I'm standing in front of a Turner painting which depicts a storm at sea.  At least I think that's what it depicts—it's a late Turner so it's pretty abstract, and there are too many people between me and the curator's card to see the title.  For a moment, I'm fidgety, wishing I were alone in the museum and knew exactly what I was seeing.  But then I think, does it really matter?  I'm enjoying getting lost in the sensuous swirl of textures and colors, all merging and melting into each other.  It is whatever it is, and it's lovely.

Today at least, that's how I think about my bipolar disorder.  I know it's doing strange things to my mind, but whatever it is, it's lovely.  I know that what I'm feeling right now isn't what the other people around me are feeling.  They aren't tasting that particular shade of saturated blue on the tips of their tongues; that lonesome patch of yellow-green in the corner—a ship, perhaps?—doesn't make them want to cry.  They're not inside the picture like I am, intensely aware of the direction of every brushstroke, the intent behind every seemingly random smudge of impasto.  They may have the advantage of knowing what they're seeing, but they don't know what it's like to swallow it whole.

Art keeps me alive.  No, more than that—it makes me want to live.  I can't count the number of times I've woken up in the morning determined to kill myself, then gone to a museum instead and forgotten all about it.  I sometimes think if I'd lived in New York City or Washington, D.C., with access to their amazing museums, my life would have taken a completely different trajectory.  I'd be sane, with beauty to anchor me and provide a safe haven for my intensity.  Whenever I felt too much, I'd just go drown it in art.

But I'm fortunate enough.  The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena is only a half-hour's drive away, and it's got enough masterpieces to satisfy even my manic appetite.  There's a Cezanne painting of a tulip there that's made me literally pirouette with joy, much to the guard's consternation.  And then there's the Hammer Museum in Westwood—a very small permanent collection, but one that should speak volumes to anyone who's bipolar.  It boasts two Van Goghs:  one of a rectory garden in winter, bleak and dismal and dreary, all browns and somber grays.  The other he painted at the end of his life, in the asylum at St. Remy.  It's the Van Gogh style most people love:  bold, vibrant colors and flame-like strokes, the trees so alive they're dancing.

Ever since I first laid eyes on these paintings, I felt a mission:  to see them hung together.  For some ridiculous reason, they were always placed at opposite ends of the gallery.  I wrote letters, made phone calls, and pestered the staff whenever I visited.  Maybe somebody heard me, or maybe somebody finally just got it; because the last time I was there, a week or so ago, the paintings were hung side-by-side.  Seen separately, you'd think they were by two different artists, the moods and the execution are that far apart.  But seen together, they're a portrait of the astonishing schism of which one soul is capable:  manic depression incarnate.

I seriously doubt whether Van Gogh could ever have witnessed the waltz in those trees, or captured the ache in a wintry garden, if he hadn't been bipolar.  It's a cursed gift, and all of us who are drawn this way should appreciate this.  It makes me suicidal, yes; it also gives me an exquisite sensitivity.  My depressions force me to see the world as it really is, so I recognize truths most people can only access in a nightmare.  But mania lets me see past the truth, and into possibility—like the madness in a sunflower, or the white hot brilliance of a shooting star.