Sylvia's Journal

I woke up to a glorious view of the cove, framed by brilliant fall colors. I rushed out and took a picture, trying to capture what I know is fleeting, but will also come back in a year.

I now know which of our systems are attached to the great atomic Mother Clock (DVD, coffee maker, alarm) and which are not (radio, microwave, stove, cars, watch) because Daylight Savings Time ended and time changed back to normal. My internal clock was not fooled and thus, when I woke up, it was 5:30 instead of 6:30. For about an entire day we will all be saying, well, it really is [an hour later] and then we move on.

Yesterday was for flying, mostly. Bill and I had planned a trip to Martha’s Vinyeard and Nuha, having missed our last trip, would board an 8:30 train from North Station and be picked up by me in Beverly at 9:03 sharp to join us. But then she called that the train had pulled out of the station in front of her eyes. Rather than declaring defeat she took a taxi to Beverly which ended up making her trip to Katama cost about as much as a commercial flight might have been. After many cell phone exchanges between Nuha, her driver, myself and the flight center she finally made it. At 10:00 it was wheels up for Katama.

It was a glorious fall day, though hazy if you looked ahead. The picture shows Boston in the distance, over our left wing. Down below us everything was clear and crisp: the maize maze at Connors farm just north of Beverly airport, the rusty fall foliage, the grey spots where the leaves had been blown off, the green of the pines, the ink black ponds and the slate-colored ocean, all this against a deep blue sky.

Bill flew out and I flew back. We flew around Boston rather than down from Cape Ann. Flying for 40 minutes over the ocean is not interesting and generally not a good idea in the winter. We flew via Bedford airport , Mansfield, and New Bedford, over the Elizabeth Islands (Naushon, Cuttyhunk), which lay forlornly in the slate-grey sea. From there it was a small hop, right through MVY’s airspace, to Katama, a small grass field airport that is a favorite spot for a beach fly-in but now lay deserted and empty.

We circled over the airfield a few times to see the lay of the land and set up for a good landing. This gave us a good view of the breach that was created by a winter storm in 2007 and that made neighboring Chappaquiddick an island. It also gave us a good view of the multi-billion dollar homes that are scattered across the costly land and that look so very vulnerable from the sky.

I took Nuha home and we had lunch outdoors and did some photo shoots because all these memories have to be captured for later, when Nuha is back in Riyadh. All the while we talked about culture, relationships, marriage and love – what else is there to talk about? It is sad to see how we self impose rules on life’s most important bonds that set them up for failure, rather than success; and worse, that women themselves are sometimes the worst perpetrators.

I drove Nuha back to Cambridge because there are only a few trains to Boston on the weekend, and so we had a chance to continue to talk and hatch some plans about how Nuha might spend her travel money that comes with her scholarship.

By the time I came back home Axel had returned from his all day Community Preservation Act (CPA) conference in Middleton and Tessa and Steve were cooking dinner.