Starry Night

Yesterday, my oldest came out of school babbling happily about Starry Night, the painting by Vincent Van Gogh, which he discovered yesterday. He finds it "beautiful" and "wonderful" and "magical".

His art teacher had shared some prints of Van Gogh's works with the class and told them how Van Gogh cut his ear off, how he wasn't successful at all in his lifetime, and about his brother, Théo, with whom he was very close, and who died six months after Vincent. The closeness to his brother resonated with my son, who is, likewise, incredibly close to his own brother.

All this was delivered to me in a happy rush of words as we drove to a shopping center on an errand. We parked down a bit from where we were headed, just in front of a local bookstore, where right on a sidewalk sale rack was an enormous coffee table book about Van Gogh with lush, glossy prints of his works, including Starry Night.

We bought it, of course.

chance upon
verb, idiom
[Also, chance on.]
Happen upon, find or meet accidentally, as in In Paris we chanced on a wonderful little restaurant, or Andrew chanced upon his karate teacher in the health-food store. [Mid-1500s]
"chance upon." The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992. Answers.com 20 Oct. 2005. http://www.answers.com/topic/chance-on