Sylvia's Journal

How to keep a balance between vacation and managing one’s affairs is more than a challenge this ‘vacation.’ Managing our affairs includes a wedding in less than 3 months, and, more urgently, our return trip to Kabul. There is a computer crisis at the Afghan embassy in Washington and, this may not be unconnected, no one answers the phone anymore. The problem is that they have our passports. This is a source of stress.

Weddings are notorious sources of stress, even when it is meant to be a low key one. Luckily Tessa is on top of things and we got a few of the wedding to do list organized: a clambake/Essex River boat ride for the immediate family and two tickets to Barcelona for a well deserved R&R for the newlyweds.

Roger called us in the morning, in between toot and shoulder doctor appointments, that there was a moral imperative to go out on his boat, so beautiful was the weather, finally. We joined him only after the teeth were looked at (OK for me, not OK for Axel, requiring another appointment, yuch), the shoulder was checked (as good as it can be and will probably ever be) and an appointment with the virus doctor from MSH to stop the flow of 100s of error messages that seem to be able to slip through my (clearly defective) anti-virus software. After several checks they still slip through and won’t be fixed until I am back in Kabul.

But then we had a bout of vacation – in breakneck speed up the small zigzaggy creeks through the Ipswich wetlands, upstream only to be able to float silently back downstream. We went hunting for edible grasses (Glaswort (sp?) and something else that looked that the ancestral wheat that got us into farming and eventually into modernity).

When going out into Ipswich and Essex wetlands timing is everything. If you miscalculate you need to stay in the marshes until the outgoing tide comes in again to lift your boat. This happened last fall to Axel and our friends when they pulled up their anchor too late. It was nice in hindsight, but not great when you have other appointments in your book.

We returned to dry land in time and had another lovely dinner with our best friends in Essex, collectively cooking a wonderful meal in the big St. John’s kitchen. The marsh greens we had collected earlier made it into an asparagus dish (the lemony one) and a green bean dish (the salty grains), enhancing both dishes.

Back home the stresses of the immediate future pressed forward again, as if they had lain in wait to catch us upon our return. It included packing for my trip to Albuquerque, monitoring the cost of all possible routes for Axel’s return trip (but no purchase because of the missing passports).

When morning came around I was able to squeeze in another Acupuncture session with Bill. He aligned my kidney-heart axis, a powerful one for people who have to be on (that would indeed be me as I have a conference presentation tomorrow that I have given little attention so far); he also doctored with my temperature using needles which left me cold and then hot. And finally he paid special attention to my arthritic knee that has been bothering me in the middle of the night. It was a long whole body experience that left me calm first and then tense again when I realized we had to rush to the airport to get me on the plan to New Mexico. I am half way there now.