Sylvia's Journal

Axel woke up this morning to aches and pains all over his body; he moved with great difficulty. His recovery is by no means the steady upward trend that my trajectory has been. The pains drained his energy and ability to do the exercises he has to do, several times a day, and certainly in the morning. He took a hot bath and went back to bed and fell asleep. I am past the constant pain and it is amazing how quickly one forgets, even when I look at Axel.

I did not call him when the beautiful orange-furred fox showed up in the yard. It would have been too hard for Axel to pull himself up out of the bathtub and look. Foxes are furtive animals. It surely would have been gone by the time he would have been able to see out of the window. I followed it with my eyes, not daring to move, as it wandered around the abandoned bunny pen and then sniffed at the door of Sita’s and Jim’s place; it must have been the cat smell. But something moved under the barn and scared it away.

I went upstairs to look at my Native American animal book to understand what the presence of this fox was telling me. Foxes are superb in blending into their surroundings. As a result of that they are cunning observers and excellent scouts to spot danger. They use stealth for stalking their prey or distraction of those who are after their young. Looking out for their families is one thing that resonated with me. Except that here it is not the young ones that need looking after but rather the old(est) one. Seeing Axel suffer this morning was enough to summon Abi to his rescue with her superb massage skills.

This morning I called my brothers in Holland; one about to be discharged from the hospital after getting a small tumor out of his neck and the other dealing with the aftermath of a restructuring exercise at work that left him dangling, at the end of a long career. Luckily everything seems to be sorting itself out in ways that leaves both of them better off. After my own mishap I am more tuned in to the healing power of connection, even from a distance.

We went to see DJ who was back in his leather shop after having had open heart surgery in Boston last week. I wouldn’t have known from watching him; he acted as if nothing happened. DJ and I have now something in common: big scars down our chests. It was too cold to compare them; maybe we‘ll do that when it is warmer. Axel took pictures of DJ at work to send to Tessa to prove that he is still his old self except for the cow valve in his heart. We all agreed that this was an appropriate new body part for a guy whose life is all about leather and hides.

Last night we went to the St. Johns for an impromptu (and delicious) dinner. We watched Sita at work in the photo gallery on the WEF Workspace website. There is one picture where she is standing right behind an ayatollah-sort-of-man who is involved in a simulation about the Middle East. Sita told us she can’t wait to tell us about that session; we can’t wait either. When we are with the St. Johns we talk a lot about our children and the joys and worries of parenthood. When I first got pregnant with Sita I am not sure I really understood that this new phase we were about to enter was for life. When the girls took care of us this summer and fall we knew we had completed a good chunk of that phase successfully. Now I look back on that period and appreciate the gifts that Sita and Tessa bestowed on us during those difficult times. With the parental foxes being temporary out of circulation, the young ones took over the protector role. That part is done for now although we know that one day they will be called upon again; we are in the lucky position of already knowing that we will be in the best of hands.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is in full swing now. I watched some of the opening sessions on YouTube, trying to spot Sita but I suspect she was someplace else, busy with the planning of their Workspace sessions. She is working hard and having a great time. The theme of this year’s annual meeting is the Power of Collaborative Innovation, a topic close to my heart. The website will show the graphics and maybe even a glimpse of Sita at work.(http://www.weforum.org/en/events/AnnualMeeting2008/WorkSpace/index.htm)

The Workspace puts the theme into action in ways that warms my heart and gives me hope. Tapping into the collective ingenuity of people is what we do too little of. I sometimes think that this is like a family business for us. My trips to Africa and other places are all about that, albeit on more of a shoestring budget than this WEF affair. We are all trying to accomplish the same things. If we keep remembering that, we might trip less over each other when coming up with strategies.

Yesterday was particularly busy because I thought I was leaving in less than two weeks for Ethiopia and many things had to be compressed into small time slots between now and then. But just when I went to get my absentee ballot I was told the trip to Ethiopia is off and I can decompress a little. When a trip is cancelled it is like getting a gift of time; one whole extra week, such luxury. The next trip (outside the US) will be the end of February to Tanzania. That seems a long way off right now.

This morning I had another session with Ruth and we talked about the half year mark and what had changed. I felt on top of the world. I have my energy back, I can juggle multiple tasks again like I used to and whatever fog was in my head seems to have lifted. One by one the crash chapters are closing. One of the images that came up was a little fish dodging bigger fish snapping at it and trying to devour it. We talked about dodging death and whether I saw it simply as good luck or something else. When I was with Piet and Sietske in Holland Piet had asked me whether I thought this was something more than good luck and my answer was that good luck was too simple an answer and that I liked to think that there was something else for me to do. I thought some more about ‘dodging’ after reading about the Serena Hotel bombing in Kabul last week. Sita and I stayed in that hotel nearly two years ago. At that time we sometimes heard the large glass windows rattle when yet another rocket was fired at the US compound. But I was never afraid. In hindsight, maybe I should have been.

Axel and I went to the new Beverly Hospital breast clinic to follow up on the pea-sized lump in my right breast. First a mammogram and then, only if necessary, the ultrasound. The ultrasound was necessary, which gave me pause. It also took a long time leaving me much to much time to think as I was lying on a bed in a dimly lit room with machines humming around me. The technician finally left to see the doctor and then came back with him. It seemed they were confused by what they saw until I explained about the crash and the flattened and bruised breast. He was not quite sure what follow-up action to recommend but it seems there are more appointments with specialists in my future. This is one chapter of the crash that is only now being opened. Axel asked how I felt, after admitting he was scared. I think I am mostly annoyed because everything was going so well.

As for chapters that are closing, I have been discharged from physical therapy. I asked Julia, “Is this it? No speeches, certificates or flowers? You just take one last set of measurements and cancel all the rest of my appointments and then I am done?” It seems odd, after having been going there for four months, four times a week. I remembered how I first hobbled in on my crutches right after Labor Day. That was ages ago. But there is little that physical therapy has to offer now. The rest of my healing is going to happen by itself as long as I keep up my exercises. With the help from Abi, our massage therapist, the stiffness will gradually disappear and we can get on with our lives. I gave Julia a big hug and pulled the PT office door shut behind me for the last time. Back home I took a pencil and crossed out all the PT appointments in our desk calendar. It made me feel light and free, at least for now. Soon there will be new appointments with doctors and breast surgeons, but for now the days are clear.

I started the day handing out Ghanaian chocolate bars to the people who had contributed to our trip’s success behind the scenes. Then I put my computer in the computer hospital for observation. It seems to have gotten rid of the nasty virus by itself and I am keeping my fingers crossed. I received a ‘loaner’ and am now using this. Everything is more complicated with a loaner because I have no access to my files, remembered passwords and such. It leaves me with a set of good intentions, like New year’s resolutions, to never be so affected by computer switches again. But this has happened before and, I do know myself. this is likely to happen again.

The landing at work was more like a ‘touch and go.’ It appears that I am off to Ehtiopia in less than 2 weeks. It is one of a few countries in Africa where I have never been and therefore I am not fazed by the short turnaround. MSH has a new project in Ethiopia. It is in start up mode; a period when much about process has still to be sorted out. I like this phase because it is about setting patterns for the future. Such foundation-building work may not be very visible or satisfying but it is of great importance. If you set the patterns wrong you can end up wasting much energy, time and goodwill later.

I went to physical therapy (ankle) and Julia remarked on the progress. She took measurements of angles by bending my foot in various directions. She noted that in some movements my right foot is doing better than the left one; this is probably because of all the exercises and attention my right foot has received over the last few months. She is ready to discharge me (or rather the ankle) from further care. Tomorrow she’ll do the same for the neck and shoulders. I think the physical therapy days are coming to an end. The crash is fading away slowly and the return to normal, so longed for in August, is here, at least for me. Axel is not quite there, and neither is Joan, according to Morsi.

This morning I will see the aviation doctor to recertify my body for another two years of flying. I also have to make an appointment for my 709 checkride at Hanscom airfield, a FAA requirement for pilots who have been involved in a major accident. Given my travel schedule this may not happen anytime soon.

I woke up to a moonlit winter-wonder-landscape – it is what makes winters in New England worthwhile – before my alarm went off. Axel considers this the middle of the night but for me it is time to get up. Ever since we switched places in bed – Axel’s bad arm is now on the outside – I have enjoyed waking up in my ‘aisle’ seat next to the window. On such a morning it is especially nice. It is still very cold but I could imagine that I am in Africa in an air conditioned room. We had African food leftovers last night after all.

Yesterday I had my annual physical and for once we did not focus on the body parts that were injured in the crash. At least that is what I thought until the nurse practitioner found a pea size lump (.5 mm) in my right breast (at 1 o’clock). Now I need a mammogram and ultrasound to check this out. I was surprised about my own calmness about this new health glitch. Axel seemed a bit more concerned. I can’t help but think that it has something to do with where that breast was during the crash – flattened by the seatbelt. The right side of my body was completely purple for several weeks and my breast and the inside of my upper arm were the color of a ripe dark plum, or the tulip that is called Queen of the night – just one shade over to blue from black. I remember Dr. Kim telling me that the color would eventually go away but the lumpiness might remain. Let’s hope that that is what this is all about.

Although Monday was a day off for everyone to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, I took advantage of it to get several things off my to do list, which included a proposal for a conference in Ghana about leadership and management in Sub Sahara Africa. How could I not send in a proposal given what we just did there? My new GIMPA colleague Brian responded enthusiastically to the idea and we submitted it with everyone’s name on it. I also completed most of my reports so that I can focus on what lies ahead today.

Axel had his first EMDR session with Ruth, using the clickers. Like I, he was amazed about the speed with which stuff comes up. This first session he had to think about his safe place, as I had to do back in August. For me it was the big recliner chair in the middle of the room. For him it is being in a small rowboat in the middle of Lobster Cove, reading. So now Ruth sees us both. I think this therapy is going to be good for us as individuals and as a couple. We talked about all this while we were eating the first two of the 5 haring I brought back

We are picking up our walking habit now that walking is getting easier and easier. On Sunday I went for a 45 minute walk while Axel was watching the Patriot’s game and even included a very slow jog of 10 minutes. I am determined to go for a walk everyday if the weather cooperates. It did yesterday, a very cold but blue-sky-crystal-clear winter’s day. And so we walked to town together, chatted with some people along the way and then we walked back.

We heated up Fatou’s leftover turkey and couscous for dinner and ate it while sitting by the fire and watching Sherlock Holmes.

Tim Bowers call up in the early evening. He is the person who held my hand and kept me awake after the plane crashed and before the rescue team came. He had asked me the names of Axel and Joan and kept calling them by their name to make sure no one drifted off into unconsciousness. He and Chris Soucy, his friend who we met when we went to Gardner and who covered Axel’s head wound with his shirt, are probably responsible for us being still around. It was an emotional conversation and we promised to go out and see him and his fiancee Rhonda sometime soon. We had missed Tim when we were in Gardner. He was much traumatized by the crash and from his voice we could tell he still may be.

All through the night the temperature, projected above my bed, said 18 degrees Fahrenheit, which for me is still -8 Celsius. Getting out of bed is difficult in such temperatures.

Today is a day full of appointments again. I have come to live the last two weeks as if nothing happened six months ago but that illusion is gone now.

Yesterday morning I did, for the first time in nearly 2 weeks, my usual shower exercises and discovered that I had made great progress in the flexibility of my ankle. It must have been all this walking on uneven surfaces which is the equivalent of half an hour physical therapy I suspect.

I received an enthusiastic email from Cabul who managed to get a ticket to one of the soccer games and discovered another Bowdoin alumn, Anne. She was one of the three people I was supposed to meet in Accra, as suggested through my old Caringbridge network. Instead, Cabul met her as we could not find time before I left. He then introduced her and others to his uncle’s sports bar (Livingstone) in Accra where they watched the Patriot’s Game. When it came to sports I was not a great travel companion for him but it sounds like he got himself nicely networked into the young Ghana expat crowd.

Axel and I went to see Fatou in Lynn and got lost more than once on our way there. We finally had to buy a roadmap and, while I was searching for the quickest way to Fatou’s appartment Axel hummed the ditty “Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin, you never get out they way you get in.” We wondered about the rest of the rhyme and I found it in Wikipedia: “Ask for water, they give you a gin/ It’s the darndest city I ever been in.”

There we met Fatou’s son Cyril, now in the Air force with two of his Waring classmates, Lilly and Josh, one of the Waring teachers who had had Sita and Tessa in his class and some of Fatou’s dialysis students and colleagues (from the Philippines, from Haiti) We had not seen the Waring folks in years. They have all become travelers it seems. We heard stories about Sikkim, Chile, Kenya, Ghana and Senegal. Only Josh has settled down; as a teacher at Waring. This is something that Sita and Tessa don’t get, this going back to your old school as a teacher. May be for them it is just too dramatic.

Fatou had invited ten people and cooked for 40. She never makes just one dish and so we had and antipasto of tongue, quail eggs, anchovies and vegetables, a Senegalese Cieboudien, a turkey prepared a l’africaine (better than the American Thanksgiving turkeys she asserted) and various sorts of rice plus another set of main dishes with peppers and chicken. I think I may have left something out but I could not possible try everything. We did not finish any of the dishes and all of us were sent home with leftovers, some on the very dishes that we had finally dropped off that had been waiting for their return to Fatou since the ‘summer of African food.” So, we’ll have more African food in the next few days and, once again, dishes to return. But now we know the way to Lynn.

Axel went to see the game with friends and I used the quiet time to bring my email in box back to a manageable size and found all sorts of to-do things that had been in full view or hiding such as scopes of works for assignments over the next few months, conference proposals and trip reports. I also paid some attention to the upcoming OBTS Board elections. As the Chair of the Nominations and Elections Committee I have to present the slate of candidates to the Board very soon, and definitely before I fly to ADRA International HQ early next week in Silver Springs.

There is no place like home and there is no person like Axel; together that made for a sweet homecoming, albeit it a bit chilly with temperatures below freezing this morning. The warm Ghana weather is already a distant memory.

Axel had ordered the Household Fairy to clean and de-clutter the house and proudly showed me around. For reasons unknown the Fairy had left several of the Christmas tchotchkes in place. Maybe it is Tessa’s revenge or her way of making sure that everything is out a little earlier than Christmas Eve 2008. She might succeed because in our house tchotchkes have a way of blending in until we stop noticing them.

Axel had not thrown away the forced hyacinths in their tall glasses to show that they had really bloomed. In their post-flowering state they no longer smelled nor looked attractive. When I left on January 4 the flower buds had just become visible and so I managed to miss their flowering entirely. I had started them in early December but had made the fatal error of taking them out of their dark growing place early and disturbed the root formation. I should have known better. When I was in third grade I had left my bulb in the linnen closet for many weeks before I took it out. The stunning blue flower that emerged, I can still see and smell it, won third prize in the annual hyacinth forcing competition among the schools of our town. I grew up in the middle of the tulip growing region. Some of my classmates came from a long line of tulip farmers and for them not winning a prize was, of course, not an option. I did not have such pressure on me but rather a set of enlightened parents who encouraged the growing, not the winning. In early spring, in fifth grade, we also started our own summer vegetable garden (schooltuintjes). Each of us was given a 9×12 plot on a piece of open land (now long since covered up with houses and asphalt) and grew sprouts (tuin kers) carrots, beans and, of course, some flowers. Now, looking from a distance at those extra-curricular school activities I appreciate them so much more.

After my early arrival in Amsterdam yesterday morning I settled in for a long wait until I found an email from Sietske that she was actually not in France for a change. She came to pick me up at 9 AM at our usual pick up place which we call the elbow (elleboog); it is the place where Hall 1 and Hall 2 come together and the drop off (departure) road veers off to the left. It is a popular pick up place for arrivals but there is always room for one more car and I can wait inside. It was the first time Sietske saw me since the accident. I am not sure what she expected but the way I walked up to her clearly surprised her. We tried to ignore the awful wet (and typical Dutch) weather and had coffee with a very Dutch treat, beschuit met (oude) kaas. We spent the next 3 hours catching up. We had not seen each other since last March or May when I came back either from Kenya or Swaziland. I showed my scars and my still slightly swollen ankle to her husband Doctor Piet and we talked about the experience of ‘suffering along’ (com-passion) via Caringbridge.

Back at the airport for my departure to Boston I stocked up on cheese, haring and licorice to replenish dwindling supplies at home and called as many of my family and friends as my Dutch cell phone credit allowed. I hoped to get Sita on the phone from somewhere in Switzerland. It is a place that is full of memories of vacations from the late fifties to the mid seventies. I have not been back there since. I left a message on her cell phone. She was probably en route. I suspect that the chalet she is staying in is not as connected as she expects. After all, when people go to stay in a chalet in Switzerland it is to ski or hike, not to check their email. I cannot wait to get her insider’s view on the Davos Summit.

Today we are going to see Fatou and several old and young Waring School friends in Lynn. It will ease my transition from an all African diet to an American one because we will surely get something wonderful and African to eat today. Such meals are really odd in the middle of a cold and wintry landscape but I take Fatou’s food anytime and anyplace and it will be superior to much of the hotel food of the last two weeks

I feel like I am on one of those fast trains like the TGV in Europe. I am getting so fast from point A to B that everything outside is a blur. When there is a stop, all I can see is a whole bunch of little creatures jumping up and down on the platform outside my window. They are trying to tell me something and it is not about wishing me a good journey. Instead they are yelling, “hey, what about us?” When you go off on a trip, especially a two–week trip, all the loose ends and unfinished stuff appear in front of you, asking for attention and completion. This is on top of getting ready for the trip.

And then there are the people, the ones around you that you love and care about. They too need attention. The stress of getting everything done makes me rather self-absorbed. I have to make an effort to acknowledge the things they are doing to make my life easier, like cooking and cleaning and doing the laundry. There is a risk that this act of acknowledgment becomes yet another task, adding to the stress.

There are a few proven ways to get off this fast train, such as writing in a journal, meditation, going for a walk, or any other form of exercise or yoga. Over the years I have learned that watching TV, drinking or smoking pot are not good ways to get off the train. These activities give the illusion of a break. Staying with the train metaphor, these are more like going to the bathroom on a train; at first it is clean but as you get farther and farther it gets messier and messier.

One of the challenges of any effective form of stress relief is to avoid that the activity itself becomes yet another set of tasks or appointments. The idea is the opposite: it has to trigger the quiet reflection that stops the train, for a long time, in a field with buttercups and daisies, and cows grazing lazily in the sun.

This morning, while on the massage table at Abi’s the tears started to come freely. Stress, from all its other side effects, makes me stop paying attention to the signals from my body that all is not well. I have been worrying about Axel who has been in a lot of pain lately. He takes medication for the pain that appears to have an effect on his ability to focus. He becomes forgetful, stuff, lots of it, doesn’t get done, especially the things that he considers important, like spending some quality time with Tessa before she goes away again. Depression is a tricky state; solutions that appear simple to someone who is not depressed are unsurmountable mountains ranges for the depressed person. Often I get irritated, then angry and this morning it was clear that I am also very sad. The state he is in is not of his own choosing. And so I find myself, on the day of my departure, immersed in strong feelings and torn between paying attention to those, or get back on the fast train that is my to-do list. The conductor is whistling frantically for the train’s departure.

Yesterday was like the day before yesterday; too full. I had four long conversations with various people in Ghana, each speaking English with a different accent. When you have to listen to accented speech it takes a lot more effort and energy than when you listen to someone who speaks like you do. After that I went from appointment to appointment: shoulder doctor, physical therapy, mind doctor (EMDR). Luckily the ankle doctor canceled the appointment. I canceled another appointment, a committee meeting in the evening, so that we could have our last meal together as a family, before everyone heads out again: I off to Ghana, Tessa and Steve off to Canada on Sunday and Sita off to Davos to scribe as the rich and famous discuss the world’s troubles at the World Economic Summit in a couple of weeks. Only Axel is staying at home all the time, like an anchor.

Through my journal I have already received two threads that have or will connect me to people in Ghana. This is probably the best part of this community that has knitted itself around us and that has stuck with us, more invisible now, on the receiving end of these journal entries.

I, in turn, am tugging at the threads that connects me to people in Kenya in the hope that these pulls will do any good. I know others who read this are also connected to people in Kenya. The church burning tragedy echoes what happened 14 years ago in Rwanda. I liked to think that Kenya had passed that stage of unbridled mob violence, ethnic or not. I wish I could will those in power to stand up and use their power to unite rather than to divide. But instead I see a self-righteousness that reminds me of little boys in a sand box; unfortunately the stakes are so much higher than a bucket full of sand or an obstructed dump truck.

This is the first time I am writing my journal entry late at night. Actually, it could also be an entry written very (very) early in the morning, having missed an entry for January 3, the second day I have missed since July 21. This may be a sign of things to come. I barely had time to come up for air, on this first work day of the New Year. Now, with my exercise regime in the morning, I need one and a half hours to get ready to leave the house at 6, before the traffic starts streaming into Boston. And once at work, one thing led to another. Axel calls these self-generating tasks. They come on top of tasks that were already on today’s to-do-and-to-finish list. There was not much that could be postponed. I may be up to 90% of my old energetic self, but the pace required 150%.

Sometime during the day I realized that my email in box had quietly filled up again to 100. My colleague and office mate Jennifer asked whether email actually helped get things done. I tried to remember the pre-email days, the days of telexes and snail mail. I would simply not have tried to organize from a distance, on short notice and over the holidays, the complex event we are planning now in Ghana. We would have given ourselves 4 months to organize this, and maybe even one advance trip to set things up. Now, everything has sped up and expectations for immediate action and instant results have also risen, plus the money is tighter: do more with less and faster please. This is the tune we are dancing to. Not just me but everyone in our office. I did not get back in my car to drive home until 5:30. That made for a 10 hour workday; non-stop.

Morsi, who is also traveling to Africa, told me to take it easy; others told me the same. But how do you do that when the pace of work does not relent? Lower standards? Throw my hands in the air? Get sick again? I have yet to discover how to manage this dilemma.

One reason I worked late is to avoid having to work after coming home. When I arrived home the house was warm and welcoming, the food all prepared, a fire in the fireplace and a warm cup of tea, and the comfort of knowing that the work is done for the day. The Gorslines arrived soon after I got home with a hearty bean soup, cookies and cake. My long day ended with great and slow meal in wonderful company. What else is there to wish for?