How I first heard about Jo van Gogh and decided to write her story.
Your future self is calling you now.
A friend said that to me a while back and I love it.
It’s a time-bender. An idea suggesting a pre-set destiny or plan. As if seeds of intent are buried deep within us, waiting for us to notice.
We get to choose whether to pay attention or not.
That’s the only explanation I have for why I discovered Jo van Gogh, and why I chose to write her story.
How the Idea First Showed Up
Two events.
In hindsight, memories of the two steppingstones leading to Jo stand out in stark relief, but at the time, they felt fleeting. Forgettable. I had no idea of the lasting impact they would ultimately have.
I was distracted, subsumed by long workdays and weekends reserved for catching up with my business-traveling husband. Humming with a demanding schedule and certainly no inkling or foresight that two separate incidents would one day merge together.
Caught in a groove, I didn’t see change coming.
The first event occurred in 2016.
Girlfriend Getaway to Amsterdam
It’s fall and I hang out with three girlfriends at work. We each hold down roles that are insanely hectic. Pressure-cooker work/life. Frustrating politics. Wrinkled suits. Under this relentless pace one day over a hurried Thai food lunch, we decide to buy ourselves a break. A girlfriend 4-day escape to Europe. No husbands, no kids. Our decision criteria on where to go is simple. It must be a European city with a direct flight from NYC (less time in the air, more time in wine bars).
Snap, the answer’s obvious.
Amsterdam.
So, we get over there and it’s a rush. We’re jamming hard. Go go go. Up early, to bed late: Windmills, pannenkoek* Anne Frank House, a canal boat tour, train ride into Bruges for heavenly Belgian chocolate, dodging bicycles, losing our way, not once nor twice but three times amongst the canals, Nine Streets shopping, and museums… to the Rijksmuseum for Rembrandt and Vermeer, and of course, to the Van Gogh Museum to see Vincent’s art.
The Van Gogh was my idea. I bought entry tickets online before leaving the States.
It’s our last full day in Amsterdam. Some of that pent-up pressure is dissipated. When we get inside the museum, we split up to do our own thing, agreeing to meet back at the gift shop in a few hours. I rent the audio tour headphones, slip them on, and hit Play.
I take my time. You're in your own world with the curator’s voice in your ears. Gradually, I move from painting-to-painting hearing snippets of Vincent’s life. I begin to catch a glimpse of his personality. Like so many of us, someone who searched relentlessly for his place in the world. How he felt family pressure as the oldest child to pick a profession and after failing and failing and failing pick any profession and do it decently. Someone who struggled with mental illness—crippling melancholy—and how he leaned on his brother Theo, the one lifebuoy who wouldn’t give up on him, even when he didn’t believe in himself.
And yet, I saw too that through all this turmoil, Vincent followed an unspooling thread of artistic expression and exploration. He moved from one creative technique to another. He studied the classics (until he got kicked out of art school for arguing with instructors). He emulated Japanese art. He tried out techniques from his peers, like impressionism and pointillism. How he switched from muted greens and greys to bright colors after he moved to Paris.
So, it was really lovely—to be in this suspended bubble of time—empathizing and walking the path of this ordinary/extraordinary master artist.
By the time I get to the end of the exhibit I’m brimming with feeling. Full of this human life and what he experienced. I turn and see Vincent’s family tree.
Little black-and-white photos. First his parents. I stare at his dad, a minister, remembering how often he got angry. I see that Vincent had an infant brother who died before Vincent was born. A child with the same first name. I wondered how that made Vincent feel. As though he was a replacement? A do-over? Next, I see Theo’s picture and smile at him. Vincent’s emotional and financial lifeline. I note his life span: 1857 – 1891.
I glance back at Vincent. He died in 1890. Huh. So, Theo died six months after his brother.
To the right of Theo’s photo is the postage-stamp black-and-white photo of a girl named Johanna. Theo’s wife. Her life span 1862 – 1925. She inherited—saved— Vincent’s art. I don’t recall the specific caption, but seared into my memory is the realization that struck me in that second staring at her photo:
“If not for you, this museum wouldn’t exist. If not for you, we wouldn’t know Vincent.”
The second event would come less than a year later.
Fast Forward to a Writer Group
Unrelated (or so I thought) to our European getaway, I’d started to think about writing on the side.
Being the systemic “do your homework” kinda girl I joined a mastermind of creatives to check out what being an author was like.
Run by the intrepid Dan Blank the class was a vibrant online community comprised of musicians, artists, and a bunch of writers. Like sitting up on the top row of bleachers, every day I’d show up to watch Slack practice, leaning in to listen and try to learn from the drills.
I contributed occasionally, but I was still working my corporate job. This cool kids Slack group felt like a completely different community. A new language. I wasn’t sure I belonged.
All of this changed one day in a brief exchange with one of the authors, Teri Case.
.
Teri and I are Slack bantering when she asks me a question. “What story do you want to write?”
So, Jo van Gogh’s picture pops into thought. Someone whose life had a big impact and isn’t well known. I tell Teri about Jo, then say, “Something like that. A story like Jo’s.”
“Or you could write Jo’s story.”
I jerk back. My heart pounds. What, me? Oh no, not me. There are PhD’s who write dissertations on Van Gogh. Hundreds, thousands of Van Gogh experts. No way, not me. I can’t do it.
But then again, a quiet voice inserts, this isn’t Vincent’s story.
It’s Jo’s.
I don’t remember now what mumbling response I made to Teri. But I’m living the impact of her statement. How she opened a door: I could write Jo’s story.
I Walk through the Door
Together, the two events became the catalyst that ultimately focused the niggling desire to write into an actual project. That tug would grow in intensity.
I started to think about what it would take to really dedicate myself. Something had to give.
Lots of arguments resisting commitment would still come up. Don’t cast away a hard-won career. Why leave a good thing? Yet, I started to see that culminating with the desire to write this story was also the unacknowledged need to move on. My current life chapter may have been played well, but I was played out.
Ultimately, the decision came down to intuitively knowing that the cost of not trying to write would be too dear.
So, where does inspiration come from? How do you tell the difference between a passing thought and an idea worth striving for?
Has your future self ever called you? Or, even more fun, what’s your future self saying to you now?
Warmly,
*I’ll celebrate publishing my book in spring 2025 with a delicious Dutch pannenkoek pancake, both savory and sweet.
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