sun_set_bravely | 'You may know that the peony is Jeannin's, the hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is mine

I passed the Gandhi statue in Union Square yesterday. I'd forgotten all about this statue! That side of the square just finished undergoing a year's worth of major construction, so the statue has recently returned from a year in storage.

This is one of my favorite statues in New York City. It's a joy to discover him amongst the cold, burly heroes on horses everywhere else: he's stooped slightly, looking just like you would imagine he'd look, with his glasses and his walking stick. Behind him is a path made of rough square stones, and all around him are rich pink miniature rose bushes.

There are perpetually flowers wreathed on and around this statue -- just a few mornings ago I saw someone placing a big, bright sunflower in the beautiful statue's hand. By yesterday morning, the sunflower was wilted over Gandhi's bronze hand, its vibrant colors nearly gone.

That nearly-dead sunflower felt so familiar to me that I paused in my step. Then I had a quiet revelation.

That's what Van Gogh's sunflowers look like. He painted wilted sunflowers.

Of course he did!

I always assumed that the drab maize and dark sandy colors in his sunflowers were his distortion of reality.

Now I see that he chose those faded flowers for his models. Of all the sunflowers in the world, he wanted to paint the ones that were days from dust.

This realization made me so happy, so light. I felt like I'd noticed something profound about life. It feels good to be awake to such small details of the world that can bring on such understanding of another person, even one long dead.

I feel the desire to renew myself, and to try to apologize for the fact that my pictures are after all almost a cry of anguish, although in the rustic sunflower they may symbolize gratitude. Vincent van Gogh, 1890.