Sylvia's Journal

Two things entirely associated with winter entered our lives yesterday, just when the trees have started to blossom in Boston (not in Manchester yet, we are after all a full commute north of Boston).

The first warm thing, which entered gradually, is the 100% lamb’s wool sweater that I knitted from 4 skeins of the 16 that Alison gave me – a treasure she found while cleaning up her parental home. The sweater is much too warm now for the day time temperatures we have; but at the extreme ends of the day it is a welcome extra layer. The pattern comes from a Dutch woman’s magazine (‘Margriet’) that I have kept since November 1981. It is full of handicraft ideas and patterns for women of leisure or those whose babies are napping. Belonging to neither category, I managed to complete the sweater in a fairly short time by simply carrying my knitting along into the various waiting rooms I have been frequenting lately.

The second warm thing is the stove which finally arrived; a late delivery of an August 2008 order (we ordered it during the tax holiday). If the living room had not been partially demolished to accommodate it we might even have forgotten about it.

It is our new green stove that will allow us to burn the enormous amount of wood from the dismantled Norwegian maple and do it even when the wind is blowing – something we were never able to do with the old stove and badly constructed chimney. We will also be able to leave it on when we go to bed because it has doors. With the old stove we had to lug glowing embers through the house and throw them out in the snow and then kill the fire by spraying water over it. This was so messy, annoying and risky that it would sometimes keep us from having a fire at all.

Last night we had a family outing that was the direct result of Sita’s continuously scanning of what’s interesting out there. She discovered that Howard Gardner, The Harvard professor who came up with the idea of multiple intelligences, was speaking at a Montessori school in Boston on the Five Minds of the Future. We all jumped on the opportunity to see a great mind from close up. We converged from our respective workplaces East and South Boston and from North and West of Boston at a restaurant on Boylston Street and from there made our way to the school.

Sita scribed and recorded the presentation, Axel mindmapped, Steve and Tessa were sitting in the back to dash out just before their parking meter would run out and I just sat back and enjoyed the lecture that was like a rich meal put out in front of us, richer than the overpriced pizzas we had eaten around the corner.

Utterly at ease with his topic and deeply knowledgeable about his field (of cognitive psychology) he spoke, very low key, to an audience of mostly women. He laid out the new mental landscape of the global and digital age that our kids and theirs will have to navigate and what the implications are for education. We learned that the mind of the future is not one but five: a disciplined mind, a synthesizing mind, a creative mind, a respectful mind and an ethical mind. It’s a good thing our minds can grow more of themselves.

Afterwards there was a book singing and Sita lined up for a signature before heading out all the way back to western Massachusetts. I verified that I can get the book on my Kindle and I don’t need the signature so Axel and I left her in the line and drove home.

‘Ah, can you see the Popeye bulge?’ said the physician assistant, after she asked me to make a fist and curl my lower arms up. The diagnosis of a bicep tear was swift and did not even require a doctor (I did get to see him for a minute or so). A Google search showed that it’s a well known phenomenon and not something rare like my ankle. I suppose this is a good thing. People who use bicep curl machines or weights too much have this problem, or snow/skate boarders who have a bad fall, I learn. There’s even a Wikipedia definition of the famous sailorman’s condition. It has nothing to do with spinach.

I ended up spending the entire morning at the gigantic orthopedic-industrial complex. The machines need to be paid for so I had an X-ray – need it or not, this is part of standard operating procedures if you don’t bring one in yourself. For the long overdue MRI that was ordered I need to go to the basement some other time. That way the time spent waiting is spread out a bit more over the week.

The MRI will indicate the direction, shape and size of the tear which will inform the doctor whether it will heal itself or needs a surgical intervention. In either case it is now unlikely that I will be able to row anytime soon, or even this season. I had hoped to be on the water sometime in May. Now I think not.

When I was done at the orthopedic complex (which is located on Orthopedics Drive!), the day was so far advanced that I decided that it was hardly worth it to drive into Cambridge. I returned home and did the rest of my scheduled meetings by phone, interspersed with playing Frisbee with Chicha and cheering on Axel, who was upstairs, doing our taxes.  

This is the name of the USAID procurement that appeared in my dream, not just once but over and over. It was a procurement that combined population and environment; and old combination I remember from the early days of my career, when I was working in UNESCO’s population education program in Dakar. It was a euphemism for family planning, two words we weren’t allowed to utter because of their highly sensitive association with population control (by white folks).

Population education had the same intent, by raising awareness about the relationship between population and environment in a part of the world where the balance was rather fragile. These were the days when the west pointed at environmental degradation in developing countries, especially Africa, and unbridled population growth as the main culprit. There were a few voices that told of the role of the industrialized countries but they were not very popular and rather weak.

Much has changed now, especially in Senegal. When I returned, 10 years after our 1981 departure, signs on public busses exhorted the population to plan their families. When you are in the middle of things 10 years seem like a long time but on a cosmic scale it is nothing of course. Politics (and necessity) can change opinions very quickly.

I hope it was a predictive dream. In August 2010 my employed contract will run out and unless there is another procurement that seeks better leadership of health programs, there is no guarantee for further employment. I have gone through this anxiety now five times, every five years but each time a new procurement (and us winning it) extended my security for another 5 years. It will be interesting to see if and how Hillary will affect my professional, and by extension, my family life.

Yesterday, after the ultrasound, the physical therapist treated my upper arm with low electrical currents that felt like a tiny animal running back and forth over my arm. It’s a mystery to me how all these treatments work. I do understand that they bring blood and therefore nutrition to the damaged cells but the mechanics of that escape me. The healing from the contusion and possible tear is excruciatingly slow. Waking up in the morning feels like a setback of more than a year as everything hurts when I get up and I can barely use my right (and dominant) arm. The hot shower loosens things up a bit and I spent more than the usual time there.

This morning I will see the shoulder doctor again at the enormous orthopedic practice that the local orthopedic competition refers to as the evil empire. I will bring my knitting and my Kindle and settle in for a long wait – if seeing the shoulder doctor there is anything like my previous experience with the ankle doctor from the same empire. This is the blond young doctor who I no longer see due to his hurriedness and my lack of confidence in his diagnostic abilities.

While the main message in our mostly silent Quaker Meeting appeared to be about seeing something to its logical, even if painful conclusion – a reference to Jesus walking willingly to his death – my personal stream of thoughts took me elsewhere. Instead of this ‘standing up for’ I was trying to wrestle my busy mind to the ground and ended up concluding that ‘surrender’ was better. By then the hour was over.

I dashed out for the very chilly and windy bike ride home. Sometimes the pull of others can feel like the pull of a magnet. So it was yesterday. Everyone except Jim was at home to celebrate with us the combination of Easter and our wedding anniversary.

I found everyone busy preparing the brunch: Sita hopped on her newly acquired bike and came back from the shop with real (as opposed to headache) champagne, Axel and Steve made the very rich asparagus quiche and Tessa the upside down apple (pan)cake. I, the only one having done my religious duties, was allowed to sit on the couch and knit. Towards the end of our meal our neighbor Kurt wandered by, one week too early for our (Greek) Easter party and ended up hitting the breeze with us talking about anything and everything, as he is wont to do; nothing left without an opinion attached. It is very entertaining.

After our meal Axel took a read/nap – he tends to combine the two and fools me as I can never tell whether he is reading or sleeping. Sita gave the rest of us drawing lessons – starting at about Kindergarten level. I am not sure we came out of it with much increased confidence nor skill but it certainly was entertaining.

We all went for a walk on Singing Beach – two more weeks before it will be closed to dogs – to let Chicha get rid of her pent up energy amidst countless other dogs. When she was unable to retrieve her (third) non-floating Frisbee out of the water we tried to direct another dog to get it but he too was unable to see below the waves. Finally Steve went into the freezing ocean just when a wave rolled the Frisbee right into Chicha’s mouth.

After our walk Sita and I played ukulele duets, with me rather hesitantly following Sita’s lead. I had not practiced much over the last few months and forgotten the five essential chords.

Axel and I had planned to work in the garden over the weekend, plant potatoes, rake, and weed, but nothing came of it as the weather was either too wet or too cold. But my daily trip to the new asparagus bed – checking for signs of life – was finally rewarded. One small tip is visible now. To celebrate we had asparagus flown in from California for dinner.

Today is Easter and our 29th wedding anniversary. The picture is of our first one, in Dakar. Easter has always played a special role in our life as couple – most of the dramatic events in my life have happened around this time of year. They were almost all about new beginnings except for one, my mother’s passing, now exactly 10 years ago.

Easter (sprint time) is also when I started writing a diary, now 32 years ago; by hand and in spiral bound notebooks for the next 30 years and electronically ever since. So this is also a journal anniversary.

Instead of flying I accompanied Axel and Sita on a tour of the murals in Gloucester’s public buildings. These were painted with funds from the stimulus package, especially earmarked for artists, the Works Progress Administration, that was one of the more remarkable (and courageous) legacies of the Roosevelt administration, issued during the Great Depression in 1935. The docent, an artist herself, took us to the Sawyer Free Library and the Town Hall. She was a passionate interpreter of both the artistry and the history of this unheard of (before and since) government patronage of the arts. As it turned out, Gloucester is one of the premier places to see and learn more about the murals and the WPA history. I put the photos on my Flickr site. They show how, both at the library and the town hall, art is entirely integrated in daily life.

After the lecture we spent some time browsing in the bookshop of the Cape Ann Historical Museum which had organized the lecture tour. Sita bought a bunch of children’s books. One brought on a gasp of recognition (Leroy Lobster and Crabby Crab), a treasured story from her childhood.

The book we all liked was a biography of Virginia Lee Burton, founder of the Folly Cove Designers a group that produced the most extraordinary linocuts. The group ran out of steam and membership when the last member died in the 60s. There is (was?) a small shop that is nicely described and photographed by a Cape Ann blogger.

We were so inspired by the tour and the books that Axel and I wanted to go home and do art. Sita might have joined us if it wasn’t for her commitment to participate in a protest march at the Commons in Boston. I made two tiny signs for her, one saying that she was for and the other that she was against. We teased her about the protest because we did not quite understand what it was for or against. I think it had something to do with capitalist banking. When Sita got to the Commons there was no one there. Apparently the protesters did not want to get wet.

Instead of art, Axel took a nap and I continued my knitting project until it was time to go to Ipswich and celebrate Carol’s 60th birthday. And while we were away Sita, Tessa and friends decorated the Easter eggs.

It’s dreary and drizzly outside and the sky is too low for flying out of Beverly even though New Hampshire and Vermont are clear. Instead I will go with Axel on a guided tour of the Gloucester Town Hall murals this morning. Indoors sounds like a good idea.

Jim has left us to play in California with some friends so we are no longer complete. Sita is using the time to catch up with bills that accumulated during her one month absence, following all her twitters as they stream in and combining them into new ideas and new connections. Steve and Tessa went to work in Boston and Chicha approached anyone entering or leaving the house with a ball or a Frisbee on the off chance they would be picked up and thrown (and then repeat); we sometimes did.

All of us had a low energy day yesterday, that is those of us working at/from home; we appear to be stricken by something in the air – maybe the hesitant start of spring – and suffering from headaches and allergic reactions. In addition my day was interrupted by a long visit to the dentist to replace a crumbling crown. He used laser and caulking guns with bright purple and pink goo without explaining much so I kept wondering, guessing about their use, while not being in a position to ask most of the time.

I asked him to use extra strong adhesive for the temporary crown since I will be in Afghanistan and Ethiopia before the new crown is put in. I’d rather not have to deal with dentists in those places. He did, and assured me that there was no need to worry even if the whole thing came loose because there was nothing alive under the crown anyways. The whole operation cost a little over one thousand dollars. I hope that the dental insurance premium that is deducted from my paycheck every two weeks will prove its value now and pay at least a good chunk of this.

In the evening we had a wonderful dinner with friends who live on the Ipswich marshes. We arrived at dusk and went outside to enjoy the last of daylight; coming out from under long nights, this is the biggest treat at this time of the year: breakfast and dinner in daylight.

Between all of us we live in the most beautiful places in Essex County: some on the ocean (we), others in the woods (the St. Johns) and our hosts Roger and Sook on the edge of the marshes. We admired the view and the garden that is already full of seed potatoes. The wide open and undulating landscape, with its photogenic clusters of trees here and there, tapering off in the distance to ocean and islands called for water coloring. I hope to do that there one day when the mosquitoes are asleep.

I got to relive my Cambodia experience with Roger who knows a thing or two about Cambodia. I realized how badly I would like to go back there, not in the least to see how the team that I created in January has evolved into a confident bunch of Khmer leadership developers.

Axel wrote me an email late in the morning that set all our minds to rest: “My condition seems not to be a major issue. Nothing dramatic in my sleep-deprived EEG. [the doctor] said it was combo of altitude (8,885 feet altitude not recommended for people with head injuries) and head congestion (which I had from the minute I landed in USofA). Am taking a full dose of Benadryl. Off to sleep a bit. Sita has just rolled in. Her presentation to [a potential new client] was a hit. Everyone’s in international development now, except me. I’m in bed!”

Yesterday was a day devoted to exploring edges. These places are not edges in the world that people like Sita and many of her friends inhabit although I suppose that even their edges are other people’s boring old stuff. But in my world they are edges. When I started to get into facebook this was already old school for most of my younger colleagues but an edge for me. When the director of HR of your company wants to be your friend on facebook you know it is time to look for a new edge.

So I got to twitter and am now riding on the coat tails of Sita’s twitter list. I got a better understanding of what twittering is all about and realize that instead of seeing all these new ways of communicating as bothersome (and hazardous) intrusions on one’s life, not to mention the potential time sink they represent, they are the building blocks of (new) life – without them things are likely to be variations on old themes.

By following tweets and twitters (I am still learning the language) you become hopeful that somewhere someone has already discovered a solution to problems that, in the settled territory far from the edges, are considered intractable or even unsolvable. The settled territory is informed by old media. These are full of doom and gloom. In contrast, life on the edge, and the media that report on them, is full of new and exciting growth; such a perfect antidote for my depressed state earlier this week.

Other people’s ideas create new ideas. With our neurons programmed to look for connections, these ideas will combine with others and create new stuff. It is inevitable and it has always been that way, just a lot faster now. How all this meshes with the more traditional ways of doing business is a source of tension and friction for me.

In my world of work there is much clamoring for ‘thinking out of the box’ and ‘innovation’ but the work habits don’t allow for that. You can’t come up with totally new ideas if they aren’t allowed to simmer without cooks looking into the pot every second. And whatever fragile new ideas arrive they are soon squashed when you have to fit them into predetermined cells on Excel spreadsheets or dress them up in rational explanations of how the idea will work and what metrics you will use to prove that it will fulfill the company’s mission.

Last night I accompanied Sita to an emergent new network, the first meeting of the Boston chapter of VizThink, a global community dedicated to the use of visualization in all forms of learning and communication. About fourteen of us got together, a broad range of professionals, in the swanky and artsy 18th floor cafeteria of a company that claims to unleash the full possibilities of a digital age. The company does not appear to be in dire straits and, at the end of the work day, serves beer to its employees (the ones who don’t have to relieve babysitters I suppose) in the company pub.

We talked about what we do and how we use visuals. I learned about the process by which art is created: hunch, immerse, simmer, click and verify. These words were presented on a Gantt chart, with ‘simmer’ having the longest bar. There is no corresponding language in my line of work – the closest would be ‘plan, do, act and measure’ – the two realms are worlds apart except in those businesses that want to be at the edge; where even accountants are taught to listen to hunches, let people explore and let ideas simmer before expecting a click.

Since we are reporting directly to the US government, I don’t think we’ll have any simmering right now – it is after all workplanning season.

The fog cleared yesterday just about when I drove by the Shell station on route 1 at about 6:20 AM. I knew it because I felt the familiar surge of energy that I am used to experience as I drive to work but which had been missing the last few days. It’s the kind of surge that comes from, or produces (not sure what is cause and what is effect) ideas about the first things I will do when I get to work. Not having it for two days in a row threw me off.

I had lunch with my colleague Diane who had noticed my disengagement yesterday from my body language. It is nice when someone actually tells you that and a reminder of how transparent we are and how not self-aware of our impact on others when not in a good place.

Lunch was for both of us good for the soul. At work we are in the middle of work planning, Diane more than I am. It is a process that is designed and led by our accountants who rarely (some never) travel to the places we work. It is a model of efficiency, fine-tuned over the years, but also a process that is both soul wrenching and mind numbing as an organizational activity, centered on, what else, Excel spreadsheets.

I am spared the worst of it because I travel all the time and I don’t manage any projects. But others do and they are grounded for the duration of the process; many suffer, most no longer complain or do it in private, having given up any illusion that it can be altered to be more creative, more engaging of heart and soul.

As a professional observer of organizational processes and a student of the psychology of individuals who work in organizations, the experience is more than a little instructive. Most instructive is how otherwise intelligent and empowered, assertive individuals (this includes me) go along with an annual ritual that does the opposite of what it preaches; most of what comes out of it is more of what went on before.

What is supposed to be a time of heightened creativity and connection to our clients and counterparts in developing countries is a series of scripted encounters, driven by a tight time schedule, which in its turn is driven by the US government budgeting cycle that has taken on a life of its own. It is essentially unchallenged and unchanged because of its solid organizational rationale (our client wants it). I know I can’t argue with that so I don’t. But I don’t think it is a coincidence that some of us experience our strongest creative urges precisely during this period each year.

Back home we had another noisy dinner with all six of us around the table. Sita is staying with us because she has business in Boston. She’s working, in her VP role, on a proposal about how to help businesses develop sustainable solutions to the world’s most intractable social problems in health, the environment and other areas of concern – her playing field is the entire world but she’s playing in a different league than I am. Today she is meeting a client; last night she practiced her pitch and her slides on me. Our work terrains, who could have predicted that, are converging.

After dinner we sent Axel to bed while the rest of us went to Singing Beach to play Frisbee with Chicha. Axel’s early bedtime was ordered because he has a stress EEG this morning – stress meaning no sleep after midnight. So just when we all went to bed he had to get up and stay up until my alarm went off, a little earlier than usual, at 4 AM this morning. We had to be at the hospital at 5:15 AM for this test. Our family doctor has ordered it to rule out possible other diagnoses for the recent occurrence of vertigo. After the test we drove into Boston together, me to work and Axel to see the head injury specialist again at Spaulding Rehab. We are holding our breath.

The low grade depression in my mind continued through yesterday’s workday and only lifted when I got home and found Sita back from her month-long trip overseas, still bubbling over with energy to connect people to one another. Her focus is very good medicine for people who feel out of sorts because it draws attention to the millions of small (and some not so small) uplifting and exciting acts of social entrepreneurship and innovation that proceed without the benefit (or should I say ‘drag’) of ‘organization.’ And I mean here organization in the bureaucratic sense: the sometimes suffocating web of procedures and rules that appear to serve primarily the interests of accountants who want to pass audits with flying colors.

We had a wonderful old-time noisy dinner with both girls and their mates around one of Axel’s preferred weightwatchers’ meals: surprise meatloaf without all the fat gunk (gross looking stuff that leaked into the bottom of the broiler pan) gone and an angel food/strawberry concoction that lost its weightwatcher stamp of approval after I poured whipped cream over it.

Dinner conversation consisted primarily of gossip about high school teachers and students, triggered by an alumni newsletter. Such conversations are never much fun for Steve, who got up and did the dishes. And then we discussed Tessa’s new elected official position (picking up stray cattle) and how we could make her do some real work.

We also reviewed what really happened at the town meeting last night. As it turned out I had romanticized it a bit in my depressed state. There was none of the after-meeting drinking and mulling over what (really) happened – it was past midnight and nothing is open that late. According to Axel everyone slinked out, tired and many disappointed. Robert’s Rules of Order continue to Reign – by their very rigidity and obscure language keeping many from asking the questions they would have asked under a more user-friendly set of rules. I remember once at a conference seeing a session advertised called ‘Roberta’s Rules of order,’ and I am sorry I did not attend it. There must be a better way.

I went to bed at 8 PM – not feeling well at all, as if the mental depression had sunk down into my body with everything aching, my heart racing and alternating hot and cold flashes as is if there was no tomorrow. Axel gave me a good massage and that was enough to send me off into a bottomless and dreamless sleep.

The weather inside my head was just as depressed as it was outside my windows. It was as if I saw everything through a foggy lens. While the (outside) day set up for rain until it came down in sheets – clogging up our drains and driveway – the inside day unfolded as a low energy day from the start. Being in such a state is probably good for my ability to empathize with others. It is remarkable how quickly one can forget what life is like for someone without the usual dose of energy and optimism that I am usually blessed with.

All day I had this nagging feeling that what I was doing was not good (enough), not relevant and I was fooling myself if I really believed that I contributed to something more important than the glory of myself and my employer (in spite of the rhetoric that claimed otherwise). I was plagued once more by the disturbing thought that I am just a small cog in the wheels of a vast and competitive ‘development complex’ that needs to show at every step and turn that it is saving the world like no other. That there is actually harm done gets little press: for those who play the game well there are many benefits to be had that are handed out and consumed in semi-obscurity. At the same time, as a (very small) player in the game, I felt squeezed to the limits, being nickel-and-dimed to death about my travel arrangement, giving-giving and sucked dry, being met at every turn with the most irritating words ‘sorry, those are the rules.’ A sense of futility and self-pity mingled to make it hard to give my full attention to the selection of Ethiopian management consulting firms that want a piece of our work in their country.

The best antidotes in nature grow close to the poison, I was once told. And so the antidote for yesterday’s blues were found right in my family and town. It was the annual spring town meeting and Axel, as chair of the Community Preservation Committee had worked tirelessly with his people, for weeks, on getting a motion passed that would increase our town’s surcharge to the town’s preservation fund. He had built a good case but the difficult economic times undercut even his most compelling arguments.

I forgot all about my blues as I listened – while knitting – to both the scripted and non scripted parts of the town meeting. There is much more scripted than I realized – as much of the decision making has already happened by the time the townspeople are gathered to vote. Robert’s Rules of Order Reign – a process, I suppose, that allows 200 people to make decisions, but only on the surface. This is not meant to be a conversation. The conversations start months earlier and continue until the final minutes before the start of the meeting. I observed and listened and got a lot of knitting done.

Tessa was elected to Field Driver, an archaic position held, along with that of Poundkeeper, Fence Viewer, Counter of Bark and Mulch and others by today’s townspeople to honor our past but with no discernible task. I held that position once and so entered the archives of my town as my name was printed on the list of town officials in the 2006 annual report. I am rather proud of my family: one chairman, one ex-Field driver, one current Field Driver and Sita the VP of a group that has set out to change the world, one connection at a time.

I had to leave the meeting long before it was over because of the dictates of my sleeping hours. As I left the school gym with most of its chairs still occupied I was for a brief moment jealous of the people whose center of attention had been for month this one local event: just making sure the town was run well and its citizens taken care of. It stood in such sharp contrast with me minding the entire world. It suddenly had a glamour that my worldliness could not compete with. I was only a bystander in this drama, even though I had a voting card (and used it).

Axel went out with his co-campaigners and friends for a drink afterwards – his local community – to mull over what went well, what not, and start strategizing anew for the next opportunity to make their case. He did not get home until long after midnight. And I went home to bed and felt much better after this refocus on the local.