Exploring the Shadows
The Chaos of My Mind
My brain feels chaotic and overcrowded, that's how it feels. Sometimes, it becomes so crowded that everything turns to mush. A blur. Thoughts overlapping, emotions surfacing all at once, creating a storm inside my mind, leaving me with static where words can't be formed or found.
Writing this blog feels like unraveling a tangled web—pulling at different threads, searching for meaning within the chaos. Some thoughts slip through my fingers, fleeting and intangible, while others demand attention, stubborn and persistent. Writing is both an exhausting and cathartic process. My thoughts race, overlapping and colliding, making it easy to lose my train of thought because there are so many at once. It can be overwhelming, but when I finally find my rhythm, writing brings me peace. Once I’m in the flow, everything else fades, and I can untangle the chaos inside my mind, one word at a time.
Yet, this chaos is also part of who I am. It fuels my creativity, my curiosity, my fascination with the contrasts of light and darkness, order and disorder. And maybe, just maybe, within this mental whirlwind, I can find the deeper connections that shape my art and my perspective on the world.
A Childhood Fascination with Darkness
See, I have always wondered if I was weird somehow. I’ve always had a fascination with the dark—shadows, ghosts, and monsters. I loved cemeteries, especially old ones with moss-covered headstones. Graves so ancient that new life is taking over the monuments of the dead. Of course, I was also terrified of potential ghosts and the dead rising from their graves. And yet, it intrigued me.
I was a happy child. I loved singing, dancing, drawing, having fun with my friends, and running around outside on my grandparents' farm, where I lived with my parents and grandparents. Was it because I was such a happy child that the darkness piqued my interest?
A First Encounter with Loss
Then something really awful happened. My niece, just a few years older than me, got really sick. Cancer. I remember visiting her in the hospital. She had lost her beautiful auburn hair, and her body was puffy. She lay inside a big, plastic, see-through tent. Years later, I learned it was to protect her because her immune system no longer worked. I was about six years old. I don’t remember what I said or did, but my mom told me years later that it was in that moment I decided I no longer wanted to be a doctor. Because, to my child’s mind, doctors hurt you and made you sick.
The next thing I remember is being at her funeral. It was cold and raining, and my parents and I waited in line to say our final goodbyes and offer condolences to her parents. Mom said, "Say my condolences instead of congratulations," because in Dutch, those two words sound somewhat similar. I felt the tension building as we got closer and closer. I had to remember the right words, and I was getting anxious. What does it mean to be dead? Why is she gone? Is she still in that body, or is it just a shell? Where did she go?
My dad asked me if I wanted to see her. Before I could answer, he picked me up so I could say my goodbyes. She looked as if she were sleeping. She had a glass casket, like Snow White. I don’t remember saying anything, but it left a huge impression on me. Like many times after this, my brain was overloaded with thoughts and emotions—so many feelings that I didn’t have words for.
Another Loss, Another Lesson
A few years later, my grandmother died. I was eight. I remember returning to school after the weekend. Every Monday, we would sit in a circle and talk about our weekends. That Monday, I shared that my grandmother had cancer and that I knew she would die. It made me sad because I loved her. We baked cookies together, harvested vegetables and berries from the garden, and sang while doing chores. In my child’s mind, one plus one equaled two—when you get cancer, you die.
I remember telling my class this, but my teacher stopped me. She said it wasn’t true that people always die from cancer. Her tone was accusatory, and I shut down. Apparently, I was wrong. I had made a mistake. I wasn’t supposed to talk about this. Even now, I can still feel her fiery stare and sharp words piercing through me. But I was right. I lost my grandmother only six weeks later.
That day, I learned a lesson: never speak your mind about things that make you sad or worried. Keep it to yourself, push through, and smile—because that’s what grown-ups want. That’s how you become a "good girl." Now, I realize how flawed that advice was, but unconsciously, I followed it for years. It took burnout for me to recognize that suppressing my emotions was one of my coping mechanisms.
The Lasting Impact
So, I wonder—were these two major events in my young life what triggered my curiosity about death as part of the cycle of life?
Is this why I'm drawn to the dance of light and shadow in my art? Is this why I love moody and dramatic photographs? Why I love horror movies, especially suspenseful ones? Why I play Vampire: The Masquerade? Why I find beauty and drama in symphonic metal, like the music of Nightwish? Or is it also a coping mechanism? Do I need to express myself this way because I struggle to put my deepest feelings into words?
But do I have to put those feelings into words? Isn't art just another way of telling a story? A way to express oneself? To be vulnerable, to share part of yourself with the world? Isn't art just another form of communication? One based on emotions, pure and raw. Even if others interpret the same art piece differently or feel different emotions, it still serves as a powerful form of communication. And art for me is a broad spectrum. It communicates and triggers something within us—reaching that part of every human being that can't be put into words but still needs the light.
