Sylvia's Journal

This morning I am crippled, in places that did not hurt before. This business with exercises feels like adjusting the temperature of water when the lag time is considerable; I never seem to get it quite right. It takes all my concentration, and a lot of biting my lips, not to limp.

Today is a full day of recovery related alphabet soup: OT and PT, for Axel, followed by EMG; I have EMDR then PT. If this was Scrabble we could make some good words out of all these letters.

Yesterday was not the rest day that Sundays are supposed to be. I biked the 30 minutes to Quaker Meeting in the morning and then back. On my return I met Axel on his way to Newbury to buy the ingredients for an entirely local meal at Tendercrop Farms, including pork raised and slaughtered within 100 miles. The driving part of course takes some of the environmental correctness out of the equation, but biking there in his current state would not be feasible.

In the afternoon I went flying again. Arne steered me to Plum Island airport for practice landings. The runway is the shortest I have ever landed on, 1800 feet, which us about 1200 feet shorter than the runway at Gardner airport. Landing on such a short strip is tricky because if you don’t have your speed and altitude set up right on final approach you can get into real trouble as you run out of driveway. I know too well what that means. I did not break out into a cold sweat, it’s more like a hot flash, and Arne obligingly lowered the cabin temperature as I mustered all my attention and skill to do this right. And I did. Just to make sure it was not simply good luck I did it again.

And then Arne upped the ante and asked me to land on the same strip from the other direction, with a slight tailwind. The difference, even with a four knot wind is spectacular. On my first try I thought I was doing well and could make it. But when the tailwind produced its effect (less drag) I realized what happened on that fateful day in July. But this time I was prepared and executed a perfect go around and landed without a hitch on second try. The sensation of rushing towards a hard stop at the end of the runway was a little more intense than I cared for. It activated a memory that I would rather forget. Flying back to Beverly, I found landing on the 5000 feet runway easy. I think I’ll refrain from landing on such very short runways if I can help it.

With about 20 excellent landings under my belt since I started flying again Arne deems me fit to fly on my own again and I feel confident to do so. A phone call to the FAA today will tell me what else I need to do to be fully reinstated as a private pilot.

In the evening my Belgian colleague Edith and her husband Rutger came for dinner. Not only was it a local meal (including the beer and wine), it was also prepared by us all. Axel got a good dose of Flemish/Dutch as we covered in rapid succession the state of the world, American politics and a whole host of current and historical topics in our native tongue. Jim, making a brief appearance, also got to show off some of his Dutch vocabulary.