Sylvia's Journal

For the first time in nearly three weeks I am going to the office in Cambridge. There are many things to take care of that can’t be done from home. Even before I leave there is much to do as the series of PT exercises for my shoulder is expanding. The physical therapist is pleased with the progress of my shoulder’s mobility and, as if a reward, added a more daring one to the mix, one that actually brings my arms over my head.

Most of yesterday I combed over hundreds of excel spreadsheet cells, inserting tiny comments here and there in a distant effort to make the plans of my teams more coherent or at least something that I can live with the coming year. I had to ask myself, do I do this because it can be better or am I looking for perfection in a place where that should not be looked for?  I am usually a believer in ‘good enough for now,’ but first I want to make sure it cannot be better.

The tricky thing is, how to convey the questions to my teams in a way that is supportive and not embarrassing, via email. I try to be sensitive but we are spanning eight and a half hours and language barriers, just to mention the most obvious ones. I am glad my Cambridge colleague and suitcase carrier, Alain, is there now to act as a bridge. We will talk later today.

I harvested another two kale plants of gigantic proportions from our garden. The total weight of frozen kale in our freezer is now about six pounds. This does not include the plant I will bring along to Cambridge tomorrow to distribute among garden-less urban dwellers (who also were happy to take the baseball bat sized zucchini and giant patty pan squash of our hands) and the one that is still standing tall in the garden; not a bad investment for the 1.99 four-pack that I put in the ground in May.

At the end of the afternoon we had invited Robin for tea or a drink. She has lived and worked for four years in Kabul and is well ensconced in an interesting network of Afghan-Americans and people who work in the same ‘industry’ as I do. She is close to one of the senior leaders I will be working with. DJ turned us on to her, his neighbor, via facebook, and so we finally got together after a first introduction by phone some weeks ago.

We discovered that she grew up in Manchester and even lived on the same street that Axel grew up on, just a decade or so later. She was a cub reporter for our very own Manchester Cricket (“only the good news!”) but by that time Axel had left town so he never read her byline as the high school football reporter.

We discovered more connections and a host of new contacts with returned Afghan Americans that she will broker for us. She also gave us some great ideas for what do to for fun on weekends; I hope to report on these in the not so far future. Now there are three families with Afghan connections in tiny Manchester-by-the-Sea, imagine that!