Sylvia's Journal

The dream is familiar now, even while I dream I recognize it – I am in a large jumbo jet and the plane rolls to one side and I think ‘this is it, the end!’ And then we land, with a bump. The details are different each time. This miracle landing was in Senegal and Axel and Tessa were with me. The dream kept on going and included scenes about scrambling out, retrieving my luggage and wondering whether my computer had been damaged on impact. And then there were more scenes of me, 27 years younger with baby Sita on my hip – in Africa, calmly looking for the rest of my luggage and Sita saying her first words, ‘Mommy, what is that?” as she pointed at something. I never answered, too stunned that she could say a whole sentence; or was it too stunned from the crash?

There is snow on the ground this morning. Now I understand the man with the snow shovel I nearly bumped into yesterday, outside the store with the cheap overstock where I go to get cheap high end chocolate (for Christmas and also for no reason).

All day yesterday I sat in a windowless room with several of my colleagues to sort out the content of chapters that will combine into an electronic handbook for, as we call them, managers who lead. The intended readership are people who manage health programs, facilities and services that have to produce quality care with (always) scant resources. We are drawing on our collective and somewhat specialized knowledge about what really happens (or does not happen) and what should not (or should) as people manage money, information, people and medicines.

I don’t know if this was a coincidence but it was a very supportive and productive meeting that I associate with working with women. There was the lonely male wandering in and out occasionally and the only male author was not able to attend because he lives in Australia. We made progress and set our deadlines. I have till the 9th of January to fix my outline of the opening chapter.