February - March 2008

A new year in Alice, amazing how the time goes by.

Here in the little town with 30 000 people in the middle of the outback, i started working again. Only there was one little difference in town, Sara was living here too now. We decided to have a drink one night in a new bar in town. It was a nervous night for me, it was more then a year a half ago that i saw her. I wasn`t angry at her, she didn`t mistreated me, Sara saw no future in our marriage anymore when she left me. Don`t get me wrong, i had moments i was furious at her, but can you force somebody to stay? She hurted me a lot, and there are still moments i miss my wife. But i think about the kangaroo and emu. That night we also decided that is was time to divorce.



At work , there was no bushwork ahead, so i found an evening course life model drawing. Every Wednesday , 9 weeks , i followed the course. I found my passion again for the human form. My landscape paintings became human paintings.

Since i came back from the holiday , there was a big hole in my finance, so i decided to take another job, otherwise i would be stuck here forever with the 30 000 people. I found a job as a cleaner. So the next months , i woke up at 300 am. Jumped in the car , mostly more a sleep then awake, drove to a administration building , cleaning all the desks, floor, etc. At 730 i arrived at the workshop to start my day job that finishes at 500 pm, and on a Wednesday i arrived at 600 pm at the art class till 900 pm.



There was something special in the morning, while i was cleaning i knew 29 999 people where a sleep , it was almost that i was the only living person in Alice, the town was mine that moment in the morning.

At the art class i met a nice girl, Kate. We had the same interests and we were getting along. She became my girlfriend. It was my first attempt to have a relation again. In the weekends we drove away from civilisation , away in the red centre. The thing here is, when you leave on a Fridie, the next living person you meet , is on a Sundie night when you drive back in town. So you can imagine, that i felt like Adam and Eva on those trips.



So it were pretty busy days.