Sylvia's Journal

A thick layer of saturated air hangs above the ground, obscuring the cove. Every 15 second the foghorn sounds its mournful warning to ships approaching our coast. It brings back memories to my first stay in this town and house, some 30 years ago. Then the foghorn startled me; now it is one of the most familiar and dearest sounds I can imagine, as it signals home.

I followed the elections in Afghanistan as best as I could on the internet. It was hard to gauge the overall success or failure. The stories put on blogs in and in the media, the photos and the videos were inspiring and heart breaking. Nothing took away from my determination to go there and contribute whatever I can. Axel was not fazed either.

The day started badly and unfolded badly for awhile: first a rear ending, some 15 minutes into my commute, when I stood on the breaks for a truck that swerved for a tractor trailer that pulled on to the highway without much of a stop or concern for the traffic in its lane. This led to a pile up behind me. I was the least impacted and only our car’s brand new bumper was scratched. It was my luck that a Toyota was in back of me, about the same size as our car; the lady in back of me was rear-ended by a large pickup truck that smashed up her entire backside. The two culprits in front of me drove off into the distance without a worry in the world, maybe even oblivious to the mess they had created behind them.

So we sat by the side of the road, exchanging information while the flashing blue lights of the police cruiser made everyone slow down and caused a rubberneck traffic jam on both sides of 128. Not a good start but then again, I was OK and so was my recuperating shoulder, on this first commute in after my surgery.

After a delightful lunch outside with my French speaking colleagues (our monthly dejeuner francais) I was stung by a wasp which produced a pain so piercing I was not able to walk any longer. Debbie, our receptionist, put my foot in a basin with water, then produced ice and about 20 minutes later I could walk again. Now, the next day, it is still hurting and itching a lot.

My departure date to Kabul was changed once again, just when I thought everything was settled. I am now leaving on the 21^stof September, mostly to avoid the slow weeks of Ramadan and the festivities at the end. My new boss insists on me having as much time to recover here and the professional attention of well trained and experienced physical therapists before I transfer to such care in Afghanistan. He has a point and everyone was relieved. Still, as per September 1 I will be considered permanent staff of the Afghanistan project, even though I am still formally based in Cambridge. The latter arrangement will last (even though after September 23 I will be physically in Kabul) until the project extension contracts is signed (October? November?) I am trying to sort out the implications of this organizational arrangement and its effect on my allowances and taxes; this is a bit of a research project.

I attended a few meetings and many more celebrations of birthdays and people departing, all accompanied by cakes and snacks, bringing everyone together; a slow work day one could say, but socially quite nice. I also cleaned out the last pieces of my office so that Joan can now sit at my desk and most of the physical traces of my 22 years of work at MSH headquarters are now gone: thrown out, given away or packed up.

Back at home Axel had blown a fuse, a combination of project management overload (still a result of the brain injury), the consequences of sending out mixed messages to the girls and the oppressing heat. It made me want to delay my return home, a selfish strategy of avoidance rather than rescue.  It was easy to let the celebrations take their course; as a result I left too late to avoid traffic and inched my way home. By the time I got home Axel had cooled off a little. We decided against cooking our own meal and instead drove to Gloucester to have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants there, The Rudder.

That’s when our luck turned. We were seated at the edge of the water, overlooking Gloucester’s inner harbor amidst countless holiday makers who were all vying for a seat on the terrace. Steve and Tessa, also in traffic, also hungry, pulled off for dinner on their way home from Boston. By the time we came home everyone and everything had cooled off and we were able to have a family meeting about supporting one another, chores and cleaning up our communication signals. Just as in Afghanistan, good and bad stuff intermingled to create an intense day for all of us.