Sylvia's Journal

When I arrived at Logan yesterday Axel and I were like two magnets. The pull even made my suitcase show up early. A brief interference from American officialdom temporarily nulled the attraction. I was welcomed by an officer with a speech defect who fired harsh staccato questions at me like a machine gun: Why were you in Afghanistan? Where is your contractor badge? His red pencil circle around the word Afghanistan on my customs declaration guaranteed another interrogation at customs: Who are you, why were you in Afghanistan, what is your business, where is it, give me the exact address ( I can never remember the street number), show me your business card (sorry, none left). This was followed by a cursory sniffing of my Dutch cheese and chocolate Easter eggs. But once I passed that last hurdle there was no stopping us getting back together. When we finally made contact we stuck together as powerful magnets do, for a long time, inseparable. This was a different kind of homecoming.

A clean house and Sita awaited me; then a bath and a deep sleep until it was time for Abi’s massage in the late afternoon. By 9 PM I was asleep again. I slept fitfully, waking up every few hours but eventually made it all the way till 7 AM, which put me right back on Massaachusetts time.

Not surprisingly the night was full of dreams. At some point in the middle of the night I scribbled my dream on a Post-It Note. I am trying to decipher it now. It was about deeply veined colorful marble slaps that looked like water-colored maps of the Indian Subcontinent. I was with a bunch of women, navigating the veins in the stone like rivers. Someone’s mother was to join us later but then I found Axel and peeled off. There was something about roles and not being with the military; a farewell party with rows of tall glasses full of mint leaves, waiting to be filled with boiling sugar water for syruppy mint tea. I am not sure whether this was one dream or many. Later there was something about mentoring two people for a presentation and being so involved in their success that I forgot to print my own speaking notes. It had something to do with native people from the Pacific Ocean, their architecture and leadership that produced results we wanted to show the audience. When it was my turn to speak I faltered, not having my notes. I was chided for not knowing the highlights of my presentation. I wanted to say to the people, wait, I am not usually unprepared like this, and I know the highlights, but I knew it was useless.

When I woke up it was April the 12th, our wedding anniversary (1980). We had no gifts, no roses or anything like that. The happiness of being in each others’ company and safely back home was the biggest gift we had for each other. We had breakfast in bed and caught up with all the news and things that happened during our separation; and then we planned tomorrow’s annual spring celebration, which we have never skipped since 1985. It is about hope, new beginnings and new possibilities. Now in my third life, we have more survival miracles to celebrate than some people get to do in a lilfetime.