Sylvia's Journal

Dorm sleeping at our age is only bearable for a few days, even in the fancy dorm. After a week on a plastic mattress we were happy to sleep in our own bed again. The conference ended on a high note as I picked up two more very useful exercises from the Saturday morning sessions. We said our goodbyes, to Charleston and to our friends and promised to show up next June, in Albuquerque, for the 37th OBTC.

We arrived back home while it was light. In between throwing the Frisbee to an attention starved grand dog (Tessa and Steve are creating their own Woodstock memories in a drenched Tennessee at the Bonnaroo Music festival) we surveyed the garden where everything is growing well because of the incessant rain. This includes intended crops as well as weeds and bugs.

We had a light meal because Axel’s stomach begged for something that wasn’t soaked in bacon fat. The southern food is tasty but we’re not used to that much fat. Luckily there was a CVS, well stocked with Tums, right around the corner from our dorm; the one that also sold wine and beer and ice-cream.

We lucked out in our return flight home, zigzagging around massive cumulus clouds, and landing in Boston less than 2 hours after departure while colleagues heading for the Midwest and southern Midwest found themselves stranded in Charleston or Atlanta because of the weather, waiting in airports for hours.

I woke up early this morning to more rain and wetness and started to clean out my mailbox. I look at the contents now through the Afghanistan lens and so there is much that can be deleted without any further thought. But it feels that with every email deleted, a totally unrelated item is added to my to do list for our move east: what to bring, what to complete, what to cancel, what to find out.

I notice that today is the 14th. I used to pay attention to dates with this number because the 14th was the day of our accident now nearly 2 years ago. After July 14, 2008 I stopped doing that. But the accident is now more prominent in our minds again as we discover lesser ailments that went undetected two years ago and become more prominent as time goes by and body parts remain painful and make the full recovery we hoped for somewhat incomplete.

A bike ride to Quaker meeting today seems like just the right thing to do to still my mind and be in the presence of the divine so I can face the (daunting) immediate future with some tranquillity in my heart.