Sylvia's Journal

I am waking up in the dark again, not cold yet, just dark, but winter is coming. I calculated we are about halfway between the longest and the shortest night of the year. When I woke up Axel was just about getting to sleep again. He is reading a good book it seems and when he wakes up he turns the light on and reads. We are on two very different wake/sleep systems.

Yesterday morning I rode on my bike while watching the sky the entire ride to Quaker meeting, whishing I was up there. I had reserved a plane to go for a fly with my friend Nuha, as we conspired to do last July but she is in the middle of Ramadan and had Iftar cooking duty yesterday, so we will wait until October. I then offered the seat to Axel but he was finishing his class in Boston and besides, he is not sure he is ready. The thought alone created some ‘eng’ as he calls it (scary in Dutch).

We held our meeting for worship outside in a big circle on the lawn. The silence was enhanced by the twittering of birds and occasionally ripped apart by B17s and B24s lumbering overhead while we communed with the universe and someone or another talked about how everything is connected to everything. Somehow we are connected to these planes, their purpose, our tax dollars that commissioned and fed them in their early years and the material we and they are made of (stardust!).

The WWII planes are on their bi-annual fundraising visit to Beverly airport, offering rides to people who have a lot of money (cheapest ride is 400 dollars) to offset their astronomical costs. All weekend noisy and unusual planes circled overhead, flying rather low. They are one of the few things that bring out our neighbors Ted and Charles who otherwise would be caught dead being outside on a gorgeous fall day. Charles was a gunner in WWII and the sound of the planes brings up all sorts of memories. The planes brought me out as well if I happened to be inside, they are quite a sight. The Steerman biplane with its giant motor up front was noisy but beautiful to watch as it circled lazily above Manchester Harbor. I wouldn’t mind a ride in that one.

With Axel in Boston, Tessa selling leather goods in Rockport and Steve mowing the lawn when not gaming, I had the day to myself and spent most of it outside. I cleaned out the window boxes with the dead flowers and worked in the garden. I harvested about 10 pounds of potatoes, encouraged the little stray cantaloupe that is running a race against time and exhorted the broccoli and kale that are taking much too long to get settled to get on with the growing. The asparagus box is like a feathery forest, producing more and more shoots that look as if you could cut them off right now and eat them but we are told not to and wait till next year.

Our dinner was entirely home-grown, except for the chicken and the habanera pepper that I hid in the mashed potatoes. Everyone noticed, and will probably notice again today.