tears

A night à deux at home. The first in a month.

There have been twenty eight solo daily paintings and a trip to New York; a month pedalling solo up and down the Salzach; there have been dinner party invitations declined or never received; home-keeping for cats; bass line playing for anonymous dirndles, sales, good reviews, loneliness, failures, frustrations and home-sickness. There have been too many miles across and in between.

We need a break. We need each-other but now we are here we don't know how to find one-another....

In the short 'break' there has been a brother, two out of six bad shoulders; three daily paintings; forked lightening; three meals out of four en masse and alcohol-charged...

Tonight, returning fron the airport for the umpteenth time, I fall pre-tear-streaked in the broken front door, and I crave the uhr-embrace of Father/Mother/Lover/God. I am welcomed by home-made pizza, a salad of tomatoes blushier and ruder than you can imagine from the farmer's market, and anger.

There are tears: Tears that I got side-tracked taking a photograph of succulent tomatoes while I should have been making the salad; tears of he who has no idea where his wife has gone until she turns up for three days with a member of her family and with a list of people with whom we absolutely must dine; tears of she who is jet-lagged and who still has to ferry bro to and from Marseille and who wants to be taken care of on her return and not have to listen to the test match; tears of two exhausted people desperately needing support not being able to give it; tears of what should be the exception being the norm; tears of the leap from the public into the private.

And then someone we met says I am beautiful and that this is the life and we step into the rainy rainbow and the lit cornfields and outside our selves for a moment and there are more tears: Tears of silent nights, of beauty and multi-coloured stripes curving over vines...

John Martyn plays, the atypical breeze enters our kitchen and we sit at peace, at last, mac to mac. We have agreed that next time I have three days off we will see no-one but each-other and we are mostly silent. This is what we need - post row no pressure tap tap punctuated by:

"This is one of my favourites"; "I sold the peaches";"I loved meeting Mig";"Do you fancy listening to us read quartets in Salzburg?";"I feel like I've found a real girlfriend here";"They're veggie, what shall we cook tomorrow?": "I missed you"; "Is Oskie in"?;"The strings in this one make me cry"; "Has Manon had her pill?" "She was so sweet last night"; "I missed you too darling.........."

So here's to solitude, but also to my bro, and to meeting the four nicest people we have met recently who happen to be bloggers, Mig and Alpha and Gamma, and Gail and Dean, of course to Julian, and to trying to find the balance between it all in our remote corner of the universe.