Sylvia's Journal

I woke up with the words ‘Blimey’ on my lips, the only thing I remember from a series of vivid dreams. This is a word I have never uttered consciously. I discovered that it is called a ‘minced oath’ and is a contraction of ‘May God blind me.’ The unconscious works in funny ways; there is some Dutch in there (‘bli’) which is pronounced like the Dutch word for happy (blij). Happy me?

I finished the book on deep survival and it did leave me happy. Happy that we simply crashed in a bog, from about 700 feet up, rather than in shark-infested waters or on a 12.000 feet mountain ridge. Such are the stories in the book. Only a few people survived these catastrophic events and their stories of despair, hope, agony, fear, hunger, thirst and pain made our crash appear a walk in the woods.

The non-linearity of our recovery is in evidence once more. The boundary between normal and abnormal sensation in my foot is changing again but this time in the wrong direction. The sharp pains at the place of the ankle break have come back and the neck recovery appears at a standstill. It is reminder that I am not quite there yet, about 5 more months to go to that imaginary finish line that the doctor’s drew, back then in the hospital.

Yesterday we drove to Newburyport for a consultation about our financial affairs. This is a bit of a hot button issue between Axel and me but the consultant’s sensible advice made us feel much better. We left after an hour and a half with renewed commitment to simplify our lives and abstain as much as we can from the national American pastime of raking up credit card debt. The other half of the equation is Axel getting a more regular income. He is starting to engage in conversations with potential places of employment where his skills and talent might be of use.

On the way back we stopped at Edith and Hugh’s house that is being rehabbed. Like our muscles and tendons it is not quite there yet, a slow work in progress. We had a half local winter soup and a blow by blow account of their recent trip to Costa Rica. It appears there are a lot of Americans in Costa Rica; pensionados who are looking for relatively cheap tropical warmth and then some who have had it with this (US) Administration and are waiting things out in a place that has no army (like Albie and Lydia).

Our financial/social day ended with a home-cooked dinner for Annie and Lark who we had not seen since early fall when Annie had been driving us places and Lark had whisked Axel away for a ‘boys night out’ and fed him his first post-crash alcohol. Last night he continued to take Axel back on that wicked road but he is up against Sita and me; no match, really.

Sita and Jim have gone off for the weekend to Western Massachusetts to make music and thus we have the place to ourselves, like the olden days.