A Journey Among Irises: In the Footsteps of Vincent van Gogh
I am preparing my travels for this summer, so there is less time to write this week. But stay tuned because there will be many stories to tell soon. And for the newer followers of this newsletter: in the summer months, my content is usually lighter, focusing on travel, photography, art, and nature.
In short: the beauty side of this newsletter is my compensation for the many times I remind you of the enormous challenges we face to keep our planet as livable and beautiful as it is now, complicated by a lack of passionate and talented leaders who genuinely care about long-term policies to save our planet instead of their political career.
So there will be less writing this week, but I don't want to let you go without sharing a photo I took of a beautiful iris.
I recently wrote that there are probably a few dozen themes that I often return to in my writing, which are often combined into new stories. I leave it to you to discover those, but for now, it is sufficient to state that if I would make a word cloud, chances are that words flowers, beauty, personal memories, travel, art, and Vincent van Gogh would all be included. Let's remix them this evening before I start packing my backpack.
Let me take you back to the summer of 2015 when I embarked on a memorable journey through France to explore some places where Vincent van Gogh lived and created his timeless masterpieces. Among these destinations was the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where Vincent lived from May 1889 to May 1990. He painted some of his most famous works here, including the mesmerizing Irises, soon after his arrival.
This famous painting and my memories of Saint Rémy popped up in my mind when I looked in detail at the photo I had taken of the irises. I could see how these flowers must have inspired the passionate artist. A feeling described by Don McLean in his famous song about the painter when he used the lines: "Now I understand what you try to say to me." I wonder if his line "Flaming flowers that brightly blaze" refers to Vincent's Irises.
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Still here? I'm back from a bit of a research break since I didn't want to leave you with that open question. It seems I was wrong:
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