief and therefore all that it must accomplish must be done quickly.
Much of life is like that. Moving fast then faster as we race across landscapes that barely register and then lament what we missed. Why?
The days are always the same length. Always the same width and breadth and there is nothing in any one that isn’t in another, so why are we frustrated with each one as it passes – thinking we could’ve done so much more with it?
I write in turmoil. Distressed and inarticulate and take it out on my keyboard when it fails to produce what I need. It should by now, it knows me well enough.
And yet we struggle. Me to reach deep inside myself, where the good stuff is, and it, clickity clacking its way toward some end that neither of us is familiar with.
Writing is such sweet madness. We presume to understand far more than we do or far more than we can resolve. Words pour out or drip one by one until our cup is full, our page saturated with great thoughts and ideals while our coffers, echo emptily as we get back to work one more time.
We thickly apply our wisdom so others are engaged. Listening as we speak distantly to them. A friend who cares or shares such inside information that we are no longer a mystery – even to ourselves.
Vincent spoke in quiet tones, lost in winds flowing through fields of wheat and corn. Through twilight and dawn as sunshine urged him on to greater things – in his mind at least perhaps – but realized soon enough.
He dreamt like other artists dreamt. Impressionists and realists alike. With tapered brush and canvas, they spoke their truth in no less meaningful ways, and yet Vincent waited his turn. Waited through loss and misconception. Through time and dark reflection. His brush was no less tapered than theirs.
We all write in our own way. Toward our own end. Using words as colors to paint the world as we see it or as we would like it to be. Different, better perhaps. It can always be better. Brighter, more meaningful with less of something that we’ve seen entirely too much of lately.
We craft sentences and shape them carefully and watch them march out, wishing them well, knowing most will fall away unseen. Some will make it, whole or in part and our message will be delivered piecemeal to a world waiting for us or someone that looks suspiciously like us to reveal the truth.
Vincent painted as he felt, acutely. He heaped on colors and texture mimicking a world that refused to respond. It saw things in fine lines and shaded just right unlike his visions, his view of humanity.
Was he wrong? Were they not ready?
But times change what was into something that now fits. That now aligns neatly with a reality that was never settled to begin with. And yet they found fault. And disagreed. Saw too much as too little or not enough – when to Vincent it was just right.
I try to write like Vincent van Gogh.
Arguing with myself on what is real and what is illusion. A fabric woven by others now draped across my path, with me unable to avoid it. And yet we all differ. We all refute what others say, not because it’s wrong but because it’s not yet right. For us and them. Needing more love and less hate. More wisdom and less fixed ideas rooted in the past. Leftover homilies from times no longer relevant.
Vincent painted what was meant to be. Heavy and timeless and able to endure. Thick with hope and madness mixed and yet compatible. A world more tolerant of differences, more resistant to change for the sake of change. He painted reality not as it must be but as it could be, something for everyone to agree with.