Sylvia's Journal

The end of my vacation is beginning to appear on the horizon. With that also comes the vague outline of a trip to Africa. The malaria pills have been purchased and a trip shopping list is taped to my computer.

But before that happens I have a few more days to enjoy living in this most beautiful place. It was another glorious day today, for flying, gardening, reading and doing nothing.  The last two evenings, before the sun went down, we took the boats out, Axel in his kayak and I in the Alden shell, to enjoy the end of the day. On Tuesday we went to Singing Beach, today to Manchester harbor.  It’s a short outing, not too strenuous but good exercise for Axel’s arm and getting our strength back, without it feeling like ‘have-to’ exercise.

Last night we had a cookout on the beach, the first of this summer, a bit late. By the time Joe joined us it was dark and the mosquitoes gone, the fresh tuna grilled and the (home grown) potato salad ready with cold ratatouille, one of our favorite summer dishes, hot or cold.

Both of us had therapies today. Axel made another visit to the vestibular therapist at MGH, a short therapy that uses up the entire morning because of the time it takes to get there (by train).  He is learning much about how the brain coordinates what comes in from the senses and when it can learn and when it cannot. The experience lends itself to countless organizational metaphors. He is making progress and I expect the therapies will all be ended in the next few months, after which he and his brain are on their own.

My (physical) therapy may have been the last for some time, as I am waiting for the doctor’s opinion about what is going on in the sacroiliac region. The therapist told me I am mechanically OK, everything is aligned as it should be. The problem remains with tendons and muscles, all the ones in my neck and upper back are still full of knots and tight as elastic bands.  May be it is time for a weekly massage again. The problem is that no one reimburses that and it gets a bit costly at $80 an hour.

So far I have managed to stay away from my computer to check emails. I know there will be a price to pay for this later but this is the first vacation in a long time that I have completely unhooked from work. It is working! I am as stress free as one can get.

Tomorrow we are going to visit Sita in her new home in Haydenville near Northampton where she used to live. I would have liked to fly there but no one in our family is ready for me to fly with Axel in the co-pilot seat. So, instead of a 40 minute flight, it will be a 3-hour drive each way, which will take up a sizeable part of the day. It is good that we like each other’s company so much.

On the way home in the plane I read Axel some more from Tolle’s latest book. I could see from his furrowed brow that he was trying to figure out how to get enlightened as per Tolle’s prescription. Since it does not include any action verb (as in ‘doing’), Axel was racking his brain how the heck to do that, when the word ‘do’ was itself out of bounds. Finally he threw his hands up in exasperation and said, “What does he want me to do, just be a rainbow?” Clearly, Axel is not even close to being enlightened. He agreed on that. I am not either but because some of the things he talks about do resonate with me, according to the book, I am on my way. I do get the thing about being present in the present.

In Atlanta Axel had his pinky nail painted in hot pink by Ingrid’s cousin Amanda from Seattle, along with other guys who fell for her charms. She lifted everyone’s spirits, as one would expect from a stand up comedienne. Axel kept his pink pinky until we got on the plane, back to the ordinary world where no one is enlightened and would understand this guy with a beard and a pink pinky who wants to be a rainbow.

We drove into Cambridge after we landed in Boston to pick up a pair of Red Sox tickets for a game this Saturday from Phil and Joellen who could not use them. The last time I saw Joellen was when she treated me to a birthday lunch, hours before my nightmare commute home that lasted 10 hours on that fateful blizzard day in the middle of December. Phil just finished his latest book, Yankee Go Home, which is being edited before being released to the world of potential publishers. It is about anti American sentiments which he explored during his many travels around the world. It should be good. We stayed for a bit to catch up and then headed home, driving only a few miles ahead of Joe who had just flown in from San Diego to continue his consulting assignment with MSH. It is the same work we started in June, helping one of MSH’s Centers get centered, with as desired outcome a clear identity and a three year work plan.

Dinner was, once more, a mostly homegrown affair after which Joe went off to bed and we settled in front of the TV to see the start of the National Democratic Convention. I lasted for about 15 minutes. I could not stand the inane talk that was delivered as commentary before and after each speech. There is something about campaign rhetoric that I am allergic to. After my live experience of the stamping and clapping and sign waving at Deval Patrick’s primary victory celebration I got enough for a lifetime. As a psychologist I watch the mass hysteria with professional interest, but as a US citizen I find it scary. The whole event is slightly more bearable when I listen without watching; I did listen to Ted Kennedy and to what I hope will be the next first lady and the spontaneous comments from her two girls.  I was not touched by any of it, the use of words and references, quotes, and probably color of ties and dresses are too scripted for me, even though I appreciate excellent speakers. I imagine that everything is finely tuned and calibrated to win over the millions of fence sitters in this country. I hope they were watching more intently than I was and that this will influence their vote in November.

It was a ten plus summer day, no wind with clear blue skies that made me regret I had not planned to fly to the Vineyard as conditions were ideal for my first long cross country solo since last July. May be tomorrow.

Axel went to Boston for his speech therapy and was picked up by cousin Nancy on his return to go food shopping for the Magnuson reunion on Saturday that we will mostly miss because of the funeral in Atlanta. Our daughters will represent us for the full afternoon.

Coated with sweat and dirt from project number three I washed everything off with a swim in the cove, followed by a bike ride to the physical therapist who concluded that all is not well with my sacroiliac joints, a compression and an inflammation which may explain the pains I have each time I get up from a seated position. “It feels boggy down there,” she said and recommended ice packs and another set of exercises. The long walks in Maine are also coming to haunt me and by the end of the day I walked like an invalid.

Tessa returned back from an interview for an internship with an organization that sometimes competes and sometimes collaborates with MSH and was offered a paying internship on the spot with a title that will look nice on her still very barebones resume. She was very excited and will start to work right away on her first assignment: putting a photo database in order for graphic designers to use. I am very proud of her and know they made a good decision to hire her. Unfortunately I cannot follow what she will be doing because of the sometimes competitive nature of our two organizations.

Steve and Tessa’s friend Roy (who, together with Steve, made the mini ramp into my sick room last July) arrived with girl friend Rose for dinner. They are in the area because of a wedding. This was the occasion for Tessa to cash in her share of the spa gift certificates that Ellie gave the three of us last summer. I would have accompanied her to get my nails done too if I hadn’t sliced my finger on a clam a few days ago. My trip to the nail spa will have to wait until the fingertip has healed and when I too have an occasion for painted nails. Maybe I will do that with Sita who also still has her gift certificate. After dinner we talked a reluctant Tessa into modeling her top two choices for the wedding event and helped her make up her mind: brown dress and matching shoes. Axel and I (as parents do) thought she looked stunning.

I am gently sliding into my vacation. Getting up late, taking my sweet time to get ready for work, a late start to my daily blog entry. I am in this in between state: not quite off from work and not quite on vacation. It is a very sweet period full of promises and prospects. Because the vacation has not started yet, it can also not be used up yet. I want time to stop for awhile tonight. Once the vacation starts it will be over before I know it as there is so much already programmed: a few days with the St. Johns in Small Point in Maine, the funeral trip to Atlanta and a bunch of things to do in the house.

I spent a good part of yesterday removing items from my to-do list and making space in my brain to think through the design of an online course for new leadership facilitators, to test their knowledge and understanding. It wasn’t even on my to-do list but it is something I have wanted to do for a long time. I know I am doing something I like to do when the time flies by without me noticing. It’s called flow, a term coined by Csikzentmihalyi (the psychology of optimal experience) – I think I was in that place for a good part of the day yesterday.

In the evening we went to Ellie who had invited us for a lobster dinner and to show us her magnificent garden in full summer bloom. This is why we had to arrive before it got dark. We did and walked around the 2 acre grounds, fighting off mosquitoes while admiring the Olmsted-esque views.  Although we believe Ellie has some of his genius, as it turned out her small cottage is part of a subdivision of what was once a large estate that was landscaped, indeed, by Olmsted. You can tell from the large trees and the interesting vistas that he had been there.

The lobster, fresh corn and salad we shared with Ellie’s real estate friends and former colleagues who had plenty of stories about local people and their homes, a professional world that is so very different from mine. In between courses we discovered common ground in Small Point and once again that, despite these different spheres we move around in, the world is a small world (or shall I say a small point) after all.

The abundant butter and white wine produced a restless night full of weird dreams. They had some significance upon waking but soon dissolved into thin air with only a few meaningless frames remaining by the time breakfast was served. The lack of exercise yesterday, for both of us, made us wake up stiff and staggering – Axel with back spasms and me with my unabated whiplashed neck. Both of us are wondering whether any of this will ever improve.

I slept in this morning, all the way till 7:30. I am not yet on vacation but decided to work from home till the end of the week when my vacation starts. This requires a very short commute, less than a minute to get down the stairs.  Getting up at 7:30 gives thus gives me plenty of time to wash, eat and write.

I dreamed about technology and teaching. I suspect this was brought on by my conversations with Aman who runs a blog about health, technology and development. I have asked whether I can become a guest blogger and his first response was positive. This was actually on my to-do list for close to a year and Kristen, who put it there, kept sending me these occasional emails asking where I was with that. So I finally bit the bullet and since then Aman and I have been talking by email about how, what and why. I have added the blog to my blog roll so you can check it out. I will be writing about leadership and management in international health and why it is important, my life’s work, so to speak, so the writing should be easy. It is not going to be daily however, as I would have to get up at 4 AM if I were to add another activity to my morning routine.

Yesterday in the office many people were checking off their pre-vacation checklist and frantically meeting and calling to get everything in order before takeoff. When I did not appear on anyone’s checklist anymore I went for a slow row on the Charles River. The weather was perfect and there was only one obnoxious motor boat making waves. I like to row during the middle of the day; I have the boat house to myself, I have a wide choice of boats, and there is little, if any traffic on the river.

The commute home was a killer commute again, 45 minutes to get onto route 1, a distance of less than 5 miles. I though everyone was one vacation and the schools are closed, who are these people? By the time I pulled up to our house I was practically slumped over my steering wheel. Axel came to my rescue, as he is always very solicitous of me in such a state and pointed triumphantly at how far along he was with the meal which included another Mamadou salad, a grilled steak and the final leftovers of the leftover meal.

We went to bed early but not until I had finished Jill Taylor’s stroke book with its message of hope that centered on giving one’s right brain some face time and shutting up the left brain storyteller once in awhile. She makes it sound so easy. I wonder if you have to have had a stroke before you know how to do this. I also abandoned myself to some internet surfing, following the threads about PowerPoint’s 20^th anniversary that stirred the parts of my brain that like to be creative and have fun. If that sounds like a paradox I recommend you check out what David Byrne has done with the software.

The last two mornings it was cold enough that the heater in our house jumped into action and I needed to  blast warm air into my car. This means we are halfway through the summer and have begun the fast slide down towards fall. It is a little depressing as we haven’t even had our usually August heat waves yet. There is much else that we typically do in a (normal) summer that has not happened yet either, like a cookout on the beach, putting out the lobster traps and much more swimming and kayaking.

Yesterday at work consisted of nonstop meetings as everyone is clearing the decks to head out on vacation. This includes me. Part of the deck clearing was preparation for a trip to the Ivory Coast in September that was finally approved. With that I will have hit three official (according to the US government) danger spots in 6 months. I had not realized that the Ivory Coast is still in some state of turbulence (guns on the street as Malcolm told me) because it rarely makes the news here, being part of the French ecosystem and thus not likely to be on our Anglophone screens.

Tessa visited MSH to explore possibilities for an internship with the communications department which would be wise to take advantage of her energy, graphic and organizational skills. Maybe they will. She is looking for ways to learn about her new profession in the workplace before she goes back to school in January, assuming she gets accepted at MassArt or any of the other places she is applying to.

She was home early and had dinner on the table before I returned; for someone who takes her meals at 5:00 AM and at noon this is a rare treat. Everything was familiar from previous days; she had reheated all the leftovers she could find in the refrigerator. It’s the kind of meal I like with small portions of many different things that don’t match but look sort of nice on your plate, like an edible modern art quilt.

After a postprandial walk with Axel, puppy and kids around the loop in the beautiful early evening light, I peeled off leaving them to complete the larger loop without me while I finished my sewing project. Being in a hurry (when you get up as early as I do the evenings are very short) I managed to cut in the wrong places (measure twice cut once) which required additional remedial work. But now all is well again and I am pleased with the result. Axel had a private showing and approved the new outfit, wondering when I plan to wear it; someplace overseas, I responded, and at weddings or other happy dress up events.

And then we started to think, seriously, about going to Linda’s funeral in Atlanta as emails from other relatives came in with their travel plans. Going to Atlanta means missing the family reunion, an old tradition that petered out after the previous generation had mostly disappeared.  Axel had worked hard to bring it back to life in a new format and had invested much psychic energy in the event. We sat for a long time in front of the Delta website with our itinerary on the screen, hesitant to hit the ‘purchase’ button. We agonized about our choice, go or stay, and called in all the forces of the universe to help us decide, including native American medicine cards and Axel’s co-organizer of the reunion. In the end we decided that it was more likely that we would be at the reunion wanting to be at the funeral than being at the funeral wanting to be at the reunion. And so we pressed ‘submit’ and now have two tickets for a trip to Atlanta 10 days from now.

It has been raining for more than 48 hours and everything is damp. The edges of the paper in my office are curling up like they used to do in the hivernage in Senegal. And so, once again I wake up to the drip-drip of rain. I am glad I am not camping someplace in a tent. I have done that already, camping in the rain for an entire week. The rain drags me down.

I went to bed last night in a tender mode because of the acts of three people, one who wrote about her recovery from a stroke, one who was giving his last lecture and has died since, and one who apologized for something that did not need an apology – all the while with Linda’s spirit and her family hovering in the background. Together they twisted into a sort of braid that represented what we are and what we need – sacks of fluid and energy, vibrating in the cosmos with everything else around us, chasing something that can only be obtained at considerable cost, and reach it only with the help of others. So there!  It takes accidents and mishaps to find out who’s there for us. It also takes pauses that we cannot impose on ourselves to quiet, for a time, this chatterbox brain full of ‘should’s and ‘ought to’s and move into a slow place where we can observe the world that is otherwise racing by us, bombarding us with energies that we cannot possible pay attention to, even though we try.

Axel was in this place a little longer than I was in the immediate post crash days.  I do remember when the world shriveled up to contain just me and my side of the hospital room and hold the visitors and caregivers, while I was kept in a chemically induced state of bliss. Within days I took this small world as a negative, a restraining situation that needed to be altered. The state of bliss had been fleeting even though I held onto the chemicals for a few more weeks (I remember wondering what the big deal about oxycontin was until I stopped taking it but it never was about bliss, just dulling the pain).

Now my world is as vast as the entire globe again. I am connected to events and places as much as I want to be. I am buzzing with energy and to-do-lists to which to apply my energy but the connective tissue with people is stretched and thin. The three voices from last night were a reminder that some things deserve priority. I long for my vacation that will start next week. In my mind I am already sitting outside overlooking the ocean in Maine with my water color set in front of me and a pile of books next to me and spending countless hours walking and talking with dear friends and each other.