Walking in the Footsteps of Van Gogh in Auvers sur Oise
In May of 2020, two weeks after the first lockdown ended in France, we took a day trip by car to Auvers sur Oise, where Van Gogh spent his final months.
Once able to go only 1km from our home, we were now allowed to travel up to 100 km, and this beautiful little riverside town is just 30 km from Paris. Wandering around town, you’ll see the fields that inspired some of Van Gogh’s most celebrated works. You can walk through these fields and imagine the painter there, moved by the sky and the vast open spaces. A narrow path running through town opens on one side to the river, on the other to a series of private homes, where we saw children playing and families gathering for meals. After the long gray lockdown of Paris, it was a joy to witness those familial scenes.
walking in Auvers sur Oise
Auvers sur Oise was peaceful that weekend, as borders were still closed and no one could travel very far within the country. The video begins on the steps of Auvers, memorialized in the painting of the same name, and ends at the the boarding house where he spent his last days. He died in an upper room of the boarding house. According to the sign, the room has not been changed since that day in 1890. The boarding house is now a restaurant, and the building attracts a lot of tourists during normal times.
From this path you can wander up to the church, then keep going up the hill to the small cemetery where Vincent Van Gogh is buried beside his brother, Theo. I visited the famous cemeteries of Paris to see the graves of Simone de Beuvoire, John Paul Sartre, Degas, Edith Piaf, Moliere. Jim Morrison, Balzac, and so many others. But none of the gravesites moved me in the way this simple, rustic gravesite for Vincent and Theo did. For a touching glimpse of this fraternal relationship, read Dear Theo, comprised of letters written from Van Gogh to his supportive younger brother.
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Literary Quotes on Calmness
It’s crazy out there right now, what with the stock market sliding and coronavirus fears spreading and so much uncertainty in the air. When the noise in my head and the noise of the world is too loud, I turn to literature for some much-needed soothing of the soul. When all else fails, books are a beautiful refuge.
As Montaigne noted, “When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.” Here, then, some books to absorb you and banish the clouds:
“I began to regain a measure of calm. I had done a good job tying the ladder to the tree, after all. It wasn’t going to come loose just like that.” Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
I dig this because it reminds you that every day, you perform a thousand minor tasks that work out just fine. You brush your teeth and don’t choke on the toothpaste. You drive to work and don’t hit a deer. You eat the cookie dough and don’t get salmonella. Be calm because, after all, you’re probably more prepared than you think, and maybe it’s not all going to come loose just like that.
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“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark
This is lovely because it accepts that, though storms are inevitable, there are lessons to be learned within the storm. I think of hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. On the rare occasion that we didn’t evacuate, we would all huddle together in a closet in the middle of our little house beside a kudzoo patch until the outer circle of the storm passed. When it grew quiet, we’d escape the closet and wander onto the porch, into the warm, strange silence of the eye. The world, in the center of the eye, feels utterly changed. It is the same place, only different, and I have always imagined that’s what it would feel like to step into an alternate universe–calm and slightly terrifying, painfully beautiful.
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“Occasionally along the banks it would catch on some underwater obstacle, and eddies would develop. But the river flowed on, parading, concerned only with its hidden aims beyond the horizon, somewhere far off to the north.” Olga Tokarczuk, Flights
It’s like that, isn’t it? We snag ourselves on all these unexpected obstacles we couldn’t possibly have seen coming, submerged as they are beneath the surface. Flowing is a simpler business when you can’t see what’s ahead. We live with the eddies, but there is somewhere to get to, so we keep going there. In this steady flow, one finds calm.
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“You cannot wait for an untroubled world to have an untroubled moment…In the meantime, it is best to grab what wonderful moments you find lying around.” Lemony Snickett, All the Wrong Questions: Shouldn’t You Be in School?
So true. There will always be trouble, which makes it all the more essential to “grab” the good times. Don’t be shy about experiencing those moments. As the French say, profiter. (Or, a command, because in France one loves to issue orders: Profitez!)
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“He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age…” Plato (Great Dialogues of Plato)
No disrepsect to Plato, but this may be simplifying matters a bit. Still, one can enjoy the spirit of it. A calm and happy nature may not ward of osteoporosis and the ultimate descent (or ascent, if that’s the way you see it), but it does make the journey more pleasant, to a point.
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“I think about what I’m reading or writing… All you need is a little peace and quiet and the words will come to you — your own voice or the other’s. Your own voice or the voice of God. Perspiration. Inspiration. It feels like a gift.” Thomas Lynch, Bodies in Motion and at Rest
Here, Lynch describes the essential, exquisite calm that comes with a life of the mind, a life in books. There is patience in this kind of life, in the stillness that books and writing bring, in the waiting for words. It’s the patience all writers strive for, the stillness we crave. I think we crave it more in times of chaos. There is a place you go to in the mind, a cocoon of safety: books can be the vehicle to take you there.
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For a counterpoint, you might consider Oscar Wilde, who loved to provide the counterpoint, just to be contrarian:
“Nothing is so aggravating as calmness.” Oscar Wilde
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Michelle Richmond is the New York Times bestselling author of THE YEAR OF FOG, The Marriage Pact, Golden State, and other novels and story collections. Her books have been published in 30 languages. She lives and writes in Paris.
Discover THE YEAR OF FOG, the international bestseller about one woman’s search for a missing child.
“A mesmerizing novel of loss and grief, hope and redemption, and the endurance of love.” Library Journal, starred review
“A harrowing, beautifully written story of a photographer and soon-to-be stepmom whose momentary lapse in attention results in the disappearance of her fiance’s little girl on a foggy beach in San Francisco. What happened to 6-year-old Emma? The answer, and its implications, will keep you on the edge of your beach chair.” Denver Post
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