In the year 2000, my good friend, Emily, convinced me one afternoon that we should apply to study abroad in France. It was not a well-thought-through plan, but we decided, what the hell; we were seventeen; we would throw caution to the wind.
We were both accepted to a cultural exchange program in northwest France.
I suspect that we were going for different reasons: Emily wanted to learn French (we’d been taking it for four years, but it had trouble sticking to Em for some reason); and I wanted to get the fuck out.
I was angry at the world and hurting, but I still couldn’t quite explain why. I’d buried myself in schoolwork that semester, and devoted most of my time—day and night—to a big research project for Advanced Chemistry with the scariest teacher in school.
We were set to leave in June. In the last week of May, I was shopping around for things I’d need. Suitcase—check. Clothes—check. Meds—check. I’d written “journal” on the list, so I entered Borders and made a beeline for the clearance rack. I found a stack of journals that were on sale for $2.99.
I stood there for a moment, considering. I wanted to document my experiences on this trip—the monuments I’d see, the various places I’d go, my personal development of the language, etc. But standing there, I considered what had happened five months ago [the thing that I hadn’t told anyone, the thing that I was scared to write down, let alone speak of in whisper or otherwise]. And suddenly I knew I’d need a secret journal, too—one that could document the thoughts that I didn’t want tainting my rosy trip log. So I bought two. One had a crappy reproduction of Monet’s “Water Lilies.” I think I chose that as the “cultural journal” because Monet was French. But Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” would be kept in the bottom of my suitcase, just in case I wanted or needed it.
And so we left.
For the first week, I carefully documented the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Britagne, France. I described the way French sounded in music videos; I wrote about my funny host father and his affinity for puns (much like my own father); I told Monet about the old women who tatted lace in the market; about the locals staring at me as I ran through the entire two blocks of a town called Morlaix; about Nicky sing-songing “bonjour” in a deep southern drawl; and about learning to make crepes with my host mother.
But in the second week, I realized I needed Van Gogh. I began to write two journal entries every night: Monet first, Van Gogh second. And over those six weeks, in my own hesitant, stumbling way, I processed what had happened to me. I decided that I didn’t need to kill myself, and that I could probably continue with a relatively normal life. The trick, I’d decided, was in simply moving forward, even if the past hurt badly. It was in finding strength where there was none. Even if I couldn’t yet identify what had happened as rape—that took another year or so—I could recognize that there was still some good in me, and that I possessed the capability to do good things; to shape the world in a way that was meaningful and beautiful and important. I think Van Gogh saved me.
I was still afraid to talk about it—what would people think?!—but I began—privately—to understand that this was going to be a critical piece of me for the rest of my life.
On sunflowers:
Seedlings are very delicate until several weeks when the stem grows thicker and develops in to a stalk. When digging your sunflower up, make sure to give it wide berth. If you dig too close to the stalk, the roots can be damaged and your beloved flower might not recover. The farther out you dig, the more roots will remain on the stalk. Dig straight down to go deep and avoid cutting the largest roots. Shake off excess dirt if it is too heavy to carry to the new location. Sunflowers are hardy plants. Sunflowers do self-seed; as they droop in the unforgiving winter, they’ll drop their seeds into the ground, and regrow in the summer’s sun.
I suppose all journals are important, but it is because of what fills them. After all, journals are just empty shells waiting to be filled. I sometimes wonder who bought the other eleven Van Gogh journals that were sitting on the clearance rack at Borders in May 2000.
For me, I found myself.