Thinking of Vincent

and other things and people this morning.
Finished reading Van Gogh's Women: His
Love Affairs and Journey Into Madness
recently. It was a Christmas gift from my mother.
As is so often the case, I am reluctant to like
anything my mother likes. I don't want to
engage in conversation with her about any topic
which may lead to an argument. It's best to stay
safe and stick to the relatively innocuous
things like how good fresh vegetables are, how
much work a yard and garden are, how many
storms we've had lately, etc. But, I am glad I read
the book and plan to order some other books
about Vincent. I am not a Vincent scholar but can
see where it would be easy to want to become one.

Vincent's tendency to self-mutilate when his relationships
did not go as planned makes me think of some of the
people I work with.

I meant to bracket info as I read that I knew I would
want to revisit, but for some reason I didn't. I'm not
sure why this one particular image from the book
struck me, but it did. The author was commenting
on Vincent's time in Arles or Montmarte. He said that
some days the wind was so strong, Vincent had a habit
of painting on his knees, canvas flat on the ground. Some
of the paintings have sand grains mixed in with the paint
I can just see Vincent dropping to his knees and making
love to that canvas.

I bracketed the hell outta Annie Dillard's For The Time
Being, and even though I grew a bit frustrated with her
at one point, I am glad I stayed with the book. I think
what bothered me most were all the god references.
Other than that, there was some fascinating information
in the book. I would see a word or phrase and compose
a poem in my head. But, as I no longer keep a notepad
by the bed to jot down thoughts, those poems were just
lost. They may come to me again, but it seems everything
is hard for me these days. My memory fails me, I can't
spell, I can't pronounce certain words that I feel certain
I probably could have in the past, I have no energy
for exploring the new.

This morning I have a little energy, but I don't plan
to invest it in anything other than reading, at least
for not the next hour or so. Lauren will be here this
afternoon. She and Jon are coming to town for her 10
year class reunion. Wes went to Lexington. He left
yesterday. He wanted to go scout things out since he
has chosen UK. It is so hard for me to let go. So hard.

A quote Dillard selected for her book For The Time Being:

"We move between two darknesses," E.M. Forster wrote.
"The two entities who might enlighten us, the baby and
the corpse, cannot do so."

Some things I underlined from the book (the word poem
written in the margin):

*the face of Jesus arose in a tortilla
*Kandy, Sri Lanka
*God's quondam target
*the black mute stone
*Mycenaean Greeks called the dead "the thirsty"
*The average river requires a million years to move
a grain of sand one hundred miles.
*Solutrean
*double-ogive
*circling the drain


And this passage really got to me:

"People burst like foam. If you walk a graveyard
in the heat of summer, I have read, you can sometimes
hear--right through coffins--bloated bellies pop.
Poor people everywhere still test a fresh corpse
for life by holding a flame to its big toe. If the corpse
is truly dead, gas fills the toe blister and explodes it.
If the body is alive, fluid, not gas, fills the blister;
the fluid boils, and also pops the skin."

Allergies are bothering me today. Lots of sneezes
and congestion. My sweet little baby Isaac is now
on a nebulizer. He has asthma. Oh my. Wes went
through a rough time with that until 2nd grade.
He hasn't struggled with it since that time but I
understand it can rear its ugly head again.

On to read The Last Days of the Romanovs.