People Like me

For as long as I can remember Van Gogh has been my favourite artist. I have had the absolute pleasure and blessing to experience the Van Gogh 360 exhibit not once but twice. The first told a story of a broken man who was tormented by his own creativity. The second was like walking into the feeling of a fantasy novel and tasting a new and strange world. 

My first experience was a one-off, sheer happenstance, where I stumbled into the opportunity. It was back in February and I remember hopping from foot to foot with bursting excitement. After touring a grande manor and tasting some wine I was off to see my favourite artist’s masterpieces displayed with great love and adoration. I wasn’t expecting it to put such emphasis on the tragedy that was so evident throughout Van Gogh life. I could not help but weep. Because in between the brushstrokes and bold colour all I could see was a life that could have so easily been mine. All I could see was the deep unrelenting pain that he suffered and how I could have ended up just like him. So that first time I saw the experience I wept a great deal and it’s taken me this many months to put it to words. 

When opportunity came knocking, that I might once again view the exhibit, this time in my province of residence, I jumped at the chance. But I remember on the drive there I began to dread it, because I had faced that truth once and had come to except it but I wished not to look in that mirror once more. But man was my expectation off. This was like nothing before, like nothing I had ever seen. This was truly what I had wanted to see, this tremendous celebration of artistry and beauty. I spent much of the time with my hands either on my face or my heart. I was so struck with the beauty of it all, with wonder and awe. I remember looking around me and seeing that for most, this was just another Sunday evening, another perhaps beautiful moment that they might remember tomorrow but not much more. I spent the entire 40 minutes with a gleeful smile plastered on my face, I didn’t care that a few people we’re aware of my pure joy; I just thought to myself well sad for you, that you can’t feel what you are seeing. 

I have lived for nearly 15 years in rural Nova Scotia, and I have spent those 15 years slowly drying up. There isn’t much of an arts culture to speak of, and as a growing artist there isn’t a more thorough form of torture. There is great beauty here in Nova Scotia oh to be true, and should you be established and stable there is much inspiration to be found here. But as a young girl with too much creativity and too little space to lay it down, it was hard to live here. 

The gift of seeing my most admired’s works twice now has been the beginning to an answer to a prayer. A prayer I’ve been praying since I was 8 years old. I remember as a child screaming and crying to any aunt who would listen, about wanting to be understood, and they would say to me it’s okay to be different. I didn’t really care that I was weird, even though I had already figured it out at 8, I just wanted to be understood. And it has taken me a long time, to find the crakes in this world where the people like me live. To find the people who think like me, who see like me, who feel like me. But I’ve begun to find them, and what a sweet relief it has been. Even if many are people I’ve never met and will never be able to, it is enough. To know that they are out there and that one day I might get to meet them in more than their words and paintings. 

As I stood in that exhibit I found a deep understanding. That were Van Gogh to walk into that room our hearts would have beat in time, and we would have had a lot to talk about. A lot to learn and hear and understand. Because I have no doubt in my heart that Van Gogh had a heart like mine and if given the chance he and I could have been good friends. There is nothing else that quite breaks my heart the way that does. But it gives me hope, to know that there was once someone like me. That if once they walked this earth, than once again they will and maybe this time we might find each other. And give each other the gift of understanding that comes when your hearts beat in the same colour.