Sylvia's Journal

I woke up with yet another variation of the cold that I brough to Afghanistan, where it took on local characteristics, and then brought back to Manchester-by-the-Sea. It is a cold that drains me and makes my eyes red. It also leaves a trail of crumpled tissues. I miss the abundant Kleenex boxes that were always replenished by some invisible hand in the MSH guesthouse and office in Kabul.

I also woke up from a dream that had threads of Afghanistan woven throughout. Something about going alone to a dangerous place, where I was taken under false pretenses; once there I had to fend for myself. There were people to advise me and pointed me in directions that required following dark passages and stumbling over sleeping children. Somewhere along my stumblings through the dark I found my friend Suzy who was there with a group of law students. They were looking for opportunities to do good work.

I had earlier visited her sister and we had had a ceremony with a bunch of people. I had given them a picture of a few women in Burqa holding hands with small children. I remember pointing out that the picture answered the question why we were there. I remember saying “lillah” which would mean ‘for God’ in Arabic – fancy that, dreaming in Arabic! But one of the women in the group pasted her own picture over the one I had given. I tried to be light-hearted about it, making some off-hand comment but it fell on deaf ears. Lucikly her photo only partially stuck and dangled at an angle, revealing some of photo underneath. I continued my stumble in that dangerous place until a weird sound (my alarm) brought me back to this world.

It is always hard to get back into the going-to-work routine after a trip, getting up when it is still dark. But seeing my friends and colleagues again makes it all worthwhile. It was nice to see everyone at the office. I received big hugs from people who know I am in my third life. I have experienced, now twice, what most people would consider the scariest things that could happen to anyone. Actually, only my body knows exactly, my mind only parts of it. I can see them thinking, what was it like (with the accent on like)!

I spent the morning training with colleagues from other organizations, for a virtual conference that we will be facilitating and that takes place next week. I like such online trainings and events because you can multi-task while being on the phone and online. Right in the middle of the conference call I won an Alden Ocean shell on E-bay which I am going to pick up next weekend on Cape Cod. Imagine that, rowing out off the Cove when the sea is like a mirror. I cannot wait!

On my way home I went to see my Senegalese friend Fatou who is recovering from surgery in Salem hospital. I found her starved for food as she refused the hospital meals. It was funny that it was me this time to feed Fatou, who, during the summer and fall, has fed us and a cast of thousands the most amazing meals. The best I could do for her was a McD’s meal, a far cry from her elaborate African spreads, but it was exactly what she wanted.

Back home I did not last long. I picked at the leftover hambone from our Easter event and went to bed with a book at 8:00 to fall asleep around 8:30 while Axel was slugging away at his computer to get our taxes done on time. He filed 20 minutes before the deadline. I always give him a hard time and he always delivers in the end, making it a much closer call than I am comfortable with. But still, he delivered and we will get a refund. A high-five for Axel and now on with our lives.

It is wonderful to be home again. Spring is around the corner, not like in DC or Holland where everything is in full bloom, not like Kabul where bushes and trees already have small leaves. As Axel wrote me, the grass is thinking ‘green’ and the trees are thinking ‘buds’ and there is that special smell in the air.

The day was on and off rainy, with in between warm weather that made people wear flipflops. I bicycled into town to join Axel at the annual chowder competition. About 8 area restaurants compete for the ‘best chowder’ title, with an extra category for chile. Axel and I have a different taste: I go for creamy and he goes for fishy.

It was a joyful community event, with all ages trying out the various chowders and chitchatting with each other, debating which chowder to vote for. The contrast with Kabul-under-siege was huge. Coming back from that place I realize how lucky we are to be able to have such community events together, in peace. I don’t think many of the people in this small town realize what we have and how precious it is.

In the afternoon I sorted out my travel stuff, completed various reports and got ready for my next two weeks of virtual facilitation while scanning what else is on my plate. Not too far on the horizon is my trip to Ethiopia. I want to take Axel along for a Holland break on the way in and out; that too requires some planning that cannot be postponed.

The evening was reserved for a quiet 28th anniversary celebration with Axel cooking fish over the fire in the fireplace, and a love note with lobster earrings. Halfway through the meal I gave up keeping my eyes open and went off to bed. It was another night full of Fellini-esque dreams. I woke up several times during the night and scribbled the most vivid scenes on small post-it notes next to my bed.

When I read the notes in the morning they made little sense. There was something about a roll-on suitcase with a wad of wool twisted around one of the wheels so the roll-on didn’t roll on anymore. Also a large gathering of people speaking Romance languages, but, as I wrote, “you don’t need to talk the language to communicate, you can make it up.” And finally something about a long train ride, during which we got blankets. When the train split in the south we were allowed to keep the blankets because of a court case.

There is more, nonsensical phrases; some I cannot decipher or understand. I wonder if some of it has to do with the book The Sewing Circles of Herat that I started reading in Kabul; it is a book that is full of stories about the brutality that men have inflicted on their fellow men (and women and children) and that has ravaged Afghanistan for decades. It makes for uncomfortable reading and even more uncomfortable sleeping. It is about a world that is light years away from peaceful and pictoresque Manchester by the Sea.

When I arrived at Logan yesterday Axel and I were like two magnets. The pull even made my suitcase show up early. A brief interference from American officialdom temporarily nulled the attraction. I was welcomed by an officer with a speech defect who fired harsh staccato questions at me like a machine gun: Why were you in Afghanistan? Where is your contractor badge? His red pencil circle around the word Afghanistan on my customs declaration guaranteed another interrogation at customs: Who are you, why were you in Afghanistan, what is your business, where is it, give me the exact address ( I can never remember the street number), show me your business card (sorry, none left). This was followed by a cursory sniffing of my Dutch cheese and chocolate Easter eggs. But once I passed that last hurdle there was no stopping us getting back together. When we finally made contact we stuck together as powerful magnets do, for a long time, inseparable. This was a different kind of homecoming.

A clean house and Sita awaited me; then a bath and a deep sleep until it was time for Abi’s massage in the late afternoon. By 9 PM I was asleep again. I slept fitfully, waking up every few hours but eventually made it all the way till 7 AM, which put me right back on Massaachusetts time.

Not surprisingly the night was full of dreams. At some point in the middle of the night I scribbled my dream on a Post-It Note. I am trying to decipher it now. It was about deeply veined colorful marble slaps that looked like water-colored maps of the Indian Subcontinent. I was with a bunch of women, navigating the veins in the stone like rivers. Someone’s mother was to join us later but then I found Axel and peeled off. There was something about roles and not being with the military; a farewell party with rows of tall glasses full of mint leaves, waiting to be filled with boiling sugar water for syruppy mint tea. I am not sure whether this was one dream or many. Later there was something about mentoring two people for a presentation and being so involved in their success that I forgot to print my own speaking notes. It had something to do with native people from the Pacific Ocean, their architecture and leadership that produced results we wanted to show the audience. When it was my turn to speak I faltered, not having my notes. I was chided for not knowing the highlights of my presentation. I wanted to say to the people, wait, I am not usually unprepared like this, and I know the highlights, but I knew it was useless.

When I woke up it was April the 12th, our wedding anniversary (1980). We had no gifts, no roses or anything like that. The happiness of being in each others’ company and safely back home was the biggest gift we had for each other. We had breakfast in bed and caught up with all the news and things that happened during our separation; and then we planned tomorrow’s annual spring celebration, which we have never skipped since 1985. It is about hope, new beginnings and new possibilities. Now in my third life, we have more survival miracles to celebrate than some people get to do in a lilfetime.

I am leaving today for Amsterdam first and then onwards to Kabul. I am leaving with a sore throat, itching in my ears and throat and a painful cough. I also leave with pain in my heart about a long-awaited meeting at work yesterday that went off the tracks and generated so many strong feelings that I still don’t quite know what to do with them all, especially the ones I am not supposed to have (I know there is no such thing, but the neocortex is busy sending messages to my consciousness that are hard to ignore). My dreams revealed some other aspects of the inner turbulence with scenes of ‘not being able to reach’ and seeing myself through someone else’s eyes, covered in shit. Not a pretty picture. I vaguely remember scenes of mountains and a small child stepping outside the lines. Going on a trip right now seems the right kind of distraction, sore throat and all. If only I could take Axel along.

It is safer to write about Axel who had his 6 months check up with the spine doctor. Axel got the latest MRI of his back explained and commented on it as ‘a mess.’ His L4 vertebra, injured in an earlier (car) crash some 20 years ago was damaged once again in the plane crash leaving things rather unaligned and with pressure on nerves that explain the frequent pains. Exercising will help, especially those that strengthen his core muscles that help him sit and stand upright. This is not easy because his spine wasn’t straight to begin with. The exercises are, of course, for life. Today he will see another new specialist, the hand doctor, to sort out the painful muscles and swelling of his left hand. This may all seem like bad news but Axel was in very good spirits when I came home and treated me like a sick child with much love and tenderness.

We watched the second part of Bush’s War, if that is the title, on PBS and I saw magnified a thousandfold the organizational dynamics that are part and parcel of the experience of working with others, including those we experienced yesterday at work. Except in this case the consequences were beyond description in terms of damage, devastation, money and death. If I wasn’t already a Quaker I would become one after seeing this series. Most striking is the senselessness of it all when you realize that there are many bruised egos behind big decisions, not simply greed as some assume; egos that express themselves in language like “I’ll [expletive] show him” (or her, now that we have Condi on the scene). The story is about hubris and not being held accountable for one’s actions, simply because of position. Once again I could not see the documentary till the end but we all know how the story continues on the surface. My hunch is that underneath the surface it is more of the same as well. And now it is time to pack.

I woke up twice last night from the noise I was making grinding my teeth. I dreamt about the virtual leadership course I am teaching this week, about doctors and nurses and power and hierarchy and the things that distract or attract them. It is funny how in dreams feelings and concepts are ground into one and then make a sound that wakes you up.

At a subconscious level I may also have been grinding my teeth over the stupendous alpha male behavior in the early Bush (jr.) years that landed us in the war mess we are in now. We watched a documentary last night about Bush’s war. I couldn’t help thinking about the people who lost husbands, wives and children in this war and the feelings opened up an abyss of despondency. Along the edges of this abyss are jealousy, competition, self-centeredness, shame and a whole host of feelings and states of mind that I recognize at any distance. It is the stuff that life is made up off; it is the stuff that is often referred to as ‘touchy feely’ or ‘warm fuzzies’ in my line of work. Yet the consequences of ignoring these drivers of human behavior are far from warm and fuzzy. One of our Quaker Friends, Nancy, who faithfully stands vigil for Peace on the Boston Common each year on Good Friday, told us in Meeting about two Vietnam veterans who hackled them, shouting slurs and shooting imaginary bullets at the small peaceful group. The two disheveled, homeless and drunk men had lost something irreplaceable in that war; each day, in Iraq, we are producing a few more of them. Not heroes, not patriots but shells of people coming back, trying to integrate into a society that does not understand them anymore. Frequent articles in the Globe talk about failed re-integration of returning soldiers into their families, leaving everyone diminished and drained.

We are also feeling a little diminished here, but of a different kind. Our large nuclear family of the Easter weekend has shriveled up to half its size. Sita left for Dallas and the London Ontario contingent, including puppy, left in the morning for the long drive west. Everyone has arrived safely. Tomorrow I am heading out east, first to Holland and then Afghanistan, leaving Jim and Axel to fend for themselves.