Avail

I met my friend who has lived for long stretches of time in the desert for some lunch today. A bowl of wide thick Japanese udon noodles with seaweed and two slices of salmon sashimi on a side dish were served. Green tea was the beverage and a few topical articles were exchanged before some long distance thoughts about the war zones were aired. I don't know what the desert equivalent of a fish out of water is but my friend is probably more at home by an oasis than a metropolis. His spine and perception makes for good rumination in any context, however. The artist meanwhile has been waiting to hear from the gallerist who came round the other day and it was impossible for me not to be also thinking about her as the centre of the capital bubbled and our conversation flitted from reportage to my trip to my friend to the artist and back again. Mind you, all this waiting for news from the gallerist occupies an even larger space in the mind of the artist, I am sure. Let us hope there is no tilt, no crash. I suppose it would be asking too much for her to receive confirmation of a show just as I am obliged to either tone down, or stop completely, the blog. I suspect my imminent departure features in her psyche like an irritant as well as good news. I am trying not to make too much of it. Especially to the children. Our 5-year-old son will occasionally glimpse conflict on the news and ask a searching question. ('Do guns not work sometimes?') Our 8-year-old daughter's rather charming way of dealing with it is to tease her father when talking about where I am going. It does tally with previous experiences and adventures, so I'm not strictly a scorpion out of the desert. (Is that the one?) A goat down from the mountains.