Sylvia's Journal

We are back in winter and back at home. The short distance on the map made a world of difference otherwise. I woke up to snow on the ground as if we needed a reminder that we are back in the north.

Yesterday morning in Falls Church we got up fairly early for a vacation day but we did not want to wait until our hosts’ guests arrived. We would have emerged out of the guest bedroom directly into the living room in our jammies. This is OK with friends but not with total strangers. We had a delightful breakfast with our hosts and their visitors, an elderly couple, during which we heard all about how they are trying to raise a community out of poverty through networking and coalition building between civil society groups, government agencies and private citizens. The issues of rural American poverty are actually quite similar to those I see in developing countries. The common strategy is about building trust which comes from sitting together and talk and listen, not necessarily from orchestrated meetings (at least not at first). We ended our breakfast with an orange juice toast to Obama who knows how to harness local energies like that. We are all hopeful that he will continue to do this.

We drove into DC proper to visit our friends Tisna and Fred and admire the results of the long and painful renovation of their enormous brownstone near Dupont Circle. It was indeed magnificent. We also discovered that Tisna was hobbling around the house with a cane after a fall from an attic ladder on Christmas Eve. Son Victor who is an EMT diagnosed a sprain rather than a break which saved them from having to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning in a city hospital emergency room. Aside from both being Dutch, the same age, married to an American and working in the same industry we now also have a defective right ankle in common.

We had a lunch with several Dutch (Northern European/Lowlands) delicacies and then headed to the airport. We drove through the center of town and noticed much activity related to the inauguration: houses on the route being washed and painted and scaffolds for seating being erected amidst the general confusion of tourists who look at their maps rather than the traffic when they cross the streets.

National airport was also in a state of confusion. Delta claimed it had something to do with New York’s airports not releasing or accepting planes on schedule. We watched whole plane loads of passengers being reshuffled from one gate to another and back again and then squeezed into smaller planes. To our great surprise everyone remained in a good mood and despite the downsizing of the plane no one was left standing at the gate when it closed. Our plane was also hours late (presumably for the same reason) and got us to Boston several hours behind schedule. It was probably thanks to the very funny ground staff and flight attendants who saved the day with their good sense of humor, that no one was getting angry or agitated. In fact we were a jolly plane load that got deposited in Boston.

Despite our late arrival we came home before Tessa and Steve returned from work. There had indeed been a party, as we jokingly suggest when we leave the house for a few days to the care of our children. We could tell that from the bags of empties by the front entrance (but no empty kegs and at least the bottles were not hidden). The kitchen and living room were cleaned and most signs of a party had been erased. I did notice that the Palin action doll lay splayed (as if being quartered) on top of a vase amidst dried out roses. It is nice to have such grown up and responsible kids.

We never made it to Chinatown, partially because we didn’t get out of the house until it was well into the afternoon and also because we did not need to. This allowed us to hang out a little longer with Sita and Jim before they headed back West to their home and the kitties who will, by now, have been introduced to the vacuum cleaning robot. It also allowed me to receive the cookbook present that came in the afternoon mail. I picked a recipe that did not require a trip to Chinatown.

We dropped off my passport and all the required passport pictures for various visas at work and then turned around to join the shopping mall traffic that looked just the same as regular rush hour. Back home I tried my hand at a hearty Tibetan soup from ‘the other China’ that had the bread and butter part integrated (toasted barley flour and butter) and so makes dinner a one pan and one bowl soup. Of course the butter was supposed to be yak butter and the meat yak meat. The American adaptation was pretty good although it required several bowls and pans, and looked nothing like the illustration.

Tessa and Steve gave us all sort of household and kitchen stuff for Christmas that is usually given to newlyweds – it was a commentary on the content of our kitchen drawers and shelves. We didn’t think we needed anything new and matching but somehow we produced this child who likes things to be just right, which means matching. It is probably a reaction to the general messiness of our house. We now eat our food with shiny (and matching) silverware from China and beautiful sparkly new (and matching) wineglasses from France; even our well worn placemats were pushed aside by new ones from India; all on the condition that the old stuff leaves the house. So Sita and Jim went home with the ousted cutlery with the handles that had started to crack but we held on to the wine glasses and old placemats (for now).

And now we are off to DC to celebrate Chris’ 60th birthday. His wife Carol decided that we are to be one of his presents. It will be a short trip, we return on Monday afternoon, but hopefully just long enough to see some friends in addition to celebrating the important milestone.

It is Christmas morning and all through the house not a creature is stirring, no maggot, no mouse. The maggots, of course, appeared in a few poems for Tessa and once in the form of rice grains. With the right sound effects from Sita a little bit of the maggot experience was re-enacted.

As usual our Christerklaas did not start until midnight and ended, as it always does, at about 3 AM. I checked last year’s blog (my first one on WordPress) and we improved about 20 minutes on Axel’s performance. We started exactly at midnight with a reading about Saint Nicholas. While waiting for everyone else to appear, I learned that he was credited with religious precocity, even in babyhood because he did not demand his mother’s breast on fast days (Wednesdays and Fridays) except after sunset. I immediately thought about the mother with her swollen breast and the little baby refusing, what a pain. Somehow he made it from Turkey to the USA via the North Pole and turned into a jolly elf – there is more to read.

Until we started, and after Sita and Jim returned from a Yankee swap at the Blisses, they played a series of ukulele-guitar duets that were a wonderful background to my studies about St. Nick. I marvel about how Sita has mastered all these instruments (this includes my violin that had been languishing in my office for years and her cello which she did not touch for ahwile either). We had no idea there was this latent musical ability until it got activated, we think, by Jim.

Sint’s poems ranged from non-rhyming one liners, via a few non-rhyming stanzas to masterpieces both in rhyme and rhythm, some quite long; most were written in English but a few had some Dutch words sprinkled in when there was no appropriate English word that rhymed. This is the advantage of a multi-lingual household – rhyming gets easier with each additional language.

We left the presents that did not have a poem attached under the tree for American Christmas that will start later today. This year the bulk of the presents came from Sint, not Santa. Sint turned out to be both a patron of the (local) Arts and of the Kitchen in his (and her) choice of presents, with a few Heiffer animals and MSF delivery kits (or bed nets) thrown in because we, collectively, already have everything we need. It’s a good trend, together with the increase in poems. Even our Canadian (Steve) who is relatively new to this family’s Dutch/American Christmas ritual, is learning fast and revealed himself as a gifted rhymer. It’s the staying up so late that is more of a challenge to him; he was the only one who had gotten up early to go to work on Christmas Eve.

Two passports arrived in the mail. Now, together with my two Dutch passports, I am the owner of four passports. No one expected that homeland security would let me have two American passports but it did; all I had to do was ask. My assistant wrote a letter that it was a real hardship to only have one passport and that it had been very stressful for me, a month ago, because of the multiple visas required. With only one passport shipped out to various consulates in DC my family was left in suspense about whether my December trip to Bangladesh was on or not. This was true. It must have convinced some government official that I was a good risk for two passports. I suppose it is also a nice extra income stream since second passports always have a short shelf life and need to be renewed frequently at 50 dollars a pop.

The old passport got its second batch of pages pasted in and can hardly close – it wants to stretch wide open. I wonder if there is a point at which extra pages are no longer added.

Unfortunately the passports were sent to my home address. I had not intended to drive to Cambridge today because the traffic will be at its worst on this day before Christmas (I have to go by at least three shopping malls); but the passports need to make it to Cambridge were a new assistant is poised to obtain three visas for me in the next couple of weeks: India, for transit, Bangladesh and Cambodia for a brief stay. I spent the last hour of my sleep agonizing about whether to get the required visas in one passport or in two, raising all sorts of questions about the purpose and use of the second passport.

Yesterday was a slow workday, as one could expect so close to Christmas. Anyone going someplace else had already gone; meeting rooms were left idle and the energy was rather low, especially mine. At 2 PM I had concluded that there was no point in pretending to be focused on my work and I left hoping to beat the rush hour traffic (I did not) and drop off a few more gifts along the way home.

We ended the day caroling at Diane and Curt’s house with some longtime Manchester residents (this refers to generations of living in this town). A retired judge and senator are still addressed as ‘Judge’ and ‘Senator’ and several have names that are intimately tied up with Massachusetts’ history dating back to the state’s early days.

I have lived in this town now for 15 years which hardly counts. But Axel is at least one and a half generation ahead of me and had parents who lived and worked here (Axel Magnuson Inc. Flowers). All of the old folks knew them. I am slowly getting to know people (or rather they me) because of this annual caroling event that started when several of the grey haired singers were young parents with babes in arms (for us this was only our second year). I also am getting to know people through Axel’s participation in the town’s organizational and political life. I overheard some conversation about town committees and the incompetence of office holders that was draped over an acceptance and understanding of human nature that was both realistic and utterly discouraging.

New Englanders are tenacious and stubborn. I think it comes from having to shovel wet and heavy snow and the long winters that are, invariably, followed by a glorious spring, summer and fall. The message is, if you bite through eventually something better comes along. I am not sure it actually works that way for town politics but, always the optimist, I give Axel my thoughts on leading and following.

When I close my eyes tightly it snows and I can stay at home, even in bed; but when I open them the snow is gone and the roads are clear and I can get up and go to work. Once in a while Axel questions my getting up so early – as if to talk me out of it. And I explain, once more, that getting up early is way more preferable for me than getting up late and having to rush. Rushing in the morning is inauspicious; I would forget things like my wallet, the magnetic card that lets me into work or my cell phone. At any time, but especially this time of the year, I would pay a price for such neglectfulness that far outweighs the price of getting up a little earlier. So there!

Yesterday was maybe the shortest day in terms of daylight but it was surely the longest day away from home (while not traveling). Halfway through 10-miles-per-hour commute home I called Tessa to commiserate, expecting her to be stuck in traffic somewhere near. She did not answer and I left a message. I then called home where Tessa cheerfully answered that she was already home; no one wanted to commiserate with me and my whining fell on deaf ears. Axel gave me some of my own lines about not being a victim and pull up to get something to eat if I was hungry and all that crap that I give others about ‘being an agent of change!’ Ha! This is to remind me that timing is everything and that there can be a great disconnect between the message giver and the message receiver. I know this intellectually but it is good to experience it in the gut from time to time. In Holland we call this ‘giving someone a cookie of one’s own dough.’

At work it was a day of nonstop meetings. This is the Monday I am supposed to work at home but as soon as people got wind that I was in the office the meetings started piling up. I had printed out my Outlook calendar which directed me from one meeting place to the next, all day long.

At noontime Margaret came over to talk with us about her latest book and how to preserve ‘soul’ in the middle of a lot of soullessness at work. I was surprised to see how many people showed up. There appears to be a real hunger to talk about matters of spirituality at work. We are after all working in a nonprofit and people could earn a lot more by working for a profit-driven company. But most of us choose to come here which gets us something money can’t buy.

The final part of the day was a video presentation to our funders in DC. I was asked to talk about our Ghana leadership program that is unfolding slowly and not always visible to our eyes. Nevertheless, a last minute email from Ghana was encouraging – a few people are stepping up to the leadership plate and making the changes that were needed. Today I will be exploring with the man in charge how we can support this further and show, compellingly, how better (a) better management and leadership makes a difference, and (b) how this can be ‘engineered.’