Sylvia's Journal

Many thoughts are swirling through my head as I sit in front of my computer. Outside a wind is blowing that is gusting from 14 to 22 knots. That would usually not bother me much, except that today, I am going to fly. My lesson is still 7 hours away and I used to think little of such winds, but now they make me a little nervous. I will be flying with Ralph, who is the instructor of all instructors at the Flight Center, so I am in good hands. But I’d like my own hands to be good. I am both impatient and a little anxious!

Yesterday was partially an off day as I had envisioned. I spent a few hours in the early morning trying to get colleagues on the phone in Madagascar, Togo and Ghana, all to no avail. I have learned over the years to have a good book open while I try these phonecalls so that I do not get frustrated. I am reading Lee Bolman and Terry Deal’s book ‘The wizard and the warrior.’ It is a good sequel to ‘The State of Africa’ with its many warriors (and few wizards, Mandela being one of them) and I consider it all preparation for my work with top managers in Africa’s health ministries – something that I am getting more and more interested in and hope to get moving on in 2008.

In the afternoon I picked Axel up from his OT/PT session and we drove to Ipswich in the hope to buy up the last bushels of crisp local apples and pears at Russells Orchards. Unfortunately we were too late. Everywhere there were signs saying ‘Closed for the season.’ Even a begging phone call did not help; all the fruit has been shipped off to be made into cider somewhere in Central Massachusetts. We returned home empty-handed just in time to get a 30 minute walk around Smith’s Point in before dark. My pride has become to walk ‘as if nothing happened,’ showing off to Axel who was having a hard time keeping up with me. But I was too fast for my own good and was limping pretty badly by the time we closed the circle and got back home. And Axel did keep up. These ‘constitutionals’ give us a new sense of freedom – there is not much else we can do as easily for cardiovascular exercise these days.

In the evening we went to hear Ashley Ahearn, daughter of friends, radio reporter with NPR, present her 20 minute audio documentary on the Essex River to a standing room only audience at the Essex Greenbelt barn. It was a joyful celebration of this most beautiful place we live in and centered on the experience of ‘messing around in small boats,’ shipbuilding and clamming. Although an audio documentary, our visual needs were amply met with some beautiful pictures of ‘Down River.’ And all the while I was thinking that the views from the river are wonderful but that the views from above are even more fabulous, which is why I am flying again, and hopefully today.