Aging is a bitch

I am beginning to feel my age. My energy is dwindling which could be just a sign of depression. Loneliness, I never felt before, but there aren't too many friends around anymore with whom to talk, to exchange. I am trying to mend my ways by going back to do some work for PEN-Flanders, just to be useful. I don't know what is going on with my daughter, besides working too hard. She often has people around, staying for a while. So I don't drop in to see whether she has time. I am afraid she is really sick with her ear hurting so much. I do feel excluded at times. I translated poetry for Bruges from Dutch into English, so I was useful, yet being alone with a small dog all the time and just communicating by e-mail isn't really a fulfilling life. Ah, when the book is out, I will be proud of all the work I did by giving the Tourists in Bruges a possibility to read about it in their own language.

I guess it is all about change. Tonight there is a presentation in "Den Hopsack".  Frank and Guy will be there, so should I. But maybe picking up Maya at the Berchem train station is what I need to do. I do admit that I feel insecure.

The old gasstation

The old gasstation was Tony Mafia's pride and joy. Of course it was also his studio where he painted and our home. I still have my writing desk there. Every year I went back after Tony passed away and repainted the windows and the doors, all wood that could suffer from a harsh winter. I have been there every year since Tony Mafia passed away. Tourists walk by and come in. Friends stop by for a chat. People ask me how I survive in Chloride. Sometimes I wonder too. With Tony it was fun, he would paint, I wrote and walked the Mohave desert. We would drive to Kingman for shopping and to the Hualapai mountains on the dirt road to the Colorado river. Life seemed easy then.