Sylvia's Journal

I woke up twice last night from the noise I was making grinding my teeth. I dreamt about the virtual leadership course I am teaching this week, about doctors and nurses and power and hierarchy and the things that distract or attract them. It is funny how in dreams feelings and concepts are ground into one and then make a sound that wakes you up.

At a subconscious level I may also have been grinding my teeth over the stupendous alpha male behavior in the early Bush (jr.) years that landed us in the war mess we are in now. We watched a documentary last night about Bush’s war. I couldn’t help thinking about the people who lost husbands, wives and children in this war and the feelings opened up an abyss of despondency. Along the edges of this abyss are jealousy, competition, self-centeredness, shame and a whole host of feelings and states of mind that I recognize at any distance. It is the stuff that life is made up off; it is the stuff that is often referred to as ‘touchy feely’ or ‘warm fuzzies’ in my line of work. Yet the consequences of ignoring these drivers of human behavior are far from warm and fuzzy. One of our Quaker Friends, Nancy, who faithfully stands vigil for Peace on the Boston Common each year on Good Friday, told us in Meeting about two Vietnam veterans who hackled them, shouting slurs and shooting imaginary bullets at the small peaceful group. The two disheveled, homeless and drunk men had lost something irreplaceable in that war; each day, in Iraq, we are producing a few more of them. Not heroes, not patriots but shells of people coming back, trying to integrate into a society that does not understand them anymore. Frequent articles in the Globe talk about failed re-integration of returning soldiers into their families, leaving everyone diminished and drained.

We are also feeling a little diminished here, but of a different kind. Our large nuclear family of the Easter weekend has shriveled up to half its size. Sita left for Dallas and the London Ontario contingent, including puppy, left in the morning for the long drive west. Everyone has arrived safely. Tomorrow I am heading out east, first to Holland and then Afghanistan, leaving Jim and Axel to fend for themselves.