Sylvia's Journal

My internal alarm appears to be set at 6:30 AM and so I wake up no matter what. Luckily it has a snooze button. I could sleep in because I did not have a flying appointment with Bill today; he’s off showing the famous New England turning leaves to friends. I suppose I could have gone off on my own but I did not reserve a plane, since it is broken. Looking up at the bright blue sky, noticing the total absence of wind, I now regret I did not organize something. Instead Axel and I will go to the Topsfield Fair and see what’s left of the flower and vegetable displays, swing by the rabbits and livestock and look at the 4H exhibits. Axel’s father and his uncle Phil used to have a large display at the flower pavilion and my very first memories of a New England fall are intimately linked to the Topsfield Fair.

I had a fairly productive day at work at home yesterday, staying in my pajamas till about noontime and picking away steadily at the tasks to be accomplished before I leave for Tanzania later this month.

During my lunch break I made my second batch of Christmas mustard, a now traditional Christmas gift for which production starts early fall so that I have enough small jars to give away come Christmas. It makes the house smell wonderful (except at breakfast says Tessa). It is also an activity that allows for creativity as I ignore prescribed steps and quantities and experiment with substitutions. Somehow the mustard always comes out well; I have never had to throw a batch out.

At the end of the day I went to see my surgeon to get the stitches removed from my wrist. It feels good to be free of the stitches that felt very tight. The cut has healed nicely and I suspect by next week you cannot even tell anything was done to my hand. I can pick up heavy things again and sleep through the night without waking up because of tingling hands. Even my fingers on my left hand, without treatment, seem to be fine again.

When I came home I found everyone sitting by the cove on this balmy late afternoon. Woody had joined us for dinner and Axel was in charge of the kitchen. Axel’s day had been interrupted by two more therapies, EMDR and physical. He was happy to announce that the end of PT is in sight (2 more visits) which leave only the EMDR and the vestibular therapy in Boston. He admitted that if he’d do his eye exercises, homework for the vestibular therapy, more regularly he would probably speed up recovery; but then again, he has still so many exercises he has to do at home. I admire his discipline, as I have long ago stopped doing any of mine.

After everyone had left Axel and I watched a wonderful movie, The Band’s Visit, about a fading Egyptian police band that is supposed to play in a cultural center in one town in Israel but ends up in another. It’s a movie about loneliness, and getting lost as well as community and finding oneself again. It is also filmed like a documentary with some fabulous camera work. I loved listening to the sound of Arabic, a language I always regret I did not learn well enough while living in the Middle East.