on the way to Triozzi from Scandicci there was a field of sunflowers that i passed everyday on walks to and from Firenze. i love van Gogh's paintings of sunflowers, but not because of the flowers, more due to the artist's hand. walking past this field touched me and burnt their radiant image into my cerebrum. until meeting this field i had taken sunflowers for granted. i didn't eat their seeds and their beauty had not found me yet.

in Vincent's work sunflowers are always burnt out and dying. their life is spent. they are a tragedy. the beauty of the painting is the ability to capture this "dying of the light". the flowers covering hillsides in Tuscany are not dying they are alive and reactive. they move in the wind and present themselves to the sun. they are dynamic in a very beautiful and reassuring way.

i found a joy in walking by these flowers. the time i spent in Triozzi was difficult. the time of being a child was passing and the trappings of my adult life lay waiting. my final thrashings of real teenage angst presented themselves while i was wandering the hills of Tuscany. when i came back to the states i was supposed to be grown up. so i wandered, trying to grow up.

of course this was foolish. it even looks over dramatic to write out the feelings now, ten years later. (HOLY CRAP its been ten years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) i now in a hindsight can see that i continued to "grow up" long past coming home and many of those that know me now would argue i still have much growing to yet do. it wasn't quite as fatal as it felt at the time, most things aren't. i survived what i thought was becoming an adult.

during the walks beside the sunflowers, though, i found comfort in the flowers bright and open attitude. they became to me an optimism that i was searching for. something that always shrugged of the taint or dirt of its past to embrace the sunshine of a new day. i have not been able to become this optimistic in response to the flowers. instead when i really need a fresh uncluttered outlook i remember the sunflowers. it's kind of ridiculous, i know. but it works for me. some people drive really fast others, drink themselves out of their minds. i dwell on sunflowers.

why, you may ask yourself, am i talking about flowers? well, it's two-fold. first is the feeling of life i have had this last week. with Chad's death and the continuous revelation of how truly disturbed he had become, i have found this week to be heavy and depressing. at home it had been as morose. Natalya's absence leaves our house lacking in joy and sunshine. i have needed the optimism of the sunflowers this week just to make it through the week. second, comes from reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. i have just past the portion of the story in which Phaedrus has discussed writing with his students. finding that you have something to say, by not trying to imitate or regurgitate what you have seen or heard.

i have not been able to do anything at work this week (this extends into afterhours, as i have not been able to work on anything while home alone either). one would think that i am "dealing" with the loss of a person. i am instead walking through fields of richest yellow and green. i have spent the week in a daze of sorts. only existing within the moment i am at enough to be bodily present. my mind had been embracing the optimism and escape that my memories of sunflowers offers me. at some point i am going to have to face deadliines and dead-friends. i cannot stay in the sun and heat and breeze under the illusory blue sky indefinitely.

but i am not going to leave this field just yet...