Sylvia's Journal

After waiting for the usual time at the big orthopedic-industrial complex I handed over the MRI of my shoulder to the physician’s assistant. When I finally got to see the orthopede himself he gave me the bad-news good-news routine that I have gotten used to when speaking with orthopedic surgeons. I think they learn this trick in orthopedics school.

I will start with the bad – I have a large rotator cuff tear. I am not sure whether large qualifies the rotator cuff or the tear but the short end of the story is that it can only be fixed by having surgery and not doing anything will guarantee continued and increased pain in the movement of my dominant (right) arm.

The good part of the news, which also puts some urgency behind the surgery, is that the affected muscle is still in fairly good condition – good enough that it can be stretched and re-attached where it disconnected and recoiled. The surgery will be done via arthroscopy and involves placing anchors in the bone and re-attaching the muscle to where it needs to be. Four to six weeks in a sling and then more physical therapy is the prospect for this summer. I have tentatively scheduled the surgery for August 3.

There really is no good time to have your dominant arm out of commission, especially not in the summer, but if the Afghanistan job comes through, I’d better be fixed before I go. I can watch the run up and run off of the Afghan presidential elections while recuperating from surgery from the safety of my home.

Although yesterday was another vacation day – I am standing to lose a bunch if I don’t take them before June 30 – I did have to go through the annual (re)certification process that is required for anyone working on US government contracts. I had to promise not to ask for or give kickbacks, swear to my integrity in potential procurements and attest to ethical conduct at all time. It even required doing an online course that took about one hour and for which I received an excellent score; not perfect because I failed some of the trick questions, but more than good enough to pass as an ethical employee.

I finished the window boxes on the main house, leaving the studio boxes for Tessa to do this weekend. Our timing is perfect and the weather helped. It was 70 degrees yesterday and will be a steamy 90 degrees today. I have to plant a few more things in the main garden and then we can sit back and watch everything grow.

At the end of the afternoon I drove to Cambridge to have (Saudi Arabian) tea with pastries at Nuha. Her apartment is now nearly empty and a moving box served as our table. My colleagues Ashley and Jennifer came over from work and we got to see Nuha without her headdress since it was an all girl’s party. She looks older, wiser and more at ease with her long black hair flowing down her shoulders. We spent a couple of hours in girls talk – which is entirely different from conversation at a mixed party. I shared my newly acquired wisdom about the Y-chromosome story and found it the perfect topic for a girl’s party.

Nuha showed us her BU MPH diploma with great pride; she had two of them: one with both her father’s name and grandfather’s initial (M for Mohamed) and one without the M. I learned that for foreign students the name on the diploma has to be exactly the same as the name on one’s passport.

Tessa probably doesn’t understand when she gets up at 5:30 that her ma-ma is up as well, even though she is on vacation. But my internal alarm clock is set at about 5 AM. This is no great feat when you go to bed early.

After Tessa and Steve leave for work I sit by the window overlooking a glorious Lobster Cove and the greenest of gardens and read some more in Rubin’s the ‘Fragmentation of Afghanistan.’ It is incomprehensible, the stupidity, greed, blind-sidedness and sheer incompetence that has messed up that country over the last 60 years when military technology has made fighting much more consequental.

While most countries focused on developing their human and social capital, in Afghanistan it has been reduced, literally, to rubble and stubble. That Y-chromosome, again! There are no females with any power in this drama, only victims.

The worst of it all is that many of the perpetrators, if not dead, are living elsewhere, far removed from the consequences of their action, some no doubt in great luxury, with full bank accounts, state pensions; others are heroes (alive or dead). Only those still living in Afghanistan, or areas bordering on Afghanistan, are daily confronted with the resulting mess.

I learned from MySpace that Mr. Kalashnikov sleeps well. He claims he has not profited from the sale of his famous AK-47 rifles and that he only receives a state pension (of about 80 dollars, for special services to the Motherland). He says that it’s not his fault things have gotten out of hand with his rifle. “It’s the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence.” I discover that he really would have preferred to be famous for the design of agricultural machinery. I am sure many wished he had.

Tessa and Steve’s friends Sean, who works in his father’s Pittsfield bakery, wakes up after his friends are gone; it’s his day off. Despite his protestations I feed him breakfast: my homemade raisin bread that I made the other day, without raisins but with all the other dried fruit and nuts that survived the winter oatmeal routine.

Sean knows a thing or two about breads and always brings us several loaves, a kind act that determines what we eat the rest of the week. Sean says ‘like’ a lot, about every third word. I learn, in between these annoying ‘likes’ that he is hoping to get a noisy motorbike when his tax refund comes in. He promises that he will turn the motor off or at least not rev it he reaches our house when I tell him I can’t stand the sound of such bikes.

After he leaves I spend some time working on things that cannot wait followed by more reading, outside in the sun. It is a 10+ days with blue skies and birds chirping and trilling away. We decide to have lunch at home because no restaurant can compete with the view, and we can turn the leftover bass into a seafood salad that sits nicely on Sean’s bread – served with ice cold glasses of vinho verde.

In the afternoon we go on a shopping expedition for plants, herbs and veggies. This will be the project for today: kale, sprouts, Chinese cabbage, cilantro and many annuals for the window boxes.

After our first hamburger cookout of the season, and eating outside without mosquitoes (yet), Tessa and Steve withdraw inside their studo to watch a (the?) hockey game. Axel and I drive into town to listen to author Andre Dubus III read from his work in progress, an ‘accidental autobiography’ at the community center. One person asks how one knows if one is a writer. “When you cannot help yourself and have to write each day,” is his answer.

It’s a relief that the cat is out of the bag about my intention to live in Kabul for a year or so. Writing daily in a public blog without mentioning the momentous decision making process with all its ups and downs that is going on in the background was hard; but I was not ready to share this with the world. Now I am. Since the thought first occurred to me I have gone through the change cycle that I teach others and that is based on Elizabeth Kubler Ross’ work.

First comes the denial (“What? Me? Kabul? Impossible!”); then comes the phase of resistance with all its emotions, spine shivers and all that. So far the idea seems farfetched and part of me wants to draw back to the comfortable status quo. But there is also something pulling hard at me. I remember going through this phase late April, while in Kabul. I would be looking at the picture that serves as the header of my blog with Axel picking mussels. Give that up? Go to a country that has no ocean? Being restricted in our movements? A potential war zone?

After each of those ‘outings’ to things I would have to give up (or feared) there was a stronger pull that whispered to me about challenges, and making contributions, travelling less, being more with Axel, being able to deep dive rather than skim. And so I moved into the next stage, that of exploring new possibilities. It is then that I started talking with Alain, Axel, Alison (you start with the A’s) and heard their views on pros and cons.

Since Axel was let in on the secret a few weeks ago he is going through his own cycle. The most wonderful thing was that he did not say ‘no’ right away (although he was freaked out a little when I was going a little too fast). This too is what I teach others about change – watch out when you have passed the denial and resistances stages and are ready to explore – others may not be right behind you yet and be freaked out by your speed. They may get deeper into resistance.

And yesterday I arrived at the final stage, which is that of commitment: the application submitted, letting people know, and thinking about a trip to Kabul with Axel so he can start exploring himself.

People are supportive and excited – especially at work, where there are people who have lived ‘in the field’ as we say. They understand this tension between skimming and diving, seeing results from your work up close and working slowly at bringing about deep and lasting change rather than tinkering at the surface.

Of course I don’t have the job yet – it is possible that someone with even more of a leg-up applies – but the chances are good and so the application and offer is made with that in mind – a momentous decision rather than a cavalier move. Stay tuned!
 

More gardening yesterday, despite the rain – it’s a good time to put things in the ground. We bought squash, tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumbers and some annuals at Tendercrop Farms in Newbury. Being that close to Chuck and Anne, innkeepers at the Water Street Inn in Newburyport, we stopped by to see them and check out how they and the inn are doing. They are noticing the economic down turn as well and for the first time have plenty of openings for this summer.

I missed the BU graduation, and thus did not get to see Nuha in her graduation robes. I thought I had already missed it last week, having extended my stay in Kabul. She will be moving back as an MPH to Saudi Arabia soon. I will miss her. We never got to do all the flying that we had imagined. I have a standing invitation to go camping with her in the desert. It’s on my list of destinations.

Our Canadian guests, Steve’s cousin Andrew and his girlfriend Britney, drove back to Ontario early this morning after a whirlwind weekend tour of Cape Ann under the expert guidance of Tessa. We celebrated Andrew’s 21st birthday last night with a 1000 calorie cheesecake from the cheesecake factory, decorated, as if it needed more calories, with crushed snickers bars and whipped cream. It was his choice of course.

But the really big news today is that I submitted my application for a job in Kabul on our Afghanistan project as Technical Director for Management and Leadership. If get it, it means Axel and I will move to Kabul in September. We should know in about a month whether I got the job or not.

I am pushing the ending (mostly) and the starting times (hardly)of the day further out. I go to bed a little later each day and get up before anyone else does. It is vacation and weekend so starting the day a little later is better.

Yesterday morning I witnessed the arrival time of two travelers from Canada, Steve’s cousin and his girlfriend, who had travelled through the night westwards over the Upstate NY Thruway and the Mass Pike. When they arrived Lobster Cove was waking up and at its best: chirping birds, fragrant lilacs and lilies of the valley, a quiet cove and a deep blue sky– there is no better place to arrive after 12 hours in a car.

After they went to bed Steve left for work, Tessa settled in for work in her studio and I have no recollection of what I did after that. The only thing I have to show for yesterday is a slightly emptier emailbox, the new crown, a few less kinks in my muscles, a pile of Afghan shirts hemmed and thus now less likely to unravel in the wash, and the potatoes and lettuce in the ground.

In the process of planting we found some of the potatoes I had missed in my search last fall by their newly sprouted leaves. If we had had these potatoes for dinner our meal would have been entirely from our own land (and water): the striped sea bass Axel caught on Wednesday, arugula salad and potatoes.

And now it is time to sort out where Bill and I are flying to this morning.

I have been alerted by a faithful reader that I skipped an entry for today. I didn’t think there was much to say after the excitement of Afghanistan, the ski slope of Dubai and Dutch cheese.

Who cares that I had a new crown put in this morning, followed by an exquisite Abi massage (compliments of Axel) and then lobster salad for lunch on the terrace of the new restaurant in town?

But the salad was too much and I feel bloated and sleepy. Axel says that I should get up and walk and exercise but my body wants to sleep. I have been up since 5 AM so I think I am entitled to a nap. I’ll let Axel put the potatoes in while I rest my eyes for awhile.

New England spring can compete with Kabul spring – it’s just a little behind. It was wonderful to come home. Axel led me around the yard to see what had changed since I left. I ate asparagus right out of the asparagus bed –it doesn’t need any cooking. The garden is ready for the potatoes and chard; the parsley that survived the winter is already twice as big and the broccoli, also a survivor can be eaten right out of the garden as well.

We went for a walk, got a demo of Axel’s new high-powered toy (a second hand lawn mower), unpacked the presents (many of Tessa’s rings did not fit her), aired the two carpets, had dinner and I went to bed at 7 PM. While I was asleep Axel got a striper and Chicha had her first fishing experience which brought out the wild Dingo in her.

This morning the day is even more beautiful than yesterday. It’s great to be back home.