Sylvia's Journal

I am gently sliding into my vacation. Getting up late, taking my sweet time to get ready for work, a late start to my daily blog entry. I am in this in between state: not quite off from work and not quite on vacation. It is a very sweet period full of promises and prospects. Because the vacation has not started yet, it can also not be used up yet. I want time to stop for awhile tonight. Once the vacation starts it will be over before I know it as there is so much already programmed: a few days with the St. Johns in Small Point in Maine, the funeral trip to Atlanta and a bunch of things to do in the house.

I spent a good part of yesterday removing items from my to-do list and making space in my brain to think through the design of an online course for new leadership facilitators, to test their knowledge and understanding. It wasn’t even on my to-do list but it is something I have wanted to do for a long time. I know I am doing something I like to do when the time flies by without me noticing. It’s called flow, a term coined by Csikzentmihalyi (the psychology of optimal experience) – I think I was in that place for a good part of the day yesterday.

In the evening we went to Ellie who had invited us for a lobster dinner and to show us her magnificent garden in full summer bloom. This is why we had to arrive before it got dark. We did and walked around the 2 acre grounds, fighting off mosquitoes while admiring the Olmsted-esque views.  Although we believe Ellie has some of his genius, as it turned out her small cottage is part of a subdivision of what was once a large estate that was landscaped, indeed, by Olmsted. You can tell from the large trees and the interesting vistas that he had been there.

The lobster, fresh corn and salad we shared with Ellie’s real estate friends and former colleagues who had plenty of stories about local people and their homes, a professional world that is so very different from mine. In between courses we discovered common ground in Small Point and once again that, despite these different spheres we move around in, the world is a small world (or shall I say a small point) after all.

The abundant butter and white wine produced a restless night full of weird dreams. They had some significance upon waking but soon dissolved into thin air with only a few meaningless frames remaining by the time breakfast was served. The lack of exercise yesterday, for both of us, made us wake up stiff and staggering – Axel with back spasms and me with my unabated whiplashed neck. Both of us are wondering whether any of this will ever improve.