Another of Those Desert-Loving English

Yes, I borrowed that line from the excellent Steve Wehmeyer, who in turn borrowed it from Lawrence of Arabia. When Wehmeyer is not, for some unknown reason, referring to me as "the most interesting man in the world" (which implies a very boring world) he identifies me as one of those desert-loving English, which is the line that King Feisel used when describing T.E. Lawrence. Over the weekend I splurged on a desert safari (it's not nearly as exotic as it sounds, but more on that later) and it hit home that I had done the same thing ten years earlier on my first visit to the UAE. I had never gone overseas, or even owned a passport, a decade ago and my first trip to a foreign country was, oddly enough, the UAE. It was also my first visit to a desert, or at least the edge of a desert. And, true to Wehmeyer's words, it began my love affair with the desert. Why? I don't really know. Maybe it is representative of the fact that our tastes grow more exotic as we grow older. It might just be the isolation of the desert, and anyone who knows me can testify to the fact that I am not a person who likes crowds. Or maybe it's just the peace and quiet, which is also very appealing to me - especially as I pass into my dotage. As the great Canadian philosopher reminds us, "I need a crowd of people around, can't stand them day to day." My job requires me to be out in the world, and so I appreciate the times when I'm not out there all the more. Over the last couple years I've developed a real love affair with the Silk Road, which I'm sure is representative of this entire process. I know that when I was on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert a couple of years ago in western China I was just blown away by the mystery and power of the place. Hopefully my trip to Samarkand and Bukhara actually comes together and I give in to Chet Baker's proposal of "let's get lost."