The Seine at Night, Under Van Gogh's Starry Sky

The song you just heard was Don McLean's "Starry Starry Night," and the name is also the title of tonight's tour. The Seine is lovely by day, but at night, with streetlights trembling on the water, it makes Paris even more romantic. Another work probably comes to mind from that phrase: Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhône, painted in Arles. If you've been to the Musée d'Orsay, you saw it on the second floor; if not, don't miss it. The tour's name came from picturing this painting against a Parisian night with the Seine flowing through it. The scene in the painting, though, isn't the Seine but the Rhône at Arles. We're looking at the Seine, but as the yellow lamplight reflects off the water, it feels as if Van Gogh's restless heart reaches us.

When Van Gogh comes up, people often say, "What a sad life." That's because he's so often tied to words like ear-cutting, suicide and mental illness. And his life did hold many failures. He followed his minister father into theological school, hoping to become a clergyman, but kept failing his exams. He lived among the poor in a mining town as an evangelist, but his father, who wanted him to have a proper career in the ministry, turned his back and cut off support. He kept painting with his brother Theo's help, but his paintings didn't sell, he struggled in relationships, and he never had a proper romance. After repeated setbacks he suffered mental illness, cut off his own ear, and finally took his own life.

Yet one line from a letter he wrote to Theo makes you feel he wasn't simply unhappy: "I feel alive when I'm standing at the easel." He gave everything to painting for years without recognition or income, yet at the moment he painted, he felt alive. How many people ever do something that makes them feel alive? Many may not even know what does. You might wonder whether those of us who push through work we dislike have any right to call Van Gogh unhappy. Some of you have already found what you love and enjoy life. If you haven't, it's worth looking for it, starting today. It doesn't have to be a job: eating something delicious, traveling or reading a book are good places to start. Do more of what makes you feel alive.

Next up is "Lost Stars," sung by Adam Levine in the film Begin Again, a song about how we're all lost stars, wandering stars. Young or old, we seem to keep wandering. Here's hoping you find what you love and find happiness; let's head off with this song.