Sylvia's Journal

This morning we woke up in Kent, a small town in the northwest corner of Connecticut, in Joseph and Cynthia’s house that is nestled in the woods and overlooks a lovely lake. I got to try out a handmade canvas over woodframe Inuit kayak built by Bob who knows a lot more about kayaks than we do. I stayed upright despite its tippiness. I may be defective in the ankle, but this required flexibility in the hips. That I can do.

On Saturday Alison chauffeured us from Somerville, through torrential rains, picturesque villages, lovely rolling hill farmland, and past many manicured lawns into this far corner of Connecticut. Others had streamed in from Maine, Manhattan and DC. The occasion was the silver jubilee of a literary/wine drinking society founded in Chumleys, after work one day, 25 years ago when we were young and silly and the founding members were working in the same organization in Manhattan. The society derives its name from a southern writer who published only one book, we believe (Never Enough) and the cover made it into Chumley’s bookjacket gallery. The nice thing about this society is that when we get together for the annual general meeting (AGM), we still get to be young and silly, despite our grey hairs and elevated organizational positions (some of us). And now there are even retirees. Our annual meetings have taken place in New York, in Manchester by the Sea, on Long Island and even Southern France. A quorum of 7 people is always reached. But we can have twice as many present if the time and place is right.

It’s a flat organizational structure; there are no elections, no positions and no dues. Membership is very exclusive, you have to be asked in or marry someone who is already in, those are the only ways to become part of this exalted society. Absence at the AGM is risky because gossip about absentees is allowed, even encouraged, especially if the reasons for absence are not considered compelling enough. After the rains stopped we moved outside and started with the agenda that includes a roll call, and educational activities on wine and literature. Gossip and scolding (public shaming) are standing agenda items. We always start the meeting and then never quite end it because we are all very easy to distract. Axel, with his impaired executive function fits in beautifully since everyone else acts as if they were, at some point in their life, in a crash as well. We pretend to apply Roberts Rules but never do it quite right and sometime over dinner we drift so far from the agenda that it is forgotten entirely. We are OK with this since we know it will be picked up one year from now at our next annual meeting.

Axel and I had cleaned out the barn, once again, and assembled a pile of books that we no longer needed. Among other things we found a book written in 1942 about personal leadership that contained some good (and several politically incorrect for this day and age) passages that lent themselves well for a public reading by Axel. The wine descriptor quiz that we assembled during the ride over proved that there are very few adjectives that do not apply to wine. Everyone learned that diesel/petrol is indeed a descriptor of some wines which is only undesirable if it overwhelms, according to our source, plucked from the internet.

We ended the evening with a slideshow projected large on the wall, of our own silliness. It was captured on various cameras throughout the afternoon and into the night. We also got to see what transpired in Southern France last year, the meeting that we had to miss, given our condition in early September 2007.

I went to bed long after my habitual bedtime and woke up, not surprisingly, long after my habitual wake up time. In Dutch we call this sleeping a hole into the day. At midday Alison ushered us back into the car and we drove, once again, through torrential rains, picturesque villages, lovely rolling hill farmland, away from the manicured lawns back to the clutter of Somerville and tall wet grasses of Lobster Cove.