Tuesday, May 30, 2017

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.


Friday, May 5, 2017

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.