Sylvia's Journal

I am leaving today for Amsterdam first and then onwards to Kabul. I am leaving with a sore throat, itching in my ears and throat and a painful cough. I also leave with pain in my heart about a long-awaited meeting at work yesterday that went off the tracks and generated so many strong feelings that I still don’t quite know what to do with them all, especially the ones I am not supposed to have (I know there is no such thing, but the neocortex is busy sending messages to my consciousness that are hard to ignore). My dreams revealed some other aspects of the inner turbulence with scenes of ‘not being able to reach’ and seeing myself through someone else’s eyes, covered in shit. Not a pretty picture. I vaguely remember scenes of mountains and a small child stepping outside the lines. Going on a trip right now seems the right kind of distraction, sore throat and all. If only I could take Axel along.

It is safer to write about Axel who had his 6 months check up with the spine doctor. Axel got the latest MRI of his back explained and commented on it as ‘a mess.’ His L4 vertebra, injured in an earlier (car) crash some 20 years ago was damaged once again in the plane crash leaving things rather unaligned and with pressure on nerves that explain the frequent pains. Exercising will help, especially those that strengthen his core muscles that help him sit and stand upright. This is not easy because his spine wasn’t straight to begin with. The exercises are, of course, for life. Today he will see another new specialist, the hand doctor, to sort out the painful muscles and swelling of his left hand. This may all seem like bad news but Axel was in very good spirits when I came home and treated me like a sick child with much love and tenderness.

We watched the second part of Bush’s War, if that is the title, on PBS and I saw magnified a thousandfold the organizational dynamics that are part and parcel of the experience of working with others, including those we experienced yesterday at work. Except in this case the consequences were beyond description in terms of damage, devastation, money and death. If I wasn’t already a Quaker I would become one after seeing this series. Most striking is the senselessness of it all when you realize that there are many bruised egos behind big decisions, not simply greed as some assume; egos that express themselves in language like “I’ll [expletive] show him” (or her, now that we have Condi on the scene). The story is about hubris and not being held accountable for one’s actions, simply because of position. Once again I could not see the documentary till the end but we all know how the story continues on the surface. My hunch is that underneath the surface it is more of the same as well. And now it is time to pack.