Sylvia's Journal

This was a seesaw week – I am dizzy with feelings going this way and that way, up and down, inferno, purgatory and a little glimpse of blue sky. Dante is at the moment circling up in Purgatory speaking to souls who avoided hell but aren’t guaranteed a place in heaven – I am learning how prideful people have to purge themselves. In Inferno: Canto 21 Dante explained to me where the greedy people from Kabul Bank will go after they die, circle seven or thereabouts. It was nice to hear Dante describe what horrors away them.

Ignoring an exhortation from the Dalai Lama that Edith quoted on fb (“People inflict pain on others in their selfish pursuit of happiness and satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a sense of universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share.”) I did not have many such feelings this week. Or, if I had them, they were of a different type, more like the feelings I had towards my brother when we were young and fighting all the time, the ones that come with growls and sharp finger nails or teeth.

The weekend has arrived which means less than 24 hours before I get my weekly therapeutic and relaxation massage. This will help. But frolicking in Kabul is not in the stars I am afraid, not until more suicide bombers are put behind bars. I am asking people (those who are not in lock down) to come to my house instead.

Axel sent a lovely picture of Tessa on Lobster Cove beach while he and his pals were having their IQ lowering session – apparently a weekly event – sitting by the water and probably a fire. I ached to be there, even to be with males in the act of lowering their IQ would be OK. It can’t be as bad as being in the same place as bunches of unidentifiable suicide bombers.

And then Axel skyped me and took me on a video tour of the yard on the sea side, the flowers Tessa planted, the dogs playing and the painter who is painting our dining room. More heartache…