Sylvia's Journal

Like so many baby boomers we are looking at our stuff – the ‘too much’ part of our stuff. We are getting advice from Millennials who are riding the boom, so to speak and selling us methods and books and movies as we transition to what may well be the last phase of our lives.

There is Marie Kondo who tells us how to ‘tidy up’ Japanese style (the folding of clothes into little tents is particularly remarkable). There is Peter Walsh from Australia whose approach gets to the root – his book is called ‘Letting Go.’ It’s the one that speaks most to us. Letting go of treasures (how many treasures do we need?), of stuff we might some time need (but when, didn’t we say this 10 years ago?) of mementos of a long time ago…oh there is so much of that.

And so we are throwing things out, boxes full of written papers we were once so proud of (look what I wrote!), or things I made in Kindergarten, of entrance exams I wrote for the UN, more than 3 decades ago, of my entire administrative correspondence with UNESCO headquarters in late 1979. Out, out!

There is also a staging area in what used to be my office – piles of stuff to go to the thrift store, to the Afghan family in Gloucester, to our daughters.  We are learning from Mr. Walsh not to make a pile of stuff that someone else might like. This would be the equivalent of kicking the clutter can down the street. We help each other by saying – why do you think they’d want this? Aren’t they decluttering too? The hard things are those that express something about what we had wanted to be, aspired to, but didn’t quite get – the letting go is to let go of that image of ourselves. But once you di let go it is so very liberating.

I am now fully moved into Axel’s office. This afternoon we laid the rugs on the floor, over some kind of bubble wrap between reflective paper – it kind of pops, ever so softly, when you walk over it. It is for warmth as the studio has no foundation – just cold air below the floor. The rugs are clean now, we hope, after we hung them out in subzero temperatures for a few days, vacuumed them, sprayed them with pyrethrum to get rid of the carpet beetles that had nestled into the rolled up rugs when we were not looking. The would have eaten the entire rug if I hadn’t moved into my new office and upended the piles of stuff.

The last few days we passed in Den Haag (or rather Scheveningen – the ultimate pronunciation test for non-native speakers) at my sister’s, also in a new house. Here we had our sibling New Year’s lunch, the main reason for the visit.

We ate typical winter fare (pea soup with something like pancetta on dark rye bread) while reminiscing about our youth and our parents, long since gone. It is amazing how different our experiences are and how different our knowledge is. My sister, the oldest, was born during the war (and passed her first winter in what is called the ‘hunger-winter’).  Things were so bad that people even ate the tulip bulbs. I tried to eat one as a teenager, out of curiosity, but dismissed tulip bulbs as inedible (confirming the Dutch proverb that ‘hunger makes raw beans taste sweet’).  

My Irish twin brother and I were raised in a different era, one of great economic growth (the 50s) and my youngest brother, when the rest of us had left for university , has been raised nearly as single child by his parents and grandmother who had moved in – even though he was number 5 of 5.  A pencil drawing of the brother I never knew (who would have been 2/6) hung on the wall. He lived for just a few weeks because of spina bifida, his death an enormous sadness that my parents rarely talked about. 

We looked at old letters and pictures and made new pictures of these 5 aging siblings – it was a joyous occasion! My sister gave me 65 single-spaced carbon copies of letters my father typed on various typewriters during his 3 months trip through Africa. The copies were sent to my mother with handwritten personal notes on the back. The originals are probably still in some archive of the Dutch Brewery Trade Association over which my father presided in the early fifties until he retired.

I am only a third into the letters which provide a window into trade negotiations of European powers in French Africa before countries became independent. Over a period of 3 months he traveled from Amsterdam to Stuttgart to Zurich to Lisbon to Dakar. He stayed in the hotel (the Croix du Sud) where both of us passed our first night in Subsahara Africa, me 25 years later. He then traveled to Conakry where we probably also stayed in the same hotel, then to Abidjan, then via Accra (then called the Gold Coast) to Lome where we also stayed in the same hotel, multiple times upgraded and renamed by the time I got there.

He made all these trips in small DC3 planes which he welcomed because of the air conditioning (I do as well), and mentioning the endless delays between planned and actual departures (maybe not as bad now). He also referred to Air France as a state within a state.  From Lomé he went to Cotonou in what was then Dahomey, then on to The Cameroons as it was referred to at the time. From there to Fort Lamy (?) and then onwards to the Congo, Nairobi, Madagascar…but I haven’t gotten that far in the letters.

I am learning a lot about the complexity of trading with Africa, beer drinking habits of both my father, the locals and the colonial elite (“the French elites don’t drink beer, they drink champagne”), the relationships between blacks and whites and the attitudes of the Europeans towards the locals. Some of my father’s comments make me cringe. My father also writes a lot about the climate, which is of course familiar to me but his comments are interesting given that my father had never been in the (sub)tropics and left Holland in the middle of the winter, now exactly 64 years ago.

People in Holland asked me how the government shutdown is hurting us. Compared to people who work for the TSA and others who have to work without pay if they don’t want to risk losing their jobs, we cannot complain. But now my first income producing activity of 2019 is also in jeopardy as my trip to Senegal cannot take place until approved by government officials who are currently not at their desks. I had another three days of income attached to this trip by an organization that is also in Dakar (but doesn’t need any US government approvals for internal corporate work). But since they are not paying for the travel, that activity is by extension also in jeopardy. 

The flight to Holland was uneventful. But then, as we were walking towards the baggage claim area I discovered that I had dropped my iPhone someplace, probably on the plane. Two hours later, thanks to some concerted efforts by various employees of Delta, KLM and Schiphol I had it back (it was under my seat). After a nice breakfast at the airport, we continued our journey. The first leg was by train to pick up a car in Den Haag, courtesy of another brother. Then, after a cup of coffee and an ‘oliebal,’ (a traditional new year’s eve food, kind of like fried dough but rounder and with raisins), we drove to Amersfoort (in ‘the green heart of Holland’), where my youngest brother and his wife live.  The car is tiny; the wheels no larger than those of our wheelbarrow, with just enough space for our two small bags – but one cannot look a gift horse in the mouth: a car is a car, saving us a pricy rental or cumbersome public transport with suitcases and much walking.

Last year the siblings came together with their spouses to celebrate each other and the new year. We are all still here, all 10 of us (5+5) – with Axel and me being number 7 and 8 out of the 10. I am very aware that this is not something to be taken for granted.  Last year I was still employed and without enough vacation days to make the trip – we joined the dinner via Facetime but it was less than satisfactory.  This year there is another meal planned, on January 6. I guess it now has become a tradition. Not having to count vacation days anymore, and having enough frequent for the two of us to fly for 90 dollars (taxes) there was no reason to stay away from the event.  And so we are in Holland now, till January 8.  

The joyful holiday season, which tend to dread, passed quite pleasantly this year. It was, as it is supposed to be, rather joyful. It was also chaotic, with the 6 of us adults, two grandchildren and three grand-dogs in our not so large living space. The space shrinks when you add a Christmas tree, however small.

I would prefer to have the Christmas tree outside, but Axel insists it is inside. At the start of December, he always says something like: “this year I will get the Christmas tree early.” I don’t encourage this so I don’t do any reminding. He gets busy with other things, until Christmas is nearly there and only small and scraggly Christmas trees remain, the Charlie Brown kind. I like it. Additional benefit of late buying: there is always a discount this late in the game.

I trim the tree (because he is still busy). As soon as Christmas is over I remove the ornaments and return the boxes to the (unplugged) freezer chest that holds the Christmas stuff. And the space opens up again. I can handle a short week of Christmas clutter and cramped ness.

We left for Easthampton on Christmas Eve to witness the waking up on Christmas Day kids’ experience (joyful and frantic).  Later on Christmas morning we drove back to Manchester where Tessa and Steve joined us bringing a complete Mediterranean Christmas meal, nearly fully prepared. This is a Christmas gift I wouldn’t mind getting every year. Tessa also brought home made gifts, including a perfect gingerbread house that would make Martha Stewart jealous (and I would have killed for as a kid). It had stained glass windows made from melted hard candy, an indoor carpet made from red and green M&Ms, a fence from red striped white Hershey kisses, roof tiles made from white chocolate pastilles and frosted snow in even little florets along the roof line and window sills. Her home-made white chocolate body butter and olive oil presents were equally perfect. Tessa goes for ‘prefect,’ unlike her mother who has adopted a ‘good enough for now (or for the occasion)’ attitude long ago.

The gingerbread house got demolished the day after Christmas, as if a bomb had gone off inside it. It provided Faro with even more sugar than he had already been consuming. He particularly liked the stained glass. It was kind of sad to see it destroyed, but then again, as a kid, you don’t always want to look at a gingerbread house. You want to eat it.

We ate our Lebanese mezze and other Mediterranean delicacies all day long, opened gifts, read Christerklaas poems and searched for hidden presents all over the house, while the dogs licked up any of the foods spilled or dropped by careless little and big humans. It was a good Christmas, leaving Axel and me grateful for our blessings and with anticipation of art classes we will take in the summer at Snow Farm in western Massachusetts (https://www.snowfarm.org) – a gift from Sita and Jim.

New Year’s Eve was passed with friends and a good night sleep while 2018 quietly made way for 2019. The next day we were on our way to see my siblings in Holland.

We are closing in on Christmas. This means that my teaching semester is nearly over, one last class tomorrow and then the grading of papers. The hectic fall season, my first very busy season as an independent consultant, is nearly over. I am looking at a much quieter new year. If the fall was too full, the next three months look rather empty. So far I have only one assignment in mid-January for which the contract hasn’t even been signed. I had to hand over so many papers, as if I am applying for full-time employment: a bank statements to prove that I had indeed been paid by this or that company and not made up the numbers; my university diploma – long since lost in my multiple moves, etc. Familiar and unpleasant memories of working on federal contracts.

Talking about contracts, Sita has assembled a motley but extremely creative, experienced and competent crew of people around her, far and wide, to bid on a municipal town (her own town) planning contract with an unusual and very creative proposal. It is due in 2 days. She and her partners in crime are up at 6AM and going to bed probably very late to fulfill all of the bid requirements. I don’t know where she gets the energy (or maybe I do know, and it is mine, now passed on to her).

At home we have started a de-accessing process. We are carting away boxes and bags of stuff we no longer need and that get in the way of simplifying our life. It is amazing how easy it was to give away stuff that I once valued. The difficult part, not yet tackled, will be the children’s books from my youth which we found tucked away in a far corner of the barn attic. It is amazing how the sight of a book let loose a whole host of memories that were stored, all along, somewhere in my memory library (the brain’s hippocampus). I did throw away a booklet with a dedication in the front from my primary school headmaster. He was a Seventh Day Adventist and gave us homework for the weekend, tested on Monday, to learn a hymn or psalm by heart (also in my hippocampus). The dedication urged us, boys and girls, to read the bible every day. The booklet contained verses from the bible, explained to the young mind. It went in the paper recycling box. I must admit I never read it, only just before tossing it out. The other booklets were also gifts – at the end of each of my Kindergarten years – when I couldn’t read yet. They were stories to be read by a parent I suppose – or else I must have been a spectacular reader at 4 and 5.

One story is about a little African girl and a parrot, another about a girl whose new dress was ripped because she was a bit of a tomboy, and the third book is about a toddler on a farm who was stolen by a bad wild dog and then saved by his own good dog – all good endings. The book about the African girl and her parrot, the weekly contributions (10 cents) to Christian missions in Africa and my father’s three-month tour of Africa when I was 3 or 4, must have laid the foundation for my fascination (first) and eventually life’s work in Africa – the workings of an impressionable young mind. The books and booklets have moved with me to Leiden, then Beirut, then Brooklyn, then Georgetown and now Manchester. Oh, what to do with them? One last glance and toss – or start reading in Dutch to my grandkids so they can read the chapter books on their own, later? And how likely is that?

A de-accessing on a grand scale started today at the end of the driveway where a large bulldozer brought the old proud carriage house (built in 1869) to its knees. All that is left is a pile of rubble that will hopefully be carted away today. Our environment has changed, opened up (Tessa remarked on a photo we sent her, “crazy, so much blue sky.”) We will have to change the directions to our house (turn right at the yellow barn) now that the yellow barn is no more. 

I got out of the habit of writing – I am too busy and have not been spending much time in airports where such writing is a pleasant pastime. But now I am in the KLM lounge in Amsterdam, probably my last visit as the Delta lounge membership will no longer be honored by KLM as of 1/1/2019. 

I am stunned at how busy Schiphol is. I walk slowly and baffled, as if I just came from a remote rural village in a faraway land. And I wonder, maybe I am done with traveling to Africa, or close to done. The crowds are spectacular at this early morning hour. 

I am on my last trip of the year, this time to Zambia, a country I have never visited in my nearly 40 years of traveling to and from the continent. My other trips, since I left MSH have been to Chapel Hill (three times) and Japan. Not as much as I used to travel and so Axel and I got used to being in the same place, waking up together, having breakfast together, lunch even, like newlyweds. We like it, and the parting was a little more difficult this time because of our new routines.

I have been much busier than I thought these last 6 months. I teach two online MBA evening classes which requires an enormous amount of prep work as I am learning the ropes of this new venture, learning to grade, and plowing through many articles and videos. It is as if I am a student myself. I am getting exposed to a whole array of new articles and videos that are so very relevant to my other work of organizational consulting. I realized how stale I had been getting, swimming in circles in the same small pond.

I am also deepening my coaching skills by attending several webinars a week and registered in a peer-coaching program sponsored by the International Coach Federation. I am coached by one peer and coaching another. I asked my coach to help me (or us really) get some clarity about this next phase of our life which I have only halfheartedly entered. She asked what I was transitioning to and I realized I didn’t know. That was my homework for the week.

Axel and I talked about it – I am transitioning to a less frantic, calmer life, with time to look at our stuff and start carting boxes and boxes to the secondhand store. After I was laid off I said I was going to go through one kitchen cabinet a day and remove everything that we had not used in a year (never did so); then I’d tackle the books with the question “Am I ever going to read this book again?” It seemed a simple question but it was difficult – I have Dutch books I will not read again, and they can’t go to the second-hand store. But to throw them away?

We have reduced out inventory by several boxes but you wouldn’t notice it. And the kitchen cabinets are still full. I alphabetized the spices and threw some old spice jars out. I think they may be from Penny’s young bride days – but Axel says they are quaint and maybe even antique and pulled them out of the trash. At this pace it will be a long time to uncluttered our house.

Because we had the roof of the barn/studio replaced we needed a large container to dispose of the old shingles. Axel ordered oe size up form the one the roofer recommended, so we could throw things out, stuff that even the second-hand store won’t accept. It’s only half full with the roofing debris, just as I left for my trip to Zambia. It is better that I don’t know what is going in there – if I haven’t used something for a long time I probably won’t miss it. 

Christmas season has descended on us with the promise of getting more new stuff…so the major transition (in the short term) is from a lot of stuff to less stuff, in spite of Christmas. In the long run it is about staying in touch with people who matter, spending money on that rather than on more stuff.

When we arrived Sita whisked me away quickly to the piece of land in Westhampton she has had her eye on for some time. It is 70 acres that used to be a summer camp – remnants of it still visible here and there; cabins slowly rotting back into earth, some pipes, street lamps, an asphalt parking place, cement basement walls caving in foot by foot. And all the rest is back to the wilds, overgrown trees and bushes, brush everywhere.

Sita wants to buy it and turn it into a kind of retreat center, with tree houses, cabins for her parents and her sister (the dogs would love it!). It’s a wonderful vison I have already fully bought into but the owner of the land doesn’t want to sell – holding out for ever rising real estate prices in this part of Massachusetts. Although I can see what Sita sees, I also see a money pit and a project that will outlast us by decades, maybe even outlast Sita.

Sita gathers the most amazing people around her, far and wide, like burs on a fall walk jumping on one’s furry coat.  They traipsed along through the woods (the friends, not the burs), sharing her vision, even picking out the place where her parents will be living.

The friends are creators, inventors, optimists, go-getters, driven by a strong passion to make the world a better place for everyone, especially those having few chances now. Social maps, Future Scouts…all very exciting. If anyone from my generation is worried about the millennials they are completely wrong. We discovered we will be in NYC at the same time as one of Sita’s new friends. I am sure we are unlikely to see each other, we have a full program, but we pretend as if.

And then, a week later, when we are in NYC it turns out the this person amazing is embroiled in a fight with his partners about IP and a lawyer is needed quickly. Axel’s cousin is mobilized to find a lawyer. And so we don’t see Sita’s friend but rather Axel’s cousin and my nephew and his wife. And then we see the fabulous performance of Duda Paiva’s Blind – the reason for our NYC trip.

We are lodged at the midtown YMCA to save money for nice dinners. It means Axel has to climb in the upper bunkbed in our tiny dorm room and we share bathrooms with about 100 rooms on our floor: two toilets for women. One is occupied a good part of the night by a young woman – constipated I suspect.

But down in the basement of the enormous Y are two swimming pools, two enormous and well-equipped locker rooms with a sauna and steam room and a large exercise room with bikes and treadmills and ellipticals. We can exercise to our heart’s content which leads to slow starts in the morning.

Every night we eat with abandon in interesting restaurants handpicked by Tessa who is good at this sort of thing (as we learned last year in New Orleans). We are always in the company of whichever family (or near family) members are around and enjoying the time together, with only me seeing the bill. It confirms why sleeping for less and eating for more is so much more fun.

I gave Sita for her 38^thbirthday a bag full of daffodil bulbs. I added the planting of the bulbs as an additional gift. The bulbs have to go in before the ground is hardened by frost. Since we already had two nights of frost – killing off the last reminders of summer – and next week we are in New York, this was the weekend. The weather forecast was rain, but hey, I am from Holland, rain does not have to interfere with yard work.

After two hours of hard work I was done: first there was the digging of soil full of roots, then putting in the fertilizer, placing the bulbs in neat round circles for special effect, shoveling compost on the other side of the house, trying first one and then another wheelbarrow with flat tires, carrying the compost in small buckets, and finally covering the bulbs with the compost. With that the last part of the bulb present was provided. All this happened under rain that started as a drizzle and then became a downpour. I was as wet and muddy as the kids, leaving a mess behind in the mud room..a kin mud room I wished we had in Manchester.

Tonight is the last part of the present: babysitting while Sita and Jim have a night out on the town, a dinner and a music show.