Sylvia's Journal

I got out of the habit of writing – I am too busy and have not been spending much time in airports where such writing is a pleasant pastime. But now I am in the KLM lounge in Amsterdam, probably my last visit as the Delta lounge membership will no longer be honored by KLM as of 1/1/2019. 

I am stunned at how busy Schiphol is. I walk slowly and baffled, as if I just came from a remote rural village in a faraway land. And I wonder, maybe I am done with traveling to Africa, or close to done. The crowds are spectacular at this early morning hour. 

I am on my last trip of the year, this time to Zambia, a country I have never visited in my nearly 40 years of traveling to and from the continent. My other trips, since I left MSH have been to Chapel Hill (three times) and Japan. Not as much as I used to travel and so Axel and I got used to being in the same place, waking up together, having breakfast together, lunch even, like newlyweds. We like it, and the parting was a little more difficult this time because of our new routines.

I have been much busier than I thought these last 6 months. I teach two online MBA evening classes which requires an enormous amount of prep work as I am learning the ropes of this new venture, learning to grade, and plowing through many articles and videos. It is as if I am a student myself. I am getting exposed to a whole array of new articles and videos that are so very relevant to my other work of organizational consulting. I realized how stale I had been getting, swimming in circles in the same small pond.

I am also deepening my coaching skills by attending several webinars a week and registered in a peer-coaching program sponsored by the International Coach Federation. I am coached by one peer and coaching another. I asked my coach to help me (or us really) get some clarity about this next phase of our life which I have only halfheartedly entered. She asked what I was transitioning to and I realized I didn’t know. That was my homework for the week.

Axel and I talked about it – I am transitioning to a less frantic, calmer life, with time to look at our stuff and start carting boxes and boxes to the secondhand store. After I was laid off I said I was going to go through one kitchen cabinet a day and remove everything that we had not used in a year (never did so); then I’d tackle the books with the question “Am I ever going to read this book again?” It seemed a simple question but it was difficult – I have Dutch books I will not read again, and they can’t go to the second-hand store. But to throw them away?

We have reduced out inventory by several boxes but you wouldn’t notice it. And the kitchen cabinets are still full. I alphabetized the spices and threw some old spice jars out. I think they may be from Penny’s young bride days – but Axel says they are quaint and maybe even antique and pulled them out of the trash. At this pace it will be a long time to uncluttered our house.

Because we had the roof of the barn/studio replaced we needed a large container to dispose of the old shingles. Axel ordered oe size up form the one the roofer recommended, so we could throw things out, stuff that even the second-hand store won’t accept. It’s only half full with the roofing debris, just as I left for my trip to Zambia. It is better that I don’t know what is going in there – if I haven’t used something for a long time I probably won’t miss it. 

Christmas season has descended on us with the promise of getting more new stuff…so the major transition (in the short term) is from a lot of stuff to less stuff, in spite of Christmas. In the long run it is about staying in touch with people who matter, spending money on that rather than on more stuff.