Sylvia's Journal

Dreams of loss, not as in ‘gone’ but as in ‘looking for, missing.’ All through my dreams I was searching for Axel. I am not usually the one who is left behind, spending the first night of our separation in a plane full of people, not alone like last night, lost in the big king size bed.

I found no email or phone message indicating he arrived. Still he must have, as there was nothing in the newspaper about a Delta flight not arriving at its destination. I did find in my mailbox a message from a friend who forwarded a letter written by someone who was on the USAIR flight that landed in the Hudson. It was an ‘ode to pilots’ of sorts, grey haired pilots in particular. I agree, although it is the experience that matters, not the grey hair – the two don’t always go together, especially when it comes to piloting, as I know all too well.

Tessa and Steve returned from Ontario loaded with Canadian goodies: pipperettes (dried bison and elk sausages), two enormous summer sausages the size of small dachshunds, produced by his hunting relatives, two liters of maple syrup (the real thing), honey, cinnamon butter and more. None of these are on Axel’s weightwatcher’s list of suggested foods, but then he is not here and cannot be tempted. I promptly added to the pantry of fatty foods by making chocolate mousse for tonight, trying one helping to make sure it came out right.

Yesterday started with a phone call from my brother that his first wife had finally decided to leave this world after a long illness that kept her struggling to participate in life the way most of us do. She had come to the end and had finally given up, this time for real, rather than the many previous cries for help. I had talked with her, wishing her a happy birthday, just 10 days ago. As usual, the phone call left me sad and wondering whether things might ever change for her. She must have concluded that they would not, never. There was some relief – I think there is some primordial kind of guilt when you are happy in the vicinity of someone who can never have what you take for granted (peace of mind). But of course there is also much sadness. My nephew did after all lose his mom even though she had not been able to mother him for a long time.

Today Axel will be flying in style to Costa Rica for a 10 day vacation with our snowbird friends Anne and Chuck. How he managed to get an upgrade to business class on (a) an award ticket that was (b) arranged at the last minute, and (c) not being a frequent flyer himself is a mystery to me. Part of me wants to cry out ‘not fair,’ but of course I am also very pleased for him. For me such upgrades are rare even though I fly at least once a month on tickets that cost thousands of dollars, bought a little earlier than the night before and have at least half a million miles to my name plus gold and platinum standing on the same airline and its major partner. Axel is just a very classy man, and, more importantly, people can pronounce his last name.

Steve and Tessa and the dog are returning home later today from their brief (and surprise) family visit to Ontario. After I leave on Saturday for Ghana, they will have the house for themselves for a short week. I hope they will rake the yard and free it from all the puppy-generated debris. Now, with most of the snow gone, the sticks, dog toys and turts are revealing themselves.

I rode my bike to see the physical therapist yesterday in between an avalanche of ad hoc requests and reviews of other people’s work that advanced our common cause but not my own personal work plan for the day (which was about finishing the chapter I have been trying to write for a month now).

My usual PT was on vacation in Florida so I had a stand-in; a sweet young woman, who’s not quite done with PT school yet. She’s so careful in her touch that it felt all a bit tentative and it’s hard to gauge whether her manipulations made a difference. Much of the work consists of getting my body to do its own healing and none of that is instant. The signs of the contusion have mostly gone leaving only a deep purple spot around my elbow where gravity pooled the subcutaneous blood. The dull pain of the rotator cuff tendinitis has merged with the dull pain of whatever it is that I ripped in my upper arm.

The biggest accomplishment is that I cleared all the paper and other stuff from my two desks so I can use them again. The second biggest accomplishment is that I reached the bottom of my electronic mail box. Small victories for a long day.

I unraveled most of the sweater I had knitted over the weekend during the hours we spent in the car driving from Manchester to New Haven to see Picasso, then to Fall River to sleep, then to Wareham to see Uncle Charles, then to Mashpee to comfort Mary and finally back home. Axel looked at me with sympathy while I unraveled what was supposed to be a sleeve, thinking I would be devastated. He doesn’t understand that it is the knitting rather than the end result that matters. I don’t need another sweater but I do need to get it right. He also doesn’t understand why people like jigsaw puzzles. Same thing.

I set some other things right this morning as I dug through several inches of papers, bills, books, flyers and scribbled notes on my two desks (having two desks doubles the amount you have to dig through). If you wait long enough much paper becomes irrelevant and can be thrown out. But for some things, not paying attention will cost you, like the unpaid bills that carry stiff finance penalties.

Another thing I tried to get right was my trip to Ghana this coming Saturday. Once again I made little progress. None of the people I tried to contact and who are critical to making my trip a success (or even worth the effort) are responding to calls or emails. There are many reasons why people in Ghana may be out of reach: their yahoo mailboxes are full (government officials, even at the highest levels have yahoo rather than company mail addresses), the telephone circuit is overloaded, batteries are empty, phones are turned off, they are travelling in or through a low signal zone, or the phone is lost or stolen. Considering all this it is actually amazing that I have made contact at all in the past. I did get a hold of our lead facilitator William which comforted me. Things may turn out OK in the end.

Yesterday we had an early bird lunch with Uncle Charles in a place that caters to the after church crowd and families taking their elderly relatives out for lunch, just like us. Charles lives on his own and when asked who keeps his house clean he answers, with a twinkle in his eye, “a nice feller by the name of Charlie Wilson.” That would be him. We arrived at his trailer park home while he was in his tiny dressing room, wrestling with his buttons. Several of his fingers don’t work that well, nor does one of his eyes (“it worked just fine before the doctor operated on it,” he claims). He needed some help with the zipper of his sweater but other than that he is doing fine. He voluntarily handed in his driver’s license when he was 95, recognizing that he should not be on the road anymore. Since then is driven places by a man (a young feller, in his fifties) named Bill who has gone a bit sour lately it appears, taking some of the fun out of these drives.

Charles’ long term memory is impeccable. We mentioned a picture of his family, with him being the baby in his mother’s arms. “That would be 1909,” he said without missing a beat. He is correct about the date. The handsome red-haired Scottish dad, standing in the back, skipped out not long after the photo was taken and was never heard of again, leaving Axel’s grand-mama to fend for herself with 6 kids under 10.

I could have stayed for hours in that dining room just observing people and making up stories. There was the very obese couple, who, to our astonishment, ordered (and then lived through)a meal full of fatty foods. And there was the family with teenage kids taking grandma out for a treat. That the teenagers wanted to be somewhere else was written on their scornful faces. It was clearly dad’s mom as he was constantly fussing over the tiny, bent over and fragile creature in the wheelchair. His wife, in her triple role as wife, daughter in law and mother, was seated what I presumed to be the bane of her current existence: the pouting teenagers and her demanding mother-in-law. She tried, I could tell. Ahh, families!

Family is also what propped up Mary and her daughter-in-law at the funeral home; family and friends. A few of us from MSH showed up and gave her hugs for comfort, wondering how can one possibly comfort someone who have lost their son (or husband) just at a time when life should be getting easier, not harder. “Oh how I wished he could hear what people are saying about him,” sighed Mary and I was reminded of the film ‘What a wonderful life. ‘ Axel and I have been in the unusual, and very fortunate position, to have heard what people might have said if we had perished in the crash. We lived to hear all those wonderful words and testimonies; we believe it is what healed us so quickly. Mary’s son never did.

The vivid dreams have slipped away because I did not go straight to my keyboard. I can’t even remember the feelings that accompanied them; nothing’s left. The act of cooking breakfast broke the tender threads that hang between sleeping and waking.

We had our breakfast by the window watching the bright red cardinal and the shimmering metallic blue starlings eating their breakfast under the tree. We listened to Jorma Kaukonen – from Jefferson Airplane fame – being interviewed on NPR talking about going back to his roots and playing guitar for us. Now that I am struggling with chords on the ukulele I have a new appreciation for what it takes to play as fluid as he does. I went to his website and read some pages from his diary, started on January 2009. It is one of the best things about living now, that you can peek into someone’s life just like that. He may be rich and famous but he comments on the weather and his travel, enjoys the company of his kids, friends and co-workers and misses his dead parents just like me.

Yesterday was cold and crisp and we ventured out only once, late afternoon, for a long walk when being home all day (and mostly sitting in front of computers) had gotten to us. I spent most of the morning trying to sort out whether I would or would not be going to Ghana next weekend. I had just arrived at the conclusion that I should cancel the trip when my colleagues got me on the phone and talked me out of that decision. So I guess I am going after all. My dream would be, one day to know three weeks ahead that I am going someplace and have visa, passport and ticket in hand. In my memory that happened more often in the past. Maybe our ultrafast communications have made last minute decision making possible in ways it was never before with all the positive and negative consequences. I remember in the early nineties that we had to set up a phone conversation about 6 weeks ahead of time (via letter or telex) with a peace corps volunteer who had to travel 100 kilometers to the nearest phone, somewhere deep in Guinea Conakry. This seems like ancient history now.

Today we are going south on an outing, visiting several places that are close to small airports. The thought occurred to me that this would have been a perfect occasion to go by air: blue skies, no wind, short hops by air (versus hours on the road by car) and several airports that I am familiar with. In fact, our hotel tonight is just down one of the runways of New Bedford Municipal Airport. Alas, this is not in the stars, and won’t be for awhile. Most importantly because Axel has not flown with me yet and we are not quite sure whether we are ready for this (or consulted our daughters). The other reason is that currently I don‘t own a plane share, and thus would have to rent a plane at 100 dollars an hour (excluding fuel) which would make the trip more costly than buying commercial airline tickets and rent cars or maybe even fly to London for the weekend.

Our first stop this afternoon will be the Picasso exhibit at Yale; then to New Bedford where we will spend the night. Tomorrow we will see uncle Charles, now in his 100th year. Axel called him last night to find out if he is available, worrying that calling at 8:30 PM might be too late. Nothing was closer to the truth. He stays up past midnight. “What do you do that keeps you up so late?,” asked Axel. Apparently he cleans his small trailer, repairs stuff that is broken, putters around in the small space, stuff like that. He did not even mention watching TV.

After lunch with Charles we will drive to a funeral home on the Cape to be with my grief stricken friend and colleague Mary who lost her son last week. She is the third person to be hit by such a tragedy in less than 2 months.

My day was full of interruptions throwing my plan to write all day out of the window. First there was the gasman who came to deliver gas to Steve’s and Tessa’s place where the heat did not work. Despite a full tank he could not get it going. Luckily Axel did. Not having heat in something that is more like a camp in this weather is a serious matter.

Then there was physical therapy where my huge upperarm bruise created quite a stir and required the expert opinion of the chief PT. She declared I was lucky. I had not ripped a tendon (such a thing would have required a surgical intervention) but rather some fibers on the belly of the muscle. This explains why I can use my right arm but not lift anything heavy. She did suggest I see a doctor (which I did, another interruption), apply ice and keep my upper arm up (try it while you are standing or sitting). At the doctor’s office Gail, one of the nurse practitioners, had seen these kinds of bruises before and counseled patience and heat. I like the heat more so I follow her advice.

Two (planned) meetings-by-phone cut the day further into pieces and then it was five o’clock, officially ending my workday and just in time for the arrival of Nuha. We were ready to celebrate her 27th birthday. She came up by train from Boston and got to experience one last gasp of winter before she heads back to her desert home in May. Dressed in my red coat, like a cardinal, and with my camera she took off in the new (wet and heavy) snow to explore Lobster Cove in winter. “In Saudi Arabia,” she said breathlessly, when she returned, “we would call this snow like a girl who has not been married.” “Yes,” I replied, “that would be virgin snow. We use the same word.” Unmarried snow – I like it.

Nuha brought me a present and I had a gift for her. We are easy gifting objects because we both love scarves and so that is what we gave each other. Three scarves from Ethiopia for Nuha and one from Saudi Arabia for me plus a small vial of musk oil (promptly and expertly administered by Nuha behind my ears and on my wrists) and prayer beads that were selected to match the color of my eyes.

Axel had cooked a Surinam dish that had simmered all day in the slow cooker and required the making of roti, Indian bread we only knew from restaurants or ready-baked in the store. They came out alright but did smoke up the house so we had the windows open. This caused the candles on the birthday cake to go out on its way from the kitchen to the table, a chain reaction of unimportant events.

The cake with its pound of butter was yummy as long as you forgot about the butter; which Axel did but then regretted later as his stomach protested for hours afterwards.

I drove Nuha home to Cambridge with the remnants of the cake to feed to her brothers and friends. During our 45 minutes ride I learned much about how girls in Saudi Arabia find love, or at least a good match – quite a challenge, especially when you are a free spirit like Nuha. On my way back I listened to Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren who was telling us what we as taxpayers got for our 700 billion handout to the banks and companies like AIG: not much. The abuse she and her co panelists uncovered is maddening especially in light of the strict regulations we at MSH are held to when it comes to using public monies. If I don’t have a receipt for something that cost as little as 25 dollars I don’t get reimbursed. I wonder whether I should continue to believe in the basic goodness of people.

The last activity of the day was translating for Axel the last 3 weeks of Peter ‘s Zeur kalender captions. Some of these are impossible to convey in English, like the retro-curse ‘dekselse kwajongen!’ or ‘Flikker nou maar weer eens op!’ If anyone who reads this can help me, please! The many internet Dutch-English translators were stumped.

My major accomplishment yesterday was the removal of about 250 emails from my in-box. One could argue that, from a systems perspective, this is no accomplishment at all because many were simply transferred to other people in in-boxes, and thus only ‘shifted the burden.’ My other, minor, accomplishment was that Liz and I have stuck so far to our ‘next steps’ timeline for Ethiopia and pushed things along as planned (which is fast and against some odds).

Where I made no progress is on the travel calendar front. My counterparts do not, or cannot, plan this far ahead for reasons I do not know– two weeks for Ghana, five weeks for Afghanistan (or Ethiopia but no longer Zambia). I am all set to go to Ghana but the most critical person for the success of this trip has not responded to either plan A, plan B (or plan C which says ‘cancel.’). I know he has an iPhone but I know little about the strength of signals wherever he is. Signals from Afghanistan have been equally absent. One of the things I have learned over the years is to never make assumptions about reasons why I am not getting any responses and so I wait, with (e)ticket in hand and passport somewhere between Washington and Boston. There are still two weeks between now and my next scheduled departure.

I never left my house yesterday and spent too long sitting in front of computers, despite the granddog’s attempts to get me out. Today I will get out. Not just out but also up. My flying buddy Bill has planned a practice run north into NH, then west and then back to Beverly. The practice concerns landings, four of them, with full stops and maybe one go around, in Skyhaven, Concord, Jaffrey and our home base Beverly. Our timing appears to be perfect as the sky is blue and the temperature springlike.