Sylvia's Journal

It’s that time of the year again. A frost warning is expected any time now and since Axel is going to upstate NY for a week today, this migration could not be postponed. It is a big two-person job.

This morning, after their long summer vacation in the great outdoor of Lobster Cove, our house plants woke up snug and warm inside.

We had to dig the acorns out of their roots, so cleverly hidden by the squirrels. Oh how disappointed they will be when the return later to collect them. We cut off protruding roots, wiped off the dirt, spiderwebs and worms from the bottom of their  pots. Some of our houseplants have been with us since we moved from Senegal to Brooklyn in 1981. They had become small trees. We were unforgiving yesterday when we cut them down to size, and did not, as we used to do, start new plants from the cut off branches. Our house is too small. We are now on a trajectory of shrinking rather than expanding. Off with those branches! Over the edge!

Axel is going to co-facilitate an event with a nonprofit global venture organization that is bringing in all its global partners. It sounds so exciting. I looked at their website and if I was young and open to anything, that’s the team I would join if they’d have me.

I will once again be home alone. This time I don’t think I am going to clean out more closets and cellars, but rather catching up on reading and writing.

A lot has been churning in my head from the readings of Margaret Sanger, watching the movie Snowden – and reading how other companies have been teaching leadership. I keep looking for the essence, the few basic levers that one has put out there for people to learn to press. What are they? I sense that I am engaged in the mental equivalent of the creation of a nest, hollowing out the earth, collecting twigs and grasses to create the perfect place to bring that baby forth.