Lighting tomorrow with today

The artist is expecting a visit from the gallerist tomorrow after which we go to the countryside to celebrate the artist's father's seventieth birthday. (The children have been virtual tourists this evening, exploring the rooms in 360 degrees on the computer.) This may also mean being separated from the blog as I do not think the farmhouse where we will be staying, generously rented for three days by the artist's parents, has internet access. I feel mildly uncomfortable about this. It is as if underneath the neo-literary and pseudo-diaristic pleasure of writing it, some kind of useful if not too metronomic irrigation also takes place. Still, I will have to get used to being without it anyway as I doubt I will be writing one in the war zone. It might be interesting advertising creativity as a life force where many lives are threatened but I am convinced neither of its practicality nor of its tact. In the meantime, the artist is being incredibly relaxed about the gallerist's visit tomorrow. This is not arrogance on the artist's part and for me is reassuring. I think it has finally begun to sink in that this work really is as special as I drone on about. It is a wonderful thing self-belief and I understand any natural inclination towards modesty. I have touched upon this about the artist before and admire greatly hre absence of loud and garish pride. In the end, it is a fine line between modesty and invisibility and we shall just have to see what tomorrow may bring. ('Yesterday is but today's memory,' as Kahlil Gibran said, 'and tomorrow is today's dream.') Two weeks ago we had a dress rehearsal for the visit, a kind of useful false alarm, so it may be a winning performance.