Radar Love

The artist was with our daughter's class at a national gallery today. I felt aware of them as I passed the area they were inhabiting for the day. It was like picking up on something held like a fly or flies on your radar. Or a small cluster of lights. You knew exactly what the radar was picking up on, but it still held your interest, as if you had never seen their like before. I was on my way to an old colleague whose advice I was seeking. (I have been doing this a lot lately.) Actually it is a liberating feeling knowing the enormous gaps in one's knowledge can to some degree be filled by other people's expertise. You simply need to know how and where and who to utilise, find and ask. This is perhaps the truer expertise - knowing who to ask. Because most of my questions are tied up in what I am told should be called global conflict prevention - some kind of attempted rollerball of solutions - I suppose I shouldn't feel too self-centred as I hunt for answers. My own personal needs these days are certainly smaller than those living in the war zone. It gets you thinking, though. Wouldn't it be strange if everything was maps, beeps, blips, zones and radars? Maybe there is a grid of all the capital's galleries to be created, for example, in which certain flashing lights denote availability, aesthetics, manners and the like. Perhaps lovers can find an equivalent. Phones detecting interest. (Actually people and phones can do this already.) Anyway, when all my errands were done and it was time for me to return home, the artist and our daughter and her class had already left the station. But my train was right behind them. I could feel our two separate groups moving in a kind of familial tandem. It was frustrating, though. No matter how fast my train travelled, they were always a few stops ahead. My radar didn't like it. That got me thinking too. It was like being an artist in search of the right exhibition.