Sylvia's Journal

It is that day again, departure day. There is stuff strewn across my office, an open suitcase and a nagging feeling that I have forgotten something important. Even lists can’t help. Years ago I made packing lists. I had one for every country I traveled to because each has special requirements. Like malaria prophylaxis for countries around the Bay of Benin but not for Afghanistan; winter clothes for Afghanistan but not for any of the other countries I usually travel to; electrical plug types etc.

The lists were made in the early 2000s and show how much the technology has changed our lives. On my lists featured items such as a phone-flashlight-music player- handheld (remember the Ipaq?) – camera, with different charging devices for each; now a tablet or smart phone will do all of that and so much more. We also had paper tickets which sometimes made for some exciting last minutes, waiting for a DHL or Fedex envelop with either my ticket or my passport with visa stamp, or both. Now, except for the visa part, these days are far behind us. Today I crossed off all these superfluous things; I happily crossed off theTampax as well, I am way beyond that now.

Travel was relatively simple then. There were three classes, First, Business and Economy, with Business only a few hundred dollars more than economy. Our travel policy included a rule that allowed B-class for trips longer than 14 hours. Alas, these days are long gone yet my trips are often closer to 24 hours. I am ecstatic if I get an Economy Comfort seat but by the time my ticket is purchased these are usually long gone.

I also used to travel with toys, gadgets to entertain people or give away as prizes, stacks of quotes printed on large colored papers, poems and what not. All this filled half my suitcase – I brought very few clothes and without all that stuff could have travelled with hand luggage only. I invested a huge amount of effort and energy in creating a ‘space for learning.’ It is not that I don’t think this is important but I am lacking the energy and create the learning space psychologically only.

After a flurry of activities, compressed into a three day week full of meetings, inbox assaults, deadlines met and not met, I activated my out-of-the-office message for Friday and headed out to Marlborough for the third and last 30 hour face-to-face workshop in my coaching training that is nearing its end. Not counting the time spent writing reports and filling in worksheets and reading required books, this will complete 200 hours of study. It seemed daunting at the time I started back in February, and it is still a little daunting since there is an exam still to be taking, but I do feel a sense of accomplishments and feeling tremendously enriched.

We learned some new techniques today and I applied one to the question whether I wanted to be a vegetarian or a mixed animal/vegetable eater. The tool probes for pain and gain (or costs and benefits) of change versus status quo. The answer was quite clear at the end of the exercise: I will remain a combo eater, light on the animal side but not without. This turned out to be a good choice: I was invited along to dine in a Brazilian diner where, had I made the other choice, I would not have been able to eat.

Back at home Fall is approaching. Tonight Axel had a fire going again, barely three months after the last spring fire in June. Our summers are short indeed, but our apres-summer is one of the best seasons of the year.

The vegetable garden is full and ripe. I pulled up the leek and braised them as suggested by Julia Child; the last fingerlings were consumed tonight by Axel – we have been eating those for weeks now. The beans keep producing as if there is no tomorrow and the kale keeps coming back after we cut it bare. The Sungold cherrie tomatoes also keep producing but their skins are more and more fragile and burst before we can even get to them – burst or not burst, they are still delicious. We are in a state of vegetal abundance.

And in the cove there is marine abundance. With a little bit of luck we will be able to harvest oysters in the not too distant future; the mussels are indeed reproducing, and the sea urchins are coming back. We have been a bit lax with the lobster traps, leaving them baitless in the waters where they fill up with the red invasive seaweed, an abundance we are less happy about.

The return to the grid meant an avalanche of emails. I noticed my sense of despair mounting as the emails kept coming in. All this stuff I need to read and many to act on in the next 10 days made me a little nervous, yet I didn’t want to cut my vacation short by getting a head start. All would have to wait until Tuesday.

This week and the next will be short weeks. On Friday I am off to Marlborough for the last of my three coaching face-to-face intensives, 30 hours in 3 days. And then, on September 11 I resume my travel, with Entebbe as a first stop and Jo’burg the next. By the time I come back it is fall; that too depresses me.

All this anticipation drains me and so I am trying as hard as I can to live in the present. This is something I am learning from my grandson, who is so very much present to each moment. His future, at least in his mind, does not yet exist (he’s right on that account) and his past extends only minutes back. Oh, to be able to wander around the world like he does, being enchanted by everything he finds on his way: a leaf, a rock, a puppy, a sea gull, even sea gull poop.

After we said goodbye yesterday we re-arranged the furniture that had been used as a barrier to the non baby-proofed places in our living room and moved all the baby paraphernalia upstairs. Axel cleaned the Small Point mussels and I read the Sunday NY Times, nearly from cover to cover.

In the evening we motored in and out of Gloucester Harbor on a sunset and evening cruise to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of friends. We calculated that we have 17 more years to go before we get to celebrate our 50th. Our friends told us happily they plan to be there. They will be close to a 100, which will be, by then, the new ‘old age.’ And so we think they will.

And now Labor Day is upon us. It is morning and everything is possible still, leaving me with so many delicious choices: knit, read, bake, a harvesting trip into the garden? We are now awash in produce and fruits, the blackberry bush heavy with juicy black fruit and the garden full of red tomatoes and greens that call out ‘harvest us please!’ It rains, making for an easier easing in and one less chore, the watering of the garden.

On our last full vacation day we visited our friends at Small Point which has the biggest sandy beach Faro has ever seen. He could dribble anywhere he wanted, including into the tiny waves that rolled for miles over just inches of depth. By the time we loaded him into the car he was covered head-to-toe with the fine grains of sand, mica and shale. It made a nice contrast with his pale skin and his blond baby hairs.

Saturday was packing up and cleaning up day. We squeezed in a last breakfast, an art show before cleaning the house and then drove back to Lobster Cove. As we entered Manchester Axel and I pretended we were going to a new B&B called Lobster Cove B&B, commenting on the cute town and all the things it had to offer and what we’d be doing in this town. When we arrived at our home we found Faro already in bed, Sita selecting a good mystery to watch and Jim off to get pizzas.

I woke up on Sunday morning with that in-the-pit-of-my-stomach-knowing that all good things must come to an end, combining the end of vacation-feeling with the end-of summer feeling that makes Labor Day weekend a little melancholic. We squeezed in a few more vacation activities. Starting with Zumi’s lattes we headed off to Todd’s Farm in Ipswich, a place where people come to buy and sell stuff, some of which I didn’t even know was worth anything. It is a place where the contents of our basement would not be out of place; we are also painfully reminded of all the stuff we threw out when Penny died, and things we are periodically throwing out when all our stuff creeps up on us.

The first buyers show up, according to Sita, at 5:30 AM. By the time we got there closer to 10 some were already packing up as dark clouds were gathering. We were much too late to chance upon the kind of treasures featured at Antiques Roadshow. I nearly managed to leave the place without buying more stuff except I couldn’t leave without getting a set of starched linen dishtowels and a trivet that we call in Dutch ‘asbestos-plaatje’ which is probably illegal these days. It was the Dutch scene that clinched the deal, a boy and girl in traditional Dutch dress, tulips, clogs and windmills. All for three dollars and 50 cents.

I had one last time with Faro on the beach while Sita and Jim took advantage of having two free and willing babysitters at home. And then they drove off to their Easthampton home, leaving us sad and teary eyed waving as the car turned the corner. I think the old set up of intergenerational living in the extended family compound had something going for it with its built-in care for the very old and the very young. We could start a compound here at Lobster Cove.

Axel and I are indeed entirely off the grid because our mobile service provider is T-Mobile. The girls have Verizon and AT&T which does cover our neighborhood, even the boat to Monhegan Island. But I don’t mind. Being off the grid makes this the vacationest vacation I have had in years. I used my son-in-law’s iPhone hotspot to cancel my three phone calls this week that are part of my coaching program, and that made the vacation complete.

I am passing my time reading, knitting, teaching my grandson as many Dutch words as he can hold and checking out interesting places. One of those was the most wonderful Maine Botanical Gardens, the tiny State of Maine aquarium that is the size of our living room, and on Wednesday it was Monhegan Island. I only know about this island because of Rockwell Kent with his hauntingly beautiful pictures of this miniature Maine in the middle of the ocean.

On the boat to Monhegan Island I recognized J, who decades ago, was a colleague of mine at MSH. We had a lot to catch up with. She’d become an emergency room physician and then decided that rehabbing houses was more what she liked to so. During the 90 minute boat ride to the island I learned more about emergency medicine than from watching ER for years.

On the island we enjoyed the views visible between fogbanks, the history of this place, carefully preserved in the small museum with photos and artifacts; followed by a cold pint of dark ale at the new Monhegan Brewery, and a crab burger. We sat at the beach, sharing a table with an artist from Gloucester with her sherpa husband (sherpa because he carries all her equipment to pictoresque places). Artists go to Monhegan to paint and I can understand why, it makes you want to paint even if you can’t.

Tessa and Steve have left, sharing half our vacation and his entire allotment of days. They camped outside while the dogs slept inside, leaving the tenters a little more space. Faro is endlessly fascinated with what he calls puppiedogs. They like him when he drops food. Now it is just the four and a quarter of us.

I have a new ankle brace that makes me think of Bladerunner. It fits in my shoe under the insole, but only in certain shoes, my sneakers. I felt a bit funny walking around the office with my stylish navy pants and then sneakers. So I got a pair of black shoes that will entirely conceal my handicap when dressed for work. It is light and a lot more airy than the orthopedic boot. It also allowed me to walk for 15 minutes with only minor discomfort, a walk I could not have made without it. I think this will postpone the surgery decision for a bit, but it will remain on the horizon I am afraid.

We had another week of 10+ weather at Lobster Cove. We are eating daily from the garden and enjoying the flowers everywhere. The blackberries are large and juicy and the sunshine cherry tomatoes are providing us with an abundance of this spectacular tomato candy. And then I harvested about 5 pounds of fingerling potatoes which will travel with us to Maine; we are bringing coals to Newcastle!

Today I completed a week full of deadlines once I put all the required documents in a dropbox and then poof, all pressure was gone and I am turning to the week ahead that brings all of us together in Maine. I am told we will be off the grid, so I am packing knitting materials, books and watercolor gear. 

The nights are getting cooler and there is already a whiff of fall in the air which makes me a little wistful for that feeling in May, when the whole summer is spread out before us like a delicious buffet. Tessa and her friend came over on Saturday to hang out on the beach or onto a surfboard floating in Lobster Cove. The board is big enough to hold the two of them plus the two dogs.

I snorkeled and saved an infant lobster from certain death but realized the next day I only delivered it to the crabs. I found one today with the poor little thing half eaten dangling from its mouth. We fought over it a bit and the crab won, aggressive little fellow. When you snorkel you realize how much aggression there is under the water: eat or be eaten.

We are preparing for next week’s vacation to Southport Island in Maine. It is the place where Rachel Carson wrote her nature books. We are tuning in to the beauty of nature but the crabs remind me there is another side to all that beauty. As if to prove that point again, two bumblebees attacked me today. They went after me even more aggressively than the crab. Somehow the bees knew it was me and not Axel who had hung a hammock on a branch right over their nest and then had the gumption to sit in it (the best view of Lobster Cove); they left him alone while dive-bombing me which was more unnerving than the actual sting.

During the first attack I spilled Axel’s G&T, dropped my watermelon on the sand and lost my page in the book I was reading. During the second attack I lost my page again and dropped my drink. Luckily the G&T ice cubes had remained in the cup and served to keep the swelling down.

While I was fighting off crabs and bees Axel inspected the mussels and noticed the colony is still intact but not visibly expanding by creating offspring. To our surprise he did see several bright white baby oysters. We hope the crabs leave them alone so they can grow into a size we can harvest. We don’t mind switching to oysters for a while, but only for a while.

Axel is learning more about what ails him. The symptoms of Vocal Cord Dysfunction (VCD) – an ailment I didn’t even know existed – match his experiences exactly. I wonder if that is what living in Kabul produced. It sometimes is mistaken for asthma and sometimes accompanies asthma, so we are still in an exploratory phase. The amazing, and good thing, about this ailment is that the treatment is yoga, meditation and generally stress reduction. One might think that living in Lobster Cove would, by itself, be a good stress reduction method, but the last years of breathing problems and doing the specialist circuit have been very taxing on him.

And so we are now stepping up the yoga, the meditation and understanding how the brain mediates between a sense of comfort and security and stress. We are learning about techniques that activate oxytocin production (and suppress cortisol production) and are in awe of our clever brains. We are reading about resilience and what the brain has to do with that and begin to see connections that make some far out things less far out; like the team of yoga and meditators that went out some years ago to the US army in Afghanistan. People made jokes about it, but these folks were on to something.

I also now remember how in the 60s and 70s there was much talk about managing your brain waves through meditation and realize we, human beings, have always known how to do this, going 1000s of years back, until specialized medicine promised easier solutions, like popping pills or surgery. Learning to meditate is hard work and long work, requiring perseverance and starting over again. This in itself is a good foundation for resilience, showing that everything is connected to everything and all happens for a purpose.

Yesterday’s dinner came out of the garden, except for the Boca Burgers; the night before it came out of the sea. On Wednesday, when I arrived home, tired and hungry, Axel jumped in his boat and checked his five lobster traps, then returned with one keeper. The lobsters are moving away from shore and something else is eating the bait, so this may have been the last gratis lobster of the summer.

Last night was a land-dinner night. While Axel was completing our taxes, a dragged out and painful chore, I clipped the kale and dug up one plant of potatoes, providing more than enough for the two of us. The leftover kale and potatoes will be transformed into one of my favorite Dutch dishes, Boerenkool, a winter dish that comforts as the evenings get cooler and the nights colder.

I arrived at work yesterday morning to the sad news that one of our Dutch princes has died. It was a blip on the American news scene, not important here, but somehow touched me deeply. Not because he is a prince – princes always die, usually in battle or devoured by dragons – but I remember his birth and I grieve as a mother. He died after 18 months in coma after having been buried in an avalanche, deprived of oxygen for 25 minutes. This happened in Lech (Austria), the royal family’s ski resort of choice.

Sometime in the early 70s I found myself there, resting on the side of the slope next to the royals, including our then queen Juliana who remarked to me that my ski boot clips were loose. I remember blushing and being all flummoxed, the queen talked to me, imagine! With the news of Friso’s passing all these memories came flooding back.

Sita and Jim and Faro had come for a day and stayed the week. Such joy! I didn’t mind the total chaos in the house, the furniture blocking access by Faro to non-child proofed sections of the living room, the child gates, and the plastic containers and wooden spoons all over the kitchen floor, toys in the living room, and Faro dribbling like an ant hither and thither.

Contrary to what I was told, the ankle brace wasn’t in stock when I returned to the surgicare place in Waltham on Thursday to be fitted. The for-nothing-trip made for a very long commute, 2 hours in total, and by the time I arrived home I had to do a real effort to swallow my self-pity and take in the beauty of Lobster Cove on a glorious summer evening.

Sita and Axel had baited the lobster cages that had been sitting idle for 2 weeks. If there had been any lobsters they would have eaten each other and the winner escaped. One flounder didn’t make it out and became our breakfast the next morning.

Our series of 10+ days was interrupted on Friday by all day rains which relieved us of having to water the parched garden.

On Saturday I made good on my promise to myself to go to a yoga class rather than following a video. Axel discovered a therapeutic yoga class taught in town by a very young woman who is exceptionally skilled in coaxing a bunch of old people with all sorts of pains and aches into doing yoga that made us feel good. This is quite an accomplishment I think. My resolve is to go back any Saturday I am in the US.

Later we entertained friends from Holland, who were present in Lebanon all these years ago when Axel and I fell in love. When we have friends from afar we always have lobster. We spent the day on or by the frigid waters of Lobster Cove and checked the lobster traps for dinner. Axel had prudently bought lobsters just in case and that turned out to be a wise move. The traps were empty except for a few small lobsters which we released back into the ocean to grow a bit more.

Tessa and friends joined us on Sunday for a bloody steak dinner which I don’t care about (the bloody steak that is) but the company was great and so this was another busy social night, followed by another one on Monday night, more lobster, old friends from when the girls were small and we carpooled to the Waring School, eons ago.

I have joined an enthusiastic group of 70+ women at the Manchester Community Center who are doing their weekly (scientifically designed by Tufts) weight training to stave off osteoporosis and remain flexible. With all my joint problems this exercise regime seemed like a good idea. I was warmly welcomed as the new (and youngest) girl and everyone inquired at the end whether I liked it. I did, and I will be back. My muscles protested a bit the next morning but I take that as a good sign.

And now it is a week later from the last posting – maybe the first time in 6 years where a whole week went by without any writing. I think it is because I have a very full plate of work all with deadlines this week and coaching practice as garnish in the early morning and late evening. Time to write has fallen victim but hopefully not for long.