Sylvia's Journal

Everything is wet as it has been raining nearly every day. The once white lampshades on the porch are covered in black spots that only bleach could remove. The table legs, ditto. Our kitchen garden is overrun with weeds. Luckily I love weeding (small plots only) and have started to liberate the asparagus bed from its invaders.

At least 5 colonies of wasps and hornets have built their exquisite papery homes under the eaves around our house. Our neighbor opened his window and got stung. Walking on the outdoor stairs to the studio attic inevitable angered the beasts and Axel got stung. And so we called the exterminators who came in suits and with chemicals that, I was told, would not harm the honey bees that are feeding on our flowering bushes and in the flower beds. We have their word.

I am glad we are now rid of them but it was sad to see their rugbyball sized papery nests hacked to pieces. It must have taken a lot of effort to build those. The hornets and wasps that were not home at the time of the attack and returned later to investigate where their houses had gone, never found out as contact with the old home produced instant death. The surfaces below the nests look like a battlefield, no survivors.

On Thursday we listened to the chief of the Souther Poverty Law Center (SPLC) who is friends with one of our neighbors who is actively promoting voter education and voter registration. SPLC knows a thing or two about how manipulation of the voting process has disenfranchised many, especially those who would not have voted for our current president. Some 90 million people who did not vote probably handed Trump his victory. Now it is all hands on deck to reduce the number of people who don’t bother voting. It was an inspiring presentation that made me want to do more than upping my monthly contribution to SPLC.

In the past I would bring all sorts of things to our Maine vacation, out of some fear that I would find myself with nothing to do, maybe? This time I bought only half finished books: Coming Apart by Charles Murray, a book about Madagascar (Lords and Lemurs) and one I bought during our Cape Cod course in June. I am making progress on the Murray book which makes me realize that what is happening now (in the US especially) is a perfect example of the story of the boiled frog that Peter Senge described in his Fifth Discipline: the frog, put in a pan of boiling water would immediately jump out while the one put in cold water that is slowly brought to boil falls a sleep and dies. It’s a cruel story, whether applied to the frog or those who Murray describes as the inhabitants of US Fishtown. 

In the day to day news dramas played out under our president (or any president for that matter), everything is assigned to near and immediate cause and effect rubrics. It is quite a different view from the one painted by Murray from 30.000 feet, spanning the last 50 years. It’s not an objective view, of course – no view is entirely – but it is anchored in reams and reams of data drawn from the census, General Social Survey, Zip code and Census Tract data, National longitudinal Survey, and more. It’s a pessimistic view if you believe that the bedrock of any society is the family. It used to be the extended family: grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. The nuclear family has made the family unit more fragile, more susceptible to the stresses of life as there is no escape.

Our one week of three generations together in Maine makes the benefits abundantly clear – the parents sleep in while Opa and Oma entertain the kids with games, stories and food; auntie Tessa introduces the kids to the care of animals, wholesome food, exercise but also whimsical cup cakes and birthday presents. Uncle Steve the scientist contributes to the kids’ experience of their physical surroundings through discovery. The absence of cousins is the only thing that is missing – they would have taught the kids how to negotiate and resolve conflict, learn to share and play games together.

We are off the grid – really off the grid, even the cellphone doesn’t allows us to check in to our digital devices. This is rural Maine. We are in a new vacation place. It is nearly twice the distance from our house as Camelot, the cottage we used to rent on Southport island. Now it took us about 5 hours instead of two and a half.

We had outgrown Camelot where Faro has to sleep in a tent on the porch, Saffi in a closet and Tessa and Steve and the dogs in a tent on the lawn.  Now everyone has their own bedroom and the children have their own bunkbed and a door we can close.  We also have two large dining tables, and a well equipped kitchen.

A steep path runs down to a private pebble beach that is perfect for the kids – for Faro because of the big crabs that live there and for Saffi because the water is shallow and the pebbles are small.

Axel is wearing an orthopedic boot because he sprained a tendon in his foot. He claims it is because of the overextension of his foot as he meditated, kneeling on the small meditation stool he had made for me years ago (and which I cannot use  anymore because of my fused ankle). A walk into town on flip-flops appears to have made things worse and now he is in a boot. As a result he cannot go down the steep path and has to be ferried in Tessa’s canoe from a landing nearby. But all this doesn’t damp the fun of being together for a week on the beautiful Maine coast.

Faro’s ‘Opanoma’ vacation has come and gone. Opa and Oma are our grandparents names – to distinguish us from the other two sets of grandparents he has (Grammi and pep in Beverly and Gramps and Amma I Manchester). 

Faro was delivered to us the Saturday before camp and stayed behind when dad and sister left on Sunday afternoon to return home. He was a little sad the next morning.

We did what grandparents do: we spoiled him, somewhat to the dismay of his parents who disapproved mostly in the food department. 

We quickly slide into our roles for the week: Axel was responsible for stories and beach activities, I ran the breakfast and lunch department. We shared the drop off and pick up to and from the Audubon camp in Ipswich. Let year Axel was responsible for nearly everything when I was still employed. I had a new appreciation for how much work was involved in creating a successful into ‘Opanoma’ vacation. 

Breakfast and lunch always included something chocolate (chocolate milk, hagelslag (a Dutch invention), and a dollop of chocolate whipped cream from a can on top of the pancake or waffle. Every morning I prepared (from scratch) at least a pint of chocolate milk. During story time Faro had learned about the concept of ‘counterfeit,’ from a Hardy brothers adventure Axel read to him before bedtime. After inspecting the milk, and after a thumbs up that it was not counterfeit, I poured the chocolate milk into the Roy Rogers thermos that fit neatly into Opa’s, somewhat rusted, Roy Rogers lunchbox.

After camp pick up Faro quickly changed into beach gear and rushed off with his water wings and snorkel to check on the crabs, unless there was another activity, such as the pretend Beatles concert in Masconomo park. I would not be surprised if Faro knew more about the Beatles than any of the teenagers. He knew songs we didn’t even know. An ice-cream (M&M) was unavoidable, what with the ice cream story right there. Two days later we went to another concert on Castle Hill in Ipswich where we met up with friends, another opa and oma and their daughter, son in law and two grandchildren.

On the other nights we watched Shaun the Sheep’s naughty adventures, a claymation movie, which gets Far in stitches, no matter how often he has seen it. After that sleep came quickly.

We are staying with the daughter and son in law of a dear longtime friend who is hosting our reunion in San Diego. The house has a pool that covers the entire backyard. We are warmly welcomed and take a daily dip in the grand pool. The temperature of both air and pool is perfect – the latter a far cry from the glacial waters of Lobster Cove.

We drove up into the mountains to visit our host’s friends from their Peacecorps days in Ghana. When they returned from Ghana they bought a mountain and started an avocado farm that now produces 100s of thousands of avocados each year. They flattened the top of the mountain and built a dream house with 360 degree views, an enormous veranda with a pool, a hot tub and shaded places to eat and far niente.

All 10 of us descended on the place and were warmly welcomed as if old friends all of us. It was a case of my friends are your friends. We the wonderful Mexican food we picked up along the way, and sat around the table telling stories, serious and silly. We learned a bit about avocado farming and farm help and unavoidably drifted into immigration issues without getting too much into current affairs and our perpetrator in chief (PIC) as he who shall not be named is referred to by some. After that it was pool time, and stretching out in sun and the dry mountain air.

We returned to our various lodging places, tried out a fast food fish taco place in Rancho Bernardino where the tacos were delicious and the beer was cheap. En passant we bought a case of various summer wines to accompany our home cooked Moroccan dinner tonight that will precede the AGM – the official reason for our trip to SD. And today, apart from giving a helping hand to the cook, we are free and taking a trip to La Jolla.

Last Monday, after a busy morning of working on various tasks of Sylvia Inc. I went on a shopping spree at the mall. I used to work from home on Mondays and couldn’t shake the belief that I was playing hooky. I have gotten used to not having to get up early in the morning, but I haven’t gotten used to not having to be at my desk – and since I had been most of the time, it felt wrong to be going to the mall doing working hours. I still have to shed that part of my past life. 

Axel returned from a week in Seattle on the red eye. Within 24 hours he was back on the plane, this time with me, to the west coast for a week vacation in San Diego. I was so ready for a vacation after a week of nearly 8 hour work days.  For he first time ever I used my free companion ticket, compliments of American Express. We got upgraded to first class on the first leg of our trip, to Salt Lake City, and are still in good seats for the second part. 

We are off to the now annual Zugsmith reunion – for the first time on the other coast. Most of us are now retired and can afford to fly to faraway places, if not because of a good retirement arrangement, then at least because of all the miles we have all flown over the years during our international development careers. The ZS Society, as we refer to ourselves, consists of a group of colleagues who started working at the same place more than 35 years ago. I was only there for 8 months, but others for their entire career; some of them switched to MSH and we were reunited again, there went on to other organizations, but we all stayed in touch. 

For a brief moment each year we come together for the Annual General Assembly, the AGM, of our society and act as if we are decades younger – we are silly, talk silly, make up stuff, and enjoy each others’ loving and laughing company. It is a most wonderful group of people and worth getting up at 3:15AM for to catch our early flight west.

I wrote on my Skype profile: free as a bird at Lobster Cove. But this week I have been all but free as a bird – and only took my meals overlooking Lobster Cove. For the rest I was chugging away at tasks that other organizations have specialists for: drawing up contracts, writing proposals, getting a business certificate, opening a bank account, managing my retirement funds, organizing receipts and invoicing, checking the new business cards, populating my website, learning new software, organizing my calendar for next week, cleaning my inbox, and organizing my thoughts about work done in Chapel Hill last week. This is the new reality of Sylvia Inc.

Someone said, maybe you should go back to work – but I couldn’t, even if I was offered a position. I am now in a universe that is so much bigger and grander than the universe of my last 32 years. If I was a medium sized fish in a small pond, I am now swimming in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans – a little minnow, seeing all the stuff that is going on, the work that is needed… the possibilities are endless.

Now, taking my lunch at my favorite spot overlooking the water, three little barn swallows are showing me what it really means to be free as a bird. It is as if they have come to remind me, or maybe teach me something about freedom. 

I watch them as they perform their acrobatics – high up, swooping down, circling back, but always doing this right in front of me. Of all the space they could use they remain right in front of me. They are joyful little creatures. If they do this because their dinner is also doing acrobatics, these insects must be tiny as there are none to be seen from my vantage point, and it is hot, the middle of the day, when most of the insects are quiet. So, joyfulness it is.

They remind me of the aerobatics I have seen pilots do in their single propeller planes: going straight up until they stall and then spiraling back down to earth. At one time I had some desire to learn how to do that but the crash put an end to those aspirations.

And then, just as suddenly as they appeared they are gone. It is as if they know the lesson has been received and written down. Free as a bird requires some luck (which I have and have had), some intention, and discipline and an occasional reminder from the gurus, human or animal.

Incidentally, and probably not coincidentally with all these thoughts about flying, today it is exactly 11 yeas ago that we fell out of the sky, and lived to tell the story. Maybe that is what the barn swallows were celebrating – life itself!

This morning I listed to a podcast (On Being) during which Krista Tippett interviewed Lyndsey Stonebridge, a British literary historian who has immersed herself in the works of Hannah Arendt. Arendt was a German-born politic theorist and philosopher who lived thirteen years as a stateless person, not wanted anywhere until she became an American citizen in 1950. Her books (The banality of Evil, The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition among others) have practically risen to bestseller status with the changes of the political landscapes around the world.

One phrase from the interview resonated deeply with me as they talked about bridging divides in worldview. The phrase is an antidote to the general lamenting that is either dominating the news or triggered by the news (in any form). That phrase is: “…and still…”. It is a poetic line, probably used in many poems, but I see its usefulness in daily life. First of all, in my own daily life, as in “My position at my longtime employer has been terminated…and still…there is work for me to be done.”  And then there are the bombs in Afghanistan, exploding regularly, and still, there are activists and there is good work being done, and people shop and go to the market and celebrate whatever blessings come their way. 

It is a useful sentence to spin people’s attention away from all the dark and evil and hopelessness that the media present us with, or maybe the dynamics in our family, our team, our organization…and still, something has life in it, people have, something is trying to alter things, people are, trying to bring the world back into balance in a million small ways.

A related idea, coined by Arendt, is  the“talking across banisters.” I had an encounter where I could have, but did not, talk across the bannister. It is an experience that keeps haunting me. I had all my buttons pressed by this other person (of course I was the one carrying all those buttons that beckoned ‘push me, push me!)  I lost my good self in a defense/attack routine that I am still ashamed off. I have come to realize since then that I let the limbic part of the brain take control away from my reasonable self (the prefrontal cortex). I went into that  the part that decides in milliseconds that the other is friend or foe, and, as scripted over many millennia, entered into a useless verbal fight. Ughh…and still…

I completed the first part of my first consulting assignment, two days in Chapel Hill (NC) with more trips to follow. It was a fast paced schedule that required an early rise like the old commuting days, followed by a flight to Raleigh/Durham, a full day of work, transcribing notes in the evening after a boring dinner in a boring restaurant of a boring hotel. Welcome to consulting, I hear Axel say.

But it was an interesting assignment that is right up my alley – a discovery trip to get at people’s perceptions of what is happening and what needs to happen as an organizational transformation unfolds. I get to draw on all my training  and relationships that have led me to this place and this assignment at this time. 

One person I interviewed I had last seen when I came in for a debriefing at USAID in Burkina Faso, more than two and a half decades ago. Others were more recent (ex) colleagues from MSH. 

We are all twirling around in one big pot – when fortunes are up in one part of this ecosystem people drift over there, away from the less fortunate elements but the balance tilts and people drift elsewhere again, or back – I am sure that is MSH’s hope as new projects are added to the portfolio and more hands are needed on deck.

I interviewed some people who had done the rounds and served with many of the key actors in the global health space. Having worked for s long with one organization it was interesting, and not surprising, how much we have all in common and how much we are all struggling with some of the same issues, including our over dependence on the US government. Although stable as governments go, it is always influenced by the prevailing political winds. The current winds are not blowing in the same direction as the global health priorities the rest of the world deems important. May be, in some paradoxical way, I a both a casualty and a beneficiary of this circumstance.