One More Perspective

Sharing about their time together, my younger Son expressed his feelings about a visit to an art museum with his Brother.  He specifically had strong feelings about interpreting the modern art pieces:  “The artist is putting all of the work onto you!” my Son said.  I laughed.  Then, his statement set off a chain of thoughts in my head.

I grew up with an under-encouraged experience of art.  World-renowned pieces were, of course, part of my education even under the Communist goverment-run eight grades of schooling I accomplished before I left Hungary, but my Father wasn’t particularly energetic about further art education for me, in the way he otherwise routinely augmented my intellectual growth.  As a violin and piano player, he loved music, classical music in particular, and opera, but he was far less excited about artistry through painting, architecture, or sculpture.  Communist Hungary also had a touchy relationship with art; or maybe just Artists.  Artists were not known for conformance, and the Communist form of government survives on conformance.  I recall hearing about Performance and Fine Artists who were regularly under government surveillance to make sure their free thinking didn’t embolden them too much.  There was even a nationally recognized Comedian by the name of Hofi Géza, who regularly wove the topic of government censorship into his jokes in a way he could speak to it, but he could also continue to perform.  The appearance of conformance was good enough in Communist Hungary, but getting too big for one’s britches was dangerous for them and their Families.  My Family already had enough strikes against us.  My Father, even if at least intellectually appreciative of art, adopted the discrediting stance on Artists (I believe mostly for economic reasons; earning potential of Artists was too high risk for him), therefore, I remained unquestioning of my own distanced emotions about art and Artists, until well into my thirties.  If there was a particular way I felt about many Artists, it was my recognition of their comfort with themselves, in a much greater degree than I was experiencing in those years.  I had been raised with many, many rules around who I should be; I could recognize people who didn’t should all over themselves in limiting ways.

In my first three decades of life, I was significantly drawn to angular shapes and designs.  If left to my own devices, my doodles were dominated by rectangular forms, parallel lines, symmetry, and significant structure.  In household goods and decorations, I chose similar items; water glasses with rectangles vs ornate curvature or exuberant free-form. 

I often went to museums, art galleries, the opera, concerts, and other intellectually simulating places, but could never say I had a Vivian moment in Pretty Woman.

Like Edward said to her:  “People’s reaction to opera the first time they hear it is extreme. They either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don’t, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul.”  That quote summed up my relationship with art.  I was learning, haphazardly, to appreciate it in many of its forms, but I was very much approaching it in a mechanical, sterile manner. 

I had already experienced serious life lessons when, in the late 1990s, I was walking through an Art Festival and unexpectedly, a painting like no other caught my eye.  I had been a Mother for about a year and a half, had returned to my professional life after staying at home for the better part of a year.  I was also newly divorced.  It was a complex time for me both emotionally and socially, especially since my job took me back to the state of Oklahoma, where I had already lived, with mixed results.  Sure, I was white and nice enough on first meeting, but being an Engineer didn’t help my fitting in with the highly patriarchal and Bible culture there.  I was just going through the motions at the Arts Festival when an unassuming painting captured my attention.  It was instantly mesmerizing and deeply resonating.  I couldn’t believe it.  Love at first sight; an answer to a desperation deep in my soul.  It was of a Mother and her toddler Child like mine, but the Mother!  Oh, the Mother!  She wasn’t bundled up to her neck in frumpy clothes and depicted in a homemaking or other predictable scene. 

Instead, she had a silky, full-length but fitting, sleeveless nightgown on with a scoop neck.  Her shoulders and arms were gently supple and naturally visible, sitting on the bench of her vanity table, relaxed, and lovingly holding her equally-content toddler.  You could see the intellect in her face, trace her shape from shoulders to ankles, and feel the unapologetic femininity of her own, very capable existence radiate from her.  Lightning!  For the first time in my life, I saw a piece of art that spoke to what I was feeling.  Having become a Mother and loving my Child with all of my being didn’t transform me into one of those frumpy depictions living life as a function of my Family and within the narrow definition of the Bible Belt.  I felt like Motherhood was a very large part of me, but not the entirety of me.  I had many career aspirations, and I yearned for personal growth, travel, self-actualization.  I keenly noticed men who were Parents hadn’t been expected to trade themselves in for a version wholly dictated by Fatherhood, so why was I?  I found no safe outlet for expressing any of this, as the few peer women around me didn’t seem to be disturbed by their roles the way I was, and men loved their privileges as occasional parenting help, for which they received endless accolades.  Ugh.  Back to this magnificent painting…it was thousands of dollars.  The Artist was regionally well known and a Professor at the state’s largest university.  Thankfully, her name was close to the maiden name of a Friend of mine, so I could easily recall it.  For years thereafter, I looked for her at various art events, and even at her university art center.  I was curious if anything else she painted would speak so profoundly to me.  A decade went by this way, and I was content I had once seen a piece of art that spoke to me.

Then one year, in similar fashion as previously, I looked for this Painter’s name at the same large arts festival where I had originally seen her.  It happened to work effortlessly to go there on a Thursday evening, unplanned, which was unusual in and of itself.  As I walked up to the directory of Artists present at the large, multi-day event, I noted her name wasn’t listed.  I had grown accustomed to striking out, so it didn’t deter me, and I proceeded to meander through the rows of booths.  I was mostly a disinterested attendee, doing my best not to let that radiate from me, especially with my oldest in tow.  We walked up and down many rows of displays from wood-carvings to statues, and I was silently passing my typical judgments based on what my Father would deem kitsch.  Every once in a while, I would spot something pleasant or especially creative.  It was a nice, mild May evening.

I was talking to my Son, still shorter than me at that time, when my peripheral vision picked up something from a booth we had just passed and hadn’t really taken in.  I picked up my gaze and focused on what I had detected, and at first, it didn’t seem interesting after all.  … but then, a pattern of familiarity about what I was seeing was permeating my conscience, and I found myself staring at a painting of a woman in the kitchen with an elementary-age Child.  She seemed familiar somehow.  In another moment, I thought, “Wait!”  Who is this Artist?  What is this painting?  The woman in it looks… looks like she could be the woman I had seen in a silky nightgown lovingly holding her Child on her lap.  I was still looking for the Artist’s name when I also realized the Child would be older in subsequent paintings.  I was thinking and talking out loudly by this time, and a woman approached me.  I presumed she was the one in charge of this set of displays, and I, mostly to not seem odd, began to explain about the beautiful painting I had seen a decade earlier and had looked for the Artist or a print of it, since then. 

The woman listened patiently to my description, and I went on to detail how much that painting had spoken to me; in fact, had spoken FOR me.  I shared with her that painting was the first piece of art to which I felt instantly connected in a way art had never before represented my own reality.  I introduced her to my Son whom I saw in the painting.  I told her about the years I looked for this Artist and that I was looking for her that very evening, but she had not been listed in the directory.  When I finally took a breath, the woman introduced herself.  She wasn’t just a representative of an Artist, she was the Artist herself, the one who, as it turned out, had painted both the painting in my memory and the one I had spotted that evening, a decade later.  She explained the woman in the newer painting was indeed the same person as in the painting I had recalled, and she went on to explain it was of her best Friend’s adult Daughter and her Friend’s Grandson.  She also added she hadn’t planned on being at this particular art show, but a Friend of hers had prepaid the booth and then couldn’t make it.  She was only there to not allow the space to appear vacant, causing stress for the organizers.  I was amazed and felt special and silly at the same time.  I had gone on and on; lacking appropriate art terminology, I probably sounded rather elementary talking about the Woman and Child.  I then dismissed those thoughts and hoped the Artist found my genuine compliment of her work in my simplistic ramble.  I was winding up the conversation by neutrally remarking I hope whoever bought that painting is loving it as much as I do. 

What came next may very well have happened in slow motion; it felt that way, as well as incredibly surreal.  The Artist said she hadn’t sold that painting.  “Wait.  What?” I said, shocked and hyper-focused on her words.  “No, and actually, it’s here, in my van.

A million thoughts ran through my head and none, all at the same time.  In a matter of a couple of hours, I went from a Thursday normal day to an impromptu trip to an art festival, and now I was not only talking with the Artist for whom I have searched for a decade, but she was now telling me she had the painting!  The Artist interrupted my chaotic thoughts with, “Now I understand it’s been waiting for you all this time.”  I was silent.  I was elated.  She left to get the painting from her vehicle.  While she was gone,  I slowly began considering the remote possibility of owning the painting, but I knew I couldn’t afford it back then, and now, looking at the price on her paintings, it was even more out of reach.  The Artist returned, and I was immensely fulfilled by getting to see the painting after all this time.  I couldn’t get enough of drinking it in, noticing new details and confirming others; time stood still.  I wanted to log every detail, knowing I would soon be back to the act of recalling the painting after I returned home.  She must have read my mind.  She kindly said:  “I would like you to have this painting, so I’m willing to accept the price it was when you first saw it.”  As in, a decade prior.  That was very generous already back then, and at that point, I hadn’t realized she was now mostly painting commissioned pieces.  “Wow.  WOW.” I thought.  Now that was something I could possibly eek out.  It was an incredible opportunity, surreal.  I rearranged many priorities in my head.  How could I possibly justify this expense? 

You know how this ends.  I went for it.  The painting has been hanging in our home for fifteen years now.  It still speaks to me the same way.  Both of my now twentysomething Sons see themselves in the painting with me, which I love. 

In 2011, life had settled into a white-collar, middle-class, suburb-living, child-rearing, career-building, sustainable-marriage experience.  It was, in many ways, the best it had been, and certainly, it looked good on paper.  I knew I’d best be grateful for all of it, as I knew a great number of ways it could be worse.  I was the age when one has enough life experience to know things could always be worse, but that hasn’t quite transitioned into any recurring and wise picking of battles.  I was in my late thirties and going full-throttle on all fronts, arguably, under-serving in all.  I was married to my third and most involved Husband at that time.  While he was like a fourth Child in many ways, whom I was encouraging to grow into his own, he was domestically willing, which I deeply appreciated.  I enjoyed his company, and we were kind to each other.  Since my love language is service and he was very willing to jump in and roll up his sleeves and work as hard as I did, that characteristic of his alone would have kept us married forever.  Whatever that says about me, my reality was I greatly valued his sense of pride over stepping into an instant Family he felt he had missed out on in his life, and he was willing to do so with a highly prescriptive Mother and Spouse.  Since he had no context for how we got to be where we were, the Kids and I, and he had zero experience as a Parent, I left nothing to chance when it came to how he related to my Children.  I thought it most beneficial for my Children if my Husband embodied the Father role wholeheartedly, and I encouraged him to do so.  He found fatherhood a welcoming and safe new identify and thereafter led with that.  I could write about this for weeks, but back to art…

I want to emphasize how close to content I was with life in 2011; not a perfect life, but in many ways a privileged life.  I felt I’d better not ask for more in life; that would be very ungrateful of me and quite possibly flirting with karma.  The hard knocks I had overcome many times provided me with a sense of sustainable capability, a self-reliance that reduced the amplitude of my daily reactions and kept me generally hopeful for the future.  It was in this head space when I met someone generally benign in my work environment, someone I didn’t see daily, but who eventually began to gravitate toward me without me thinking anything about it.  Over the following months into 2012, this person found plausible reasons to interact with me and to arrange for seeing me one way or another on a close-to-daily basis.  I perceived it as an individual working in a well-defined scope, seeking to interact with someone outside of that work environment.  After a few months of getting used to seeing them, I began to enjoy their company.  I was glad to see them, and I shared the things I thought would be of professional interest to them.  It wasn’t far into 2012 when I had an opportunity to have a non-work encounter with this person, and thinking nothing of it, I began to engage with them more personally.  This is precisely how workplace friendships develop every day.  In case you are thinking I’m talking about a male Colleague, this is the point where I make sure you know she was a woman.  In all of my life experiences, this scenario had played out many, many times, as friendships between women at work have made for the most successful professional partnerships and mutual support.  With every interaction, I had no reason to suspect this one would be any different from those I had had with Colleagues prior, and since. 

It has been said in more eloquent ways that if the Native Americans had context for the first European ships they spotted far off their horizons, they may have reacted very differently to those ships’ arrival.  They simply had no experience from which to foresee what would happen next.  I can wholeheartedly relate to this. 

Had this Colleague been a man, I would have seen them coming a mile away.  Making it a point to bump into me?  No, thank you.  Making sure you let me know some project detail you think I may care about?  I know that game.  Inviting me to something cool outside of work?  Have you lost your little mind?  Hell, no!  … but as a married woman, what could be safer than the friendship of another married woman?  Ah, life!  You have so many ways to humble and teach me.

With every next step, I had no idea there would be anything beyond it.  When we went places, for me, those were nonrecurring activities, and with each new, unusual feeling that arose, I had no reason to guess it would develop further or to mean something.  She and I were both aware of gay people, of course, but we had no reason to believe we were!  My encounters with gay people were that of an outsider.  While I deeply admired their sense of self and their willingness to own about themselves what society often willingly misunderstood and shunned, I had not been immersed in the LGBTQ community and was quite clueless as to what was day-by-day unfolding in front of me.  Was I an unwilling participant?  Technically, no… but consider going on an easy hike where you aren’t concerned the trail is anything other than the hikes you’ve taken before.  With each tall rock in your way or another creek running through your path, you think, “This is unusual, but I’m sure it’s an anomaly.  Soon, this trail will smooth out!”  You may encounter a few more odd occurrences, but you may not make the realization for a while:  “OH, this was not at all the easy hiking trail I was expecting!”  My unexpected trail led me all the way to an untenable spot.  With the first touch of our hands, I not only had no idea I had the capacity for that, but I never considered the possibility of a kiss!  …that is, until right after it actually happened.  I was either going to have to conclude I was someone not heterosexual in orientation after all, or this person somehow uniquely tapped into parts of me I had never met.  The answer to that would not be straightforward nor reveal itself overnight.

Needless to say, at some point in the summer of 2012, I found myself at my kitchen table with my Husband, my Girlfriend, and a version of me who felt like an alien.  Everything was out in the open, and we were all three bewildered by it.  I had finally been in a reasonably happy marriage to a keeper-of-a-guy, so what was hijacking my world and why was I letting it?  Why was this so compelling?  Then, in the days that followed, I did a much safer and sensible about-face.  I swiftly slipped out of the life of my Girlfriend and dove head-first back into my marriage.  I was immensely confident I could do that and that it was the best thing for my Children, certainly.  If those crazy preceding six months didn’t kill us, they could only make us stronger.  I meant it.  I felt good about it, full of hope and appreciation for the intellect that allowed us to transcend that phenomenon… whatever that was. 

Lots of life happened, and 2013 found us in a brand new environment.  I had a new, intense job; in fact, everything was new for all of us in the Washington DC beltway.  2012 felt a million years away, and I was grateful.  The Kids were settling in, my life looked like it had previously, and I was certainly busy with three very differently developing teen/preteens who were actively trying to figure out life as they saw it.  I was proud of them for constantly learning, and though not smoothly, but overall thriving.  They were my world.  My Husband was not enjoying his new job like I was mine, but that job also allowed him more flexibility than I had, so I was grateful he was both available and willing to do more household things than my previous two Husbands.  This was such a change from my first fifteen years of child-rearing.  …but it wouldn’t last.  I began to realize into 2014, things weren’t as I had thought I had reconciled within.  …and this manifested itself through art. 

We had many visitors in the early years of us living a Metro ride from all things historic and important, including the collection of the Smithsonian museums.  My Daughter got so good at navigating them, I was grateful she wanted to play tour guide.  She was wonderful at it.  Getting to step back away from leading the interactions allowed me to take in the many forms of art more quietly, and something surprising happened.  For the first time in my life, art was pulling me in.  Not all forms of it, but I could feel the kind of significance I felt about the Mother and Child painting we now had hanging in our house for a few years.  It was remarkable, transformative, even.  I had massive emotional reactions to certain art displays, and over time, I realized those were representing something obscured and stuck within me.  It was immensely rattling to have seemingly random paintings have so much power in reaching me.  I was not yet making sense of them. 

I began to look forward to these trips, and I also started seeking art digitally.  I was surrounding myself with images that fell into two categories:  they represented what it was like to feel deeply stuck with no hope for a solution I could live with, and the new form of existence within me that was, through art, trying to gain life. 

Make no mistake, my life was so filled with external demands, the only time I actually had to find ways to process and express myself was for minutes here and there, like when on the Metro or awaiting the start of a meeting in which I was not a presenter, or when I would go to the bathroom to shut out the constant requests for something, whether at home or work.  Consequently, it took years for me to deal with myself, years during which my three teenage Children kept growing, finding their own identities as I was, behind the scenes, struggling with mine.  I had a Husband with his own world as well, of course; think of this as five planets with their respective rotations, light and shadow sides, assigned for a while to the gravitational pull of the same solar system.  I had no way of knowing just how finite that gravitational pull would be.  I did my best to keep these planets going, wholly unaware of the impact of my deep fracture within. 

By early 2015, I was so in over my head, I had to do something more substantial to keep myself on track so I could stay in pace with tending to my external demand signals.  I was clinging to keeping up appearances of normalcy because there was so much at stake and so many lives involved, including that of my most beloved Children.  I could not haphazardly make my struggles known and with that, risk the consequences of what may or may not be true:  that I only stumbled upon the rest of myself in 2012 and that part now wanted its rightful air, its own life.  A Friend had introduced me to the book Living Two Lives, Married to a Man & In Love with a Woman.  Though I  wasn’t at the time in love with a woman, I was still struggling with reconciling what had happened in 2012.  In the book, I learned its author lived two hours North of me, in Philadelphia.  I began to feel I must seek her out to move myself onward from my circular thoughts about my sexual identity and its impact on my Family.  I was able to secure marathon appointments with her, which is what I needed to make the four-hour trip worthwhile and to help me to make headway while keeping all other parts of my life and responsibilities going.  To minimize my time away from the Kids, I would take certain lower-risk days off work and dedicate the day to my mental health, while the rest of my life was minimally disturbed.

By the fall of 2015, I was fully transparent with my then-Husband about my deep struggles despite my commitment in 2012 to carry on in our heterosexual construct.  I could not have been more depressed about the upheaval I was causing, but I had realized there were consequences to me existing in my old identity as well.  There was simply no getting past this massive gutting of me whether I pretended to be heterosexual or I blew up my entire life and that of the people I loved the most.  Art was the safest way for me to communicate with myself.  I watched closely the images to which I was drawn, still split between madness and depression and fueled by expressions of getting to be one’s full self.  Artists and creatives took on a whole new importance to me; they gave me an expression for my internal fracture and a way to draw out what was stuck and killing me.  It was humbling to learn these brilliant people have always been part of society, but just as I didn’t previously understand how valuable their ability to express externally what’s stuck within, seemed to me much of society hadn’t understood their contributions either.  I am not talking about the pleasant and beautiful landscapes and historical reflections in museums…I’m referring to the unrecognized, the unpleasant, the raw art birthed from a daily choice against death. 

I spent a lot of time in 2015 and 2016 speaking with my Husband about my questions about myself, his feelings, our marriage, the well-being and development of my Children.  I was deeply apologetic and repeatedly expressed my regret I was causing us to be in this situation.  I took great care to frequently remind and reassure my Husband that my feelings about my sexual identity had absolutely nothing to do with him; as in, it was not a result of any perceived shortcomings of his, and I meant it.  I was both grateful and bewildered by the fact that even though I was in a reasonably good marriage, these feelings could still permeate my world and hijack everything I thought I knew about myself.  I was devastated I was causing this hurt for us, and we also often discussed the impact of the associated, prolonged stress on my body.  It was in its fifth year by now, and it cast a debilitating shadow over me.  It was as if a hull or shell of my being understood it had to carry on with my responsibilities, which I was glad to be able to do, as it was a sign I wasn’t entirely a failure.  I was running on guilt and self-loathing.

In the middle of my self-torture about my sexual identity, my Husband frequently expressed his empathy for me and that he knew I wasn’t causing all of this on purpose.  He agreed it was even more of a shock because we were doing so well as a couple.  Had we not been in a good marital circumstance, it would have been more likely I’d experience a gap in my contentment, but this phenomenon was so much more compelling and perfectly independent of everything that had existed in my life until 2012.

I wanted nothing more than to be straight.  There is so much societal pressure to be straight, but no straight person knows that, because they aimply don’t face that problem!  Not only had my Husband been part of my journey from inner torment to exasperation, he also understood its cell-level toll.  In 2007 and 2008, joining me in some sessions with our Family Therapist at that time, my Husband had learned about the mind-body connection; how our cells store our emotions.  Together, we learned about the impact of stress on our bodies, including reading books on the stress-cancer connection.  Eventually, we both arrived in late 2016 with an agreement I would begin to step out of this self-denial, and we would begin to adjust together.  We were no longer in a marital relationship by this time, though we kept up appearances.  We were very supportive and protective of one-another back then; gentle, raw, vested.  With my Children, I also kept reinforcing my Husband’s parental role, as at that time I believed that would provide stability for my Children and for my Husband-turning-Friend-and-Confidante.  I was not OK with any more fracture for my Children, who were teenagers at this time, than was inevitable.  This would turn out to be a massive mistake, but then, there is magnificent art for that!  (…and from that.)   

After discussing it with my Husband, I decided to “read in” my Mother in 2016, by taking her on a short trip to Savannah, Georgia.  I have no idea why I thought authenticity from me would beget authenticity from her.  Wishful thinking in an excruciatingly vulnerable time, I suppose.  Instead, I gave her more fodder for the war she, unbeknownst to me, was already waging against me.  My longest chapter on this site thus far is dedicated to my Mother, so I don’t want to distract from my focus on the role of art, but mention her only as it relates to my discovery of art’s power. 

The day came when I turned a corner, figuratively and literally, and I came right home to tell my now roommate-Husband I had met a woman.  A woman.  She was the first since my first Girlfriend in 2012.  It was now 2017.  I had been to hell and back, and I just kept going.  I begged him to divorce me so there would be no question whose fault this was.  He would take another eight months to file while we kept a crumbling facade for the Kids.  I understood.  I felt fully responsible for the state of things, and I made sure to continue to support his role in my teenage Children’s life.  I was grateful for the positive he had brought to their lives, and I kept smoothing over the less helpful parts of his impact, especially on my oldest.  I was looking to minimize the broken glass by keeping myself on the loose shards. 

I was trusting my Husband’s words of compassion.  I was also trusting my Mother’s words of encouragement.  I was unquestioningly trusting they both would be loving adults with respect to my Children, allowing them to live their individual lives while the adults, united by loving them, helped them find their new normal.  I was grateful I had my Husband and Mother by my, by our side.  I would soon be amply rewarded for my gross naivety and for all I had done.  Neither of these people, both of whom should have cared about me and about my Children’s relationship with their Mother, followed through on the acceptance and support they had freely expressed to me.  It took some time, but I realized my Mother and Husband had flipped the narrative and were uniting on the platform of declaring me a selfish, negligent, narcissistic, and toxic person.  Unbeknownst to me, my Husband was allowing my Children to read text messages I was sending directly to him, making me the bad guy for setting curfews, limiting junk food, video games, levying chores, and arranging logistics.  My Husband (then former Husband) was doing the same with my own Mother.  My Mother was then communicating directly with my Children, expressing her disagreement with my rules and efforts at infusing accountability.  Imagine a Grandmother sponsoring a villainizing campaign fueling teenagers at the height of their search for an identity away from their Mother.  Instead of reflecting to my Children their knowledge of how difficult this journey had been for me, how much I thought about them and loved them, and showing their support of me with the same enthusiasm with which they had faked it to my face, they skewered me.  With that, my Mother and my Former Husband demolished the Family structure and belonging I had been building and reinforcing for as many years as I had been a Mother.  They exploited a normal, rebellious child-developmental phase and used it to certify my irreversible, unforgivable character craters.  They relished in their judgements and ultimately triumphant win over my Children, who now saw me as a sham, a hypocrite, and a predator to banish, while gravitating to them.  How wonderful they were, in contrast with bully me! 

I will never be the same person I was four years ago, nine years ago, thirteen years ago, twenty-six years ago, and so on.  I know how much I have loved my Children with every breath I’ve taken.  I know what their well-being means to me.  I have so much love for them stuck inside of me, I ache for universal forces to translate that to their protection.  After my incubation between 2012 and 2017, I am still merely a shell of myself, now gutted in a different, an even more severing way.  Was the journey of the last twelve years worth it?  I don’t know.  After all, Every Form of Refuge has its Price.  Among my gains is the embrace of art in its many, brilliant forms.  It’s the only way I have made it this far in my darkness.  I am not particularly hopeful there will be a better time.  Each new generation sets about to find its purpose, often by wholesale trashing the norms and beliefs of the previous generations.  It’s the human condition.  Though I feel it deeply personally in my life, I am working to transcend that.  With each day, I recall what I am proud of, the decisions I made in favor of my Children, over and over, year after year.  Whether anyone else will ever validate that for me, now cannot be my expectation.  My own validation, alongside my acknowledgment of the many things I would now do differently, will have to be sufficient to orient me toward gentler times.  Someday.  

While in the museum in Amsterdam dedicated to him, my Wife and I learned Vincent van Gogh’s sister-in-law, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, played a crucial role in his posthumous fame.  After her Husband Theo’s death, she inherited a large collection of Vincent’s artwork.  Undeterred by the initial lack of recognition, she tirelessly promoted his work, organizing exhibitions, corresponding with art dealers, and publishing his letters.  Her dedication and perseverance were instrumental in establishing Vincent van Gogh’s reputation as one of the greatest artists of all time.  …but this feels like a fraud to me and a massive injustice to Artists everywhere who don’t have a bored Sister-in-law moving about high society. 

Art is in the eye of the beholder, further complicated by the Artists’ ability to reach affluent eyes.  I’m oversimplifying, of course, but it is to make my point the recognition of the brilliance of one’s art is dependent on much more than I had previously understood.  Nonetheless, I’m grateful for these creative souls who continue to give voice to feelings and experiences otherwise unrecognized and possibly deeply stuck within us, making us ill and rendering us the walking dead.  On the flipside, art can echo, amplify, and immortalize our greatest joys and the best part of our human experience.  Either way, what a critical pursuit in service of others as well as one’s expressive self.