Beyond Impulse, A Letter on Painting and Patience

September has always meant one thing for me: escape.

Far from the chaos of Lisbon, it has become a tradition — at least for the past seven years — to come to Gerês around my mother’s birthday on the 8th. Here, where the mist embraces the mountains and the River Lima carves its gentle curves, the world finally slows down.

We stay in two small houses in the middle of nowhere. From the terrace, our eyes rest on endless forests, layered mountains fading into the horizon, and the mystery of waking up not knowing whether the day will be golden with sun or wrapped in clouds, turning the view into a magical, suspended forest. Grapes hang just within reach, sweeter than anything sold bottled in the city. And with us are the loyal family dogs — reminding us, always, of what it means to be a pack.

The first day here I felt the familiar urgency to disconnect, as if I had to rip out of myself all the noise of work. I told myself I would paint — that would silence the chaos. But inspiration doesn’t always arrive when summoned. Out of stubbornness more than conviction, I began a landscape. Our small red house in Gerês, no photo reference, just what was in front of me.

It was a disaster. A soulless painting. Wrong colors, clumsy brushstrokes. Pretending to be an artist I was not. I stopped halfway, disgusted. In despair I reached for my phone, as if its constant scrolling could drown the voice whispering: “I can’t really do this anymore. Who am I fooling?”

I looked at Van Gogh’s paintings, searching for rescue, and I betrayed myself by trying to imitate him. Spiraling skies, swirls of grass, hurried dashes of color — like putting on someone else’s clothes and calling them mine. My father looked at it and smiled, liking its representation, but I knew. I knew it wasn’t mine. It was cheap. It was an escape, not a painting.

That same night, I opened the book I had brought with me — Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters by Thames & Hudson. On the very first pages, I was struck as if by a word from the divine:

“For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things brought together. Time and again, it was willpower and hard work that enabled Van Gogh to raise his low spirits.”

There it was. Not the lesson of how to paint like Van Gogh, but the reminder of what makes art real: not the impulse to cover up doubt, but the deliberate, painful, persistent devotion to keep creating — even in the silence of inspiration.

And so I write. Because lately, I’ve found that words, like painting, can carry what I feel today, knowing it may not be what I feel tomorrow. Writing becomes my way of leaving the weight of thought behind, of giving form to what otherwise eats at me.

Van Gogh had Theo. His letters were the vessel of his frustrations, his hopes, his despair. I too have my brother, Fonzo. We speak every day, often without words — a text, a funny video, a call. But I do not share this part of myself with him, nor with my wife. I do not wish to worry them or turn my private battles into conversations.

So I write here. Not letters to someone, but letters to myself. And if one day someone else reads them, I hope they see not a perfect artist, but a man searching for meaning in paint, in words, and in silence.