Sylvia's Journal

When you work across time zones, the day starts hours before you even get up. In Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania the day is nearly over when mine starts; in Nepal it is over and in Ghana they are halfway. I sat down for a moment to check my emails while waiting for the tea to be ready and before I knew it I was busy at work. The boundaries between being-at-work and being-off-work have faded so nearly completed that it takes a lot of effort to make them visible again.

Yesterday I drew that on/off line sharply at noontime. That was maybe a bit late for a Sunday, as the line should have been drawn at Friday night, but the stress of knowing how much work is waiting for me in my in-box was obscuring the enjoyment of sitting inside with a raging snowstorm outside.

The snowstorm is actually a great image for this email management quandary. If you don’t respond and deal with emails when they blow in, it becomes like the snow that piles up when you don’t shovel from time to time. And if, after the snowstorm, you have still not shoveled and the temperature drops or the rains start, you are in for a big mess. So too with the emails; they pile up and then you can slip on them, or, you can’t get out anymore. The only difference with a snowstorm is that you know it will end at some point. Emails won’t; I will have to keep on shoveling.

A bit later, with oatmeal bubbling on the stove, and tea made, but still in my jammies, I continue to shovel my emails and all the fun things I did yesterday will have to wait until the next time I can come in to warm myself by the the fire of idleness.

Yesterday, once the office work was done, was wonderful. Sita and I were doing craft projects in the living room while the storm raged outside. The only disappointment was that we could not start the fire as the wind would have blown smoke into the house. We sat around the cold and empty fireplace and pretended it was not.

Axel went out in the morning to shovel and regretted that the rest of the day. In fact, I am not sure he has recovered from it now, some 24 hours later. For him the day has not quite started the way it has for me. He is still in bed.

Shoveling maybe good exercise for tight muscles but the endurance part is something else. He looked like a faded flower the rest of the day but stubbornly resisted our exhortations to go to bed and take a nap.

Tessa called us early this morning to announce that she was on her way home. It seems that most of the roads have cleared. Once she is on the thruway it will be straight east for ten hours. We can’t wait to see her and surprise her. After all, the last time she saw us was August 31st, with Axel still in a brace and me in a boot. We have come a long way since then.