Aging and it's consequences

Some days my body or mind aren't really in top shape. Medical visits to stay as fit as possible, long walks with DoggyDog is part of what I do for staying active physically and mentally. I still translate and write and read. And also I have a strong opinion of the President. I did not vote for him! And I don't really get why other people did. Maybe they think that in voting for him his wealth will trickle down to them. But I wouldn't expect that kind of generosity. I am however blessed with a great, very smart daughter. She also seems to have quite a dose of energy. She recently organised a three day conference: DDT: Design, Develop, Transform. The opening of the exhibition at the m hka was grandiose. A bunch of super smart and highly creative people participated: almost all of them working in the field of futures. Jim Dator from Hawaii was there, also several of his former students.

I didn't like the few bits about corporate culture in which the speaker demonstrated how to have one's heart beat in synchronicity with the other participants. That made me feel very uneasy, almost nauseous... I felt I didn't want to share my heart within such a setting. Although in more "normal", "human" situations I don't really mind to share and help. So being curious, taking care of myself, without being selfish is a good start. Yet I am more careful: when I feel somebody is trying to take too much advantage of me, then I don't let it slide.

More  tomorrow!

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.

Indian Summer

The Indian Summer in Chloride is coming to an end. I have had an almost five week stretch of really nice weather. Yet now with high, cold winds I had to put an extra blanket on the bed. Luckily Doggy Dog is like a small hot water bottle... This means it is too cold for morning coffee with the guys. They talk about their projects, make fun and all bring their dogs. Thus D.D. follows John and Nadine's dog Otis around. The first time she saw him, she started following him. I guess it was love at first sight. If it stays cold, from tomorrow on we'll probably move into the Yesterday's. The guys may be tougher than I, but they don't like the harsh blowing wind too much.

I must thank a few people like Cooper and Irene for putting up with me, sharing time with me. I wish them luck on their adventures in New Mexico, and hope everything works out for them with the co-housing project, which certainly would be a good thing for two aging, very creative people. Yesterday they hosted a drumming circle! Fun and bringing together the drummers. Also Nadine, with whom I spend a nice morning and part of the afternoon in Kingman.

And Lauri, who is ebullient and fun. She and her husband have traveled a lot, lived for a while in Saudi Araby. I know people who were born in Chloride and have never been abroad. One of them is Leanne who is kind and sweet. And there is Lucette, she is from France but has made her home right next to the acres and acres of BLM land.

I have a sweet spot also for Roselyn who is a gifted quilter. When back home I'll try to find a small good sewing machine and try again to make a larger quilt. Looking at her work inspires me.

There is also Dale, who is not well and whom may not be around next year... What ever it will be, it will have been his own choice.

So many goodbyes... Some maybe definitive.

Clouds of Sils Maria

Clouds of Sils Maria is a wonderful movie which I happened to see because Andras Laszlo won some tickets from Radio Klara ( the classical and culture radio) for a special viewing in Antwerp. Juliet Binoche and actually all the other actors gave us their very best performance. I loved the movie because of ts layers of meaning and how to read them. The story is about an aging actress who is offered the role of an older woman Helena in the play she starred in as the younger actress Sigrid. She has to accept an award for the author of the play who on that very night commits suicide. A new production is planned and with her PA, Kristen Steward, the content and the way of performing the roles are discussed and different interpretations, aging, resiting the passing of time, reading in a totally different way what the play is about, kind of being stuck in the past interpretation of the younger actress she was.. Different options come to surface. For the older actress it is a harsh confrontation. So you have the 'real life' dialogs and the dialogs of the play she is studying. Both elements sharpening the relationship between  the actress and the PA. During a walk wanting to see the snake of clouds coming flowing through the pass the PA disappears... No clue whether she just turns back, commits suicide, falls, or is murdered... This is good, leaves open different readings of the interactions between the two women. The brilliant PA shows the actress how differently one can read the story. So reality, the play, different visions about acting and personal relations, it all becomes a heady mix. I loved the movie, I enjoyed the spectacular views of the swiss alps which also perform their role to perfection as all the actors did.

Dementia

My mother has dementia. I don't know whether she suffers from it, nor if she still knows herself, or me and my daughter... The doctor spoke about "terminal dementia". I didn't understand what that meant, except that it sounded ominous. So he explained that her brain doesn't know anymore how to regulate certain functions like the regulation of fluids. So her primary caregiver, her husband who is doing a fine job of it, has to see that she drinks enough in order to avoid dehydration. She has days that she enjoys company, on others she sleeps, cannot be reached. I call it: she is not home. My mother is a smart woman, she spoke four languages, has traveled, was really a beauty and she knew how to party... The hardest thing for her husband is that he knows that at a certain point he will not be able to take care of her at home. So he makes all the preparations and follows all steps to see to it that she then will have excellent care. My daughter sees my mothers smiles and the good moments. I see her refusing to eat. She often has to be coaxed to eat... She sometimes tries to speak, yet words fail her. With a gesture, she'll abandon the effort. In the beginning of the disintegration of her mind she tried to cover up mistakes, things she had forgotten, yet on good days one could still have brief, yet meaningful conversations with her. My father a stern and strict man has developed the care giving side of himself. For that I am grateful. So her life is still in her usual surroundings and in a place she feels safe... Yet: terminal dementia is a terrible thing to hear, a terrible fate to bear for all involved so all feast are celebrated, still celebrating life, incontinent and all. Every day a small loss, a small goodbye.

Winter greys

Tiring are the short days with insufficient light, with weeks of cold, and often dangerous roads... The clouds hang over the houses, wisps of moist droplets fade out the horizon. I love to watch the clouds, seeing creatures from mythology, recognizing faces, following the changing drift. The winter seagulls and even a heron flying sometimes high and sometimes low. In summer it is the screeching of swallows and house martins. I always liked to meditate that way or to loose myself in the windy stream of imagination and life. Yet so much goes on, that pulls one back into the greyness of now. The short lived pinks and reds at sunrise fill my soul. So I give thanks and know that we are all related. We are concerned when more than 60.000 people have died already in Syria, where children freeze in the makeshift camps. We are concerned when a homeless man dies near Brussels central station. We are concerned when the media shorten our perspective, only concerned with the provocations of power-hungry politicians. The clouds thicken, thus loosing the view of another steeple... Maybe it is just a winter morning's blues that makes me feel this way. Or is it thinking about the funeral of a friend's mother, thinking of my own mother, smiling when I fuss over her. She who spoke four language, hardly uttering a few coherent words who is still among us but not quite. She would now be a perfect confidante, since three seconds later all is past and wiped out... Yet I never dared to test this theory since she seems to understand in the moment what one says. So she might feel sorrow. Thus I fuss over her, joke, act foolish, am the clown and she laughs and smiles in the moment.

Reel Molenbeek Futures

'Reel' stands for being filmed and is not a spelling mistake, filmed by Bram Goots, professional camera man and the interviews are by Maya Van Leemput. Of course a professional sound and a real editing process. It is in the editing process that the story is told. Maya and Bram conducted this type of gathering images of the future already in 25 counties, listening, enticing, conducting workshops, what ever it took to make people think about a longer term future. The end result of this documentary is an interesting mix of the ideas of three men and two women, plus a few people interviewed on the canal in a boat. They tried to imagine where they would be at in their commune 'Molenbeek', one of the 19 districts of Brussels, in their private life, how it would be to age 18 years... The film was moving through the words and actions of the five interviewees: One young girl claimed the right to decide whom and if she would marry: I am not obliged to get married, I am not obliged to have children. I will decide. Beautiful to see a splendid young woman so unafraid of assuming responsibility over her own life. There was a cultural worker who likes to work in that field, and wants more responsibility. He let himself be aged by a make-up artist and thought he looked sixty years old. He pleaded, actually all participants in the documentary did, for more cooperation, more solidarity, more human contact. Technology didn't seem to be important 'If I have a flying car, then that still doesn't me me a superhero', he said. One man, the oldest, has done magnificent work with youngsters, having them look at the stain glass windows of John The Baptist church and then have them make something abstract which is mounted in a public space in one line with the original stain glass windows. The man himself paints beautiful abstract paintings. Upon retirement he'll go back to his small town in Morocco, because there are enough artists here, but there they lack artists. He explained that every year he takes a different class in one or other art technique, this year animation film and video... He paints abstract paintings since that doesn't offend any religion, encompasses all humans, refers to Klee, Kandinsky and Mondriaan. The second woman was kind and gentle, gave her words some thought before speaking. They are new to the quarter and love its mix of people and cultures. Warm hearted. She spoke about the communal gardens in the city and how those bring people together in social and ecological project. Then there was Gustavo, black Brazilian, the only one speaking Dutch really rather well. The whole film was subtitled either in Dutch or in French. A necessity in Brussels. The beauty of his movements with his head while thinking, the fervor with which he spoke about integration and that we are all somebody's racist... Yet hopeful, yes one of his hopes is that that in the future people will be less afraid of each other. 

I was impressed by warmth and positivity of the stories shown. Yes!!! Good people, good thoughts, a great documentary.

Amour - Michael Haneke

Amour was in the Cannes competition of 2012. My film companion José discovered it in the Cartoons and invited me to go and see it. It is a honest, moving treatment of aging, illness and death. George and Anne are two retired music teachers living in Paris. One day Anne suffers a stroke which leaves her paralyzed on one side. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play the intimate and terrifying process of aging and decline. The vivacious, loving and tender relationship from the beginning is under pressure when Anne looses more and more of herself in a always deeper dementia. What is left of us in the end? What dignity, what control? How to love and live through that. I was very moved when Anne refuses to eat or drink. I saw a while ago the same facial expression in my mother's face. The strain on George of caring for Anne is insupportable, yet he promised never to put her in a hospital or home. The relationship with their daughter Eva who lives abroad gets very strained. Eva is performed by Isabelle Huppert .The performance of Trintignant and Riva. The setting is a beautiful book lined apartment in Paris where the world seems beautiful and safe. The fun loving gentleness between the protagonists at the beginning of the film is sublime, making the grief to follow harder. I won't tell the plot. Just if you have a chance go and see the movie.