Sylvia's Journal

I woke up this morning with my right leg tingling and painful, as if I had climbed up a mountain during the night. It is probably due to the very heavy workout I got yesterday at physical therapy. The usually gentle therapist acted more like Axel’s physical terrorist and after ‘mobilizing’ my ankle to get scar tissue out of the way, made me do a series of exercises that, at times, took my breath away. This included balancing on the bad foot while trying to move my arms, sideways hopping across the room and turning circles and counter circles on the infamous jiggle board, a flat surface mounted on a ball that forces my ankle to hinge in all directions. I emerged sore and tired. This sore- and tiredness was added to the 45 minute car ride from Cambridge to Manchester preceding the therapy which is uncomfortable because the ball and toes of my right foot remain hypersensitive.

I had a wonderful day at work, reconnecting with people I had not seen in a long time. It was strange to be back in the place where I so clearly belong (this week starts my 22nd year at MSH) and yet there were so many new people for whom I am just a name. I discovered how much walking I do at MSH, compared to home. I had much opportunity to exercise my various stiff muscles.

All in all it was good day at work for my psyche, but a hard day for recovering body parts. Somehow this added up to my most bizarre series of dreams yet. I invented another term, ‘vector moms.’ These are mothers who are standing at railroad and bus stations vectoring kids from school to home and back. The word was echoing around my head and stayed with me after I woke up, as some other words have done that turned out to be significant. I believe I may even have woken up mumbling ‘vector moms.’ Ever since I woke up I have been turning the word over and over in my mind, trying to understand what it stands for. Vectoring is a flying term that is used in instrument flying, and moms, well many of us are. How and why the two combine is a mystery to me. The dreams were full of little kids who were both vulnerable and strong and smart. They needed the care of adults but at the same time could fend just fine for themselves when left alone. The kids were so adorable that I remember searching for my camera in my dream but could never find it.

There was also a trip through the house of a woman who collected everything in her lifetime. After she died her house was turned into a museum. It was a wild place, full of discoveries. A bit like my dream-time mind. Full, bizarre and ever so entertaining.

It just occurred to me that all this dreaming may also be triggered by the book I am currently reading, the last Harry Potter. This is the book that Jenny gave us in July and that Axel so valiantly read, using the Buxbaum’s cookbook stand, at Shaughnessy, in August.