Sylvia's Journal

The messages at Quaker meeting yesterday were about speaking truth to power. My boss several times removed gave me a book with that title some years ago about a priest speaking truth to the king in 16^th century Spain. I discovered there are several hundred of thousands of Google entries under that heading, books, plays, opinion pieces, blogs and editorials. Anybody ever in power has probably been addressed at least once under this exhortation.

But not all protest is about speaking truth to power. The power of this kind of truth-speaking comes from love. Isabella, our new neighbor and new Friend, not only spoke to that latter dimension but also sang to it in her beautiful voice. She is a voice teacher, Reiki Master and meditation coach. These last two of her gifts are showing up on my doorstep just when I need them – today is the day of my shoulder surgery.

Isabella offered to accompany me to the surgical center and, using Reiki and music, to get my body in exactly the right place before and after my shoulder repair. Cutting and drilling are things the body does not like and she knows how to soften the assault by softening the body. I understand that at a cellular level.

Still, despite this important offering, I did not sleep well, waking up just about every hour. I try to be cool about the surgery but my troubled sleep shows I am not.

The rest of Sunday I tried not to think about the surgery and wondered how best to use the day while still having two shoulders and arms that functioned pretty well. After having contemplated weeding, rowing, swimming I ended up doing those things that don’t require much shoulder and arm dexterity: Tessa and I went to visit DJ in Rockport (to show him my Ethiopian coat and check out his handbag and summer shoe collection), bought a few clothes that won’t be good for Kabul but very appropriate for hot places for our regional escapes, and filled bags with summer’s bounty at local farm stands.

Axel returned late and exhausted from his weekend in Maine where he celebrated Hala’s 50^th birthday on her family’s 900 acre working farm. The farm’s livestock is Black Angus and that’s what they had for dinner when not eating lobster. The farmhouse stands on a plateau and overlooks the presidential range, fields and a pond; from his description, the views, the rooms with curtains fluttering in a breeze, a fire downstairs in the hearth, I found myself transported into a painting (Andrew Wyeth, said Axel).

If we had had our act together on Saturday (if he’d known I’d be back around 2PM from my NYC trip), I could have gone with him. I have never been to the place while for Axel it was the second visit; his first visit never to be forgotten, on September 11, 2001. He first heard about the towers collapse on the car radio and then saw the haunting images on TV screens in rest stops along route 95N. That assault was not about speaking truth to power; it can’t be done with hate – it’s got to be done with love.