Sylvia's Journal

I am sitting in the orange room with its Chinese brocade curtains, next to the lime green room with its thousands of instruments, which is next to the pink-walled dining room which is next to the mustard green hallway and the turquoise kitchen. Oh and we slept in green-blue room next to the pink bathroom. And we admired the pistachio baby room that is starting to get ready to receive the little tyke a few months hence.

We are at Sita and Jim’s house in Easthampton – a riot of colors, instruments and things that once were part of our households (in Senegal, in New York, in New York, in West Newbury, in Manchester and in Kabul) – a museum of eclectic living one could call it.

After taking a walk with one daughter and our two granddogs in Ravenswood park, we headed west to be with the other daughter, now 6 months pregnant. We are beginning to ease into our new role as grandparents – I already love it.

The end of the week was marked by a series of intense conversations, some that left me deflated and discouraged and other that lifted me up and gave me hope. It is amazing how radically one’s outlook can change through words strung together in conversation – head down after one and head up after the other.

These talks are all related, in one way or another, to our pre-retirement future; a still very long way forward that is entirely uncharted. This stands in sharp contrast to our lives pre-Afghanistan, when the path was rather straight.

After a yummy Japanese dinner with more sushi than was good for us, in busy downtown Northampton, we delivered the paper goods Axel acquired in Japan, cluttering our daughtes’ houses up and uncluttering ours. I also delivered the first of many knitted baby clothes.

The first grade luck ticket Axel got in Japan has done its work already. Axel and I will both be leaving for Africa next Saturday, he via Amsterdam to Abuja and I via Atlanta () to Jo’burg. Axel has been hired by my organization to help one project write its final report. At one point I had considered applying for a job there. Now Axel can check the place out for himself. We did take note of all the security notices about Nigeria – nothing new after Afghanistan, but disturbing nevertheless. Al Quaeda, in one form or another, is everywhere. Killing the boss of a network doesn’t kill the network, nor does it gets at any of the conditions that feed it.

Four days after getting back we are battling colds and I find myself feeling rather low after the high of Japan. This has something to do with the complex arrangements of accepting assignments here and there with always the chance that things emerge at dates different than planned, having to say no when a yes was desired and not being able to fully support this or that colleague. I suppose it is the life of a consultant, but luckily still one with health insurance.

Listening to the news and watching the news on TV didn’t help lift my spirits but one thing did – an interview in Commonwealth, a State of Massachusetts’ magazine, with the state’s youngest elected mayor. He is 6 months out of college, 22 years old, openly gay and filled with great ideas and earnest plans for one of the poorest and sickest towns in the state. If he is able to do what he has in mind one should be buying real estate there now.

The kid has taken advantage of program designed for poor teenagers to make them more politically savvy. It seems they worked. He found and attended these programs with a dogged perseverance and intentionality where the rest of his cohort was probably on facebook. At fifteen he already knew that if you put a group of people together that wants to change something, they can – a paraphrase of Margaret Mead’s famous quote. His interview is good leadership reading that I plan to use.

We deposited the Japanese good luck head at Tessa and Steve, went for a long walk with the dogs and were treated to Steve’s winter soup and some fancy hard cheeses, Christmas gifts. Axel still hasn’t colored in his good luck head but he is keeping his lucky penny and chance tightly in his pocket. We have good hopes. Some of his good luck rubbed off on me when I managed to get the last non-middle economy comfort seat on the 15 hour flight from Atlanta to Jo’burg. Not everyone would call that luck but I do.

Sita is back from Davos and rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. She claims to be looking really pregnant now. We can’t wait to see her next week when she has a gig in Boston.