Sylvia's Journal

I am writing this morning amidst the paint fumes produced by the Greek painters. It’s better that I post soon before I start to write nonsense. Today they are giving our house its original color (red) back; this is happening just in time for the arrival of my brother Reinout and his two sons from Holland, later tonight.

I have been haunted by the collision between a helicopter and a small plane over the Hudson River, which happened exactly one week after we passed the same point. We did see the scenic ride helicopters like the one that hit, or was hit by, the small plane. It can be busy out there and I guess we were lucky it wasn’y busy a week earlier or everyone who was piloting at that time was paying very close attention. It is the one rule of tumb when you fly: never stop looking for traffic.

I have decided to expose my incised shoulder, stitches and all, since even people who know I had surgery continue to grab me by the shoulders for a hug. It looks a little ugly, four incisions which sutures sticking out, yellow and red from Iodine and blood. It has been one week now and according to the dismissal instructions I don’t have to cover the incisions any longer.

I can shower without the stool, dry myself and dress myself without help from nurse Axel. I am leaving my arm out of the sling for longer stretches at a time, a freedom from restraint that is wonderful. It allows me to keep my elbow moving, and maintain some strength in my lower arm.

Isabella my Reiki practitioner called on Saturday that she now has her foot in a contraption that comes from the same factory in Mexico as my sling. It turned out she broke her foot six weeks ago and didn’t know it. She asked us to stand in for her as greeters and Quaker meeting on Sunday morning, which we did.

The theme of Quaker meeting was about making room for the Spirit in our lives; that we are like waitresses and waiters, patiently waiting to find out how we can be of service. It reminded me of going out to dinner with Axel who always needs a lot of time to make his choice from the menu; the best restaurants have waiters who patiently wait for him to make up his mind. That’s what service is all about. On our way back home we discussed what this has to do with our move to Afghanistan.

As the clouds rolled in, and my plans to have a Lebanese dish in a Sierra Leone [I meant ‘Lebanese dejeuner sur l’herbe] were aborted, I tagged along with Tessa to the Vietnamese nail place in Beverly, to use up the last of the gift certificates we had received from Ellie after the crash. Tessa had all twenty of her nails done and I only ten, the ones on my feet. I am embarrassed to admit that I still bite my fingernails, and so any money spent on them is a waste. Our short ride to Beverly was really a trip to Southeast Asia; I tried to piece together the stories of our nail consultants, Lisa and Rachel, their adopted names because Americans cannot pronounce their real names that have too many consonants in a row. They left their native country some 16 years ago and you can tell from the thick accents they still live mostly in Vietnam.

With our shiny new nails we went for a walk in Ravenswood with Chicha, a first resemblance of exercise for Axel and myself, even though we had to cut our outing short because of the mosquitoes.

After dinner, meant to be outside but once again moved inside by the mosquitoes, Axel and I drove to Rockport to see the last performance of the Taming of the Shrew, put on by a local theater group with several friends in the cast. It was meant to be an outdoor performance but the forecasted rains drove us inside into a tiny hall where we sat cheek to jowl on hard folding chairs. Although it was a wonderful performance, sitting in these conditions for more than two and half hours was a little hard on our recovering bodies and we returned back home rather crippled.

It made us wonder whether I could handle the invitation to a Red Sox game tonight. I am told the chairs are not so hard and we will have a little more space but then again I remember Red Sox games going on long into the night. Now, with the optimism and freshness of early morning, I am more optimistic about my ability to make the trip in and out of Boston and enjoy the game.