Brave?

Original post date: Tuesday, January 22, 2008


Brave?

I am reading a book.

My Friend Leonard
by James Frey

Yeah, yeah it is all fake, I know. Yes he is the one who wrote "A Million Little Pieces" and said that he was a bit indulgent in the details with his autobiography. I don't care. It is a good book, you should read it. It is really a story about love and friendship.

Well "My Friend Leonard" is just as good, you should read it to, I am about halfway through it.

Here is a passage.

"We see a Tahitian Gauguin and Leonard starts to cry, he just stands in front of it and he cries no words just heavy tears running down his cheeks. I stand with him, stare at the painting, which is of a young Tahitian woman, supposedly Gauguin's mistress, wearing a simple cotton dress, white flowers in her black hair, a fan in her hand. I don't speak, just let Leonard cry, he starts speaking.
Gauguin was a stockbroker in Paris, married, had five kids. One day he came home from work and told his wife he was leaving, that he was through supporting his family, that he had had enough. Just like that he fucking took off. He said he had always felt that he was a painter, so he moved into a rat-infested shithole and he started painting. His wife begged him to come back, his bosses told him he was insane, he didn't care, he was following his heart. He left Paris, moved to Rouen, went from Rouen to Arles, from Arles to Tahiti. He was searching for peace, contentment, trying to fill that fucking hole he felt inside, and he believed he could fill it. He died in Tahiti, blind and crazy from syphilis, but he did it. He filled his fucking hole, made beautiful work, made beautiful, beautiful work.
Leonard wipes his tears away.
It takes a brave man to walk away, to care so much that he doesn't care about anything else, to be willing to obey what he feels inside, to be wiling to suffer the consequences of living for himself. Every time I stand before his work it makes me cry, and I cry because I'm proud of him, and happy for him, and because I admire him.
Leonard takes a deep breath, wipes away the last of his tears, turns and walks out of the room, out of the museum."

I re-read that passage about five times. Very poignant for me.

Are you brave?

Am I brave? Or am I crazy or just stupid.

I am not brave.
I am scared shitless, literally I just pooped.

I am not crazy.

I am not stupid.

I try to be brave.

I will let you know in six years.