How I Became One with Van Gogh

I FINISHED THE PUZZLE.

If you've been following this bizarre and obsessive journey with me over the last month on social media, you will know that this is a big fucking deal. I will explain why in a bit but in the meantime, you can insert any happy dance you'd like in the comments so that we can all celebrate together. We are so devoid of fun and silly interludes lately, that I thought that we all deserved the accolades, even though today really is mostly about me. So...bust a virtual move and fete my accomplishment, weak-assed though it may be. 

 I chose this one. 

Diversions are not easy to come by in the pandemic age. There is only so much cooking, cleaning, sorting,  and baking a girl can do. I have learned how to not kill a sourdough starter thanks to the expertise and patient tutoring of my lovely cousin/niece. I have turned said starter into so many carb-laden baked goods that The Husband has threatened me with two-a-day training sessions. I have perfected my Shabbat challahs. I have exercised so much that I have hit my move and workout targets for 112 straight days and I have the receipts to prove it. (I don't think I've lost a pound given the abundance of aforementioned baking.) I have binged watched television series and binged listened to podcasts. (Watchmen and Pose are phenomenal television viewing and the new season of the Slow Burn podcast about David Duke is simply frightening. Also, as a comedy kick and homage to the late Carl Reiner, The Husband and I have been rewatching the old Dick Van Dyke Show on Amazon Prime. It is fabulous and still really funny.)

I can't seem to focus on a book. I manage to read a chapter or two but my mind wanders helplessly to other less inviting thoughts and I stop. I've only managed to finish one all summer and it distresses me. Hopefully, this will remedy itself soon but in the meantime, there is always a jigsaw puzzle in progress on our dining room table.

I have been enthralled with puzzles for decades. Over the last few years, it has become a mother/daughter activity while we snowbird in Florida. Mom and I have spent hours bonding and chatting over thousand-piece jigsaws. They are fun, calming, and offer a concentration level that tunes up the mind and memory, a truly zen experience. The pandemic and quarantine have meant that Mom and I have been puzzling separately. Earlier this past spring, I noticed that The Husband was sitting from time to time and fiddling with pieces. It became a way for him to decompress after a particularly arduous phone call or Zoom meeting. So, I was thrilled when he suggested that we walk over to the toy store nearby and purchase some gifts for Molly and, maybe, a couple of new puzzles. 

He chose the Van Gogh. 

Don't let him tell you otherwise. This entire episode that has encompassed a full month of our wedded bliss is wholly and entirely his fault. We had just come from the Immersive Van Gogh experience that is playing here at the old Toronto Star building and we were wonderfully reminded of just how much we love and are mesmerized by Vincent's work. The man was a true genius. Tortured and lost in his own thoughts, but nevertheless, a genius. We have seen several of his paintings in person over the years. His Starry Night is probably one of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world and has been commercialized to such an extent that one can buy anything affixed with its image. (There is even a song written about it if you don't mind a Don McLean earworm.) If you haven't seen Starry Night up close and personal, I highly recommend a post-pandemic trip to New York and a pilgrimage to the Museum of Modern Art. I snuck this photo of it the last time we were there. 

It is hard to discern from the photo just how many colours and brushstrokes he used. The moon with the sun rising over it isn't merely yellow. It is yellow mixed with several shades of greens and blues and purples. The brushstrokes run in all directions. To the naked eye, the village below is a shadowed sketch of muted browns, greys, blues and blacks but upon further review, the greens and turquoises jump forward. And the very thing this masterpiece is known for, the stars, are muted in the photograph. Thousands of pinpoints of gold dot the entire canvass. Vincent painted it in 1889 during his stay at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Even though he was going through a particularly dark period, he wrote about this canvas in a letter to his brother Theo and about how beautiful the night sky and the village below his window appeared. 

This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big. Daubigny and Rousseau did that, though, with the expression of all the intimacy and all the great peace and majesty that it has, adding to it a feeling so heartbreaking, so personal. These emotions I do not detest.

I am almost certain that Van Gogh never foresaw his painting being cut into a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece is a nightmare of colours and swooshes. Brushstrokes that appear to fit together, simply don't. What Van Gogh saw as an explosion of hues dancing across the pre-dawn sky, I saw as a dizzying array of shit. Each piece looks like thirty others and they all seemingly fit together. Some examples.

We were seeing colours and swirls in our sleep. We found ourselves holding pieces up to the window so that the light would better define the fit and the subtle tones. After week one, The Husband gave up. He wanted to throw the damn thing off the roof. I wasn't as willing to pack it in. It became an obsession, much like Vincent's need to paint the bloody thing in the first place. I posted my first update on social media almost a month ago and was stunned to find out how many of my friends had attempted this crazy-assed thing and subsequently abandoned the task. It was then that I realized that not only would I make every effort to finish it, but I would also attempt to find a small measure of peace while doing it. What looked and sounded crazy to many became a necessary escape for me. I found myself lost in paint swooshes and totally captivated by pinpoints of light. I could almost imagine myself walking across the hills in twilight or singing under the moon. I now know every single inch of this painting. I have become a master of its intricacies. While he was in a self-quarantine, Van Gogh painted his greatest masterpiece. During a month of my quarantine, I recreated his journey.

This puzzle was a struggle until the very last piece. A friend remarked yesterday that I was either extraordinarily patient or maybe a bit crazy. I don't usually like words like crazy. We are all feeling a lot these days and "crazy" seems like it should be reserved for something else. I will acknowledge struggling as are so many others. The struggles are baked in but patience is a learned virtue during this time of uncertainty. It has never been a strong suit of mine but I am getting there. A month of this puzzle has certainly broadened my equanimity.

I am planning on leaving it together for a few days. I think I've earned it. I am willing to pass it on for the fearless among you but only with the caveat that you see it through to the end. If you think that you might give up, this offer isn't for you. Let me know and we can arrange an exchange. In the meantime, I eagerly await the next jigsaw. I'm thinking something cartoonish might be best.

Don't forget to leave me a happy dance. I've earned it.

Zen and The Art of Jigsaw Puzzles

There was an episode of Black-ish that aired in January to which I really related.

As an aside, if Black-ish isn't already a part of your regular viewing routine, I suggest you put it on the list. It is one of the smartest and most adventurous comedies on the air at the moment. It regularly takes risks with its family-centred storylines and it straddles the always perilous line between social consciousness and just plain fun. I highly recommend it.

In the episode entitled Bow Knows, mother of five Rainbow joins a mommy online group for support and advice. As part of the guilt and backlash she receives from her invisible and judgemental new friends, she decides to remove screen time from her children and chides them about their lack of other hobbies. The kids are reluctantly forced to interact with each other as they take up the supposedly archaic pastime of jigsaw puzzles. While they bitch and moan for most of the episode, a little spark of togetherness ignites while they aren't paying attention and when Bow ultimately returns their devices at the end of the show, they decide to stick with the puzzles.

I was delighted with the episode mostly because my mom and I have reignited our passion for jigsaw puzzles this season at The Southern Home. It started with a gift that Sister/Cousin bought for my parent's wedding anniversary in December. Why she thought my puzzle-challenged dad might enjoy this gift is still beyond my comprehension, but my mom was thrilled. We used to do puzzles all the time when I was a kid. She decided to wait until Younger Son and his B'shert visited in January to open it. The jigsaw was a bonding success. Mom bought a puzzle mat for her dining room table and she and her grandson spent several afternoons together deftly fitting Mickey Mouse's movie posters together. It was such a successful endeavour and I was so very pleased with the relaxation and pleasure that it brought my mother, I immediately ordered another after my kids left for home. And then another....and another.

I had forgotten just how much I truly enjoyed the quiet zen of doing jigsaw puzzles. While seen as a frivolous time-waster to some, I choose to look at it from other perspectives. The completion of a jigsaw is the restoration of wholeness from something that is in a perpetual state of brokenness or ugliness. Beauty is found not only in the completion but in the task itself. There is a quiet sense of flow as Mom and I work seamlessly together on the undertakings of shaping and sorting the pieces. The work moves quietly but deliberately until larger images seem to fall away into the concentration of mere shapes and colours. Shades on the colour spectrum and gradations matter so much more than full photographic representations. We often chat amiably as we go but, more often than not, we tend to work in quiet synchronization. I fill in the smaller details that Mom finds difficult to navigate with her "ageing eyesight" (her words, not mine) but she totally blows me out of the water with colour matching. That artistic eye has not abandoned her. There is no competition, only the common goal of completion. The only distractions are a bottle of Diet Coke for me or a coffee for her.

For a couple of hours each day, all of life's frustrations and complications have been set aside to work on an entirely doable thing. We may not be able to fix the ills of the outside world but we are able to find relief and reparation in the reassembling of something shattered back to its original integrity and in that task, we find some measure of peace and tranquillity. It has given me a space to recharge and find wholeness again for myself.

Look, I am not saying this is a hobby for everybody. The Husband and my dad would sooner paste their eyes shut with a hot glue gun rather than engage in this pastime. But just as Bow wanted her children to understand in that episode of Black-ish, the need to disconnect from things and to reconnect with people, even ourselves, is vital.

I have never been a good practitioner of meditation or mindfulness. I find that both exercises stress me out and that seems extraordinarily counterintuitive to their stated goals. Jigsaw puzzling, however, especially in the company of my mom, has given me a bit of peace over the past few months. It has afforded me a chance at a soul reset. I wouldn't call that a waste of time at all.

***We have one puzzle left to complete before I head home this weekend. It is Broadway musicals. I've saved the best for last.