Sylvia's Journal

On Sunday we skipped Quaker Meeting and went instead to the Gloucester Democratic Committee’s annual breakfast. Most of the speakers were women, strong and articulate women like Elizabeth Warren, State AG Martha Coakley, State Auditor Suzanne Bump, State Rep Anne Margaret Ferrante. I was so very proud of how these women presented themselves and their platforms so well. The fact that the women outnumbered the men, both in speakers and in the audience, didn’t go unnoticed.

But the rah-rah speeches don’t get me to stand up and cheer rah rahs back. I can’t stand the simplistic rhetoric of polarization – good versus bad – which is why I would never be a good politician.

After having done our democratic duty we devoted the rest of the day to our garden. The beets and chard are in, the snap dragons, the primroses. Axel was responsible for the vegetables, me for the flowers.

Axel caught an asparagus beetle which he promptly scanned and crushed under the scanner cover. We have to be very alert as they can do much damage to our precious crop. Sunday’s and Monday’s sunshine brought forth another whole meal.

Friday and Saturday evening Axel and I presented a slide show of our time in Afghanistan. Friday’s event was for our Quaker Friends.

We showed up in our Afghan outfits. Axel in his embroidered white tombon peron with waskot. He had already worn this as the father of the bride at Sita and Jim’s wedding. I wore a dress that Razia Jan had made and Axel had gifted me for my birthday in Kabul – black with red and gold embroidery. Underneath I wore the lace-edged pantaloons that S. had made for me to go underneath the burqa. I did bring the burqa but didn’t wear it. It would have created a bit of a stir on this quiet middle class Beverly street.

Each time we present about our experiences we realize how constricted and negative people’s image is of Afghanistan. A word association game would probably always yield words like Taliban, violence, war, guns, corruption, Karzai.

On Saturday evening we presented the same slides to our closest friends and realized how little we had talked about our time and work in Kabul. When we came back we re-integrated rapidly into the old life of our friendship. Or we told stories without pictures, a very different experience.

In between these two events Axel perfected his meditation technique – meditation having become easier since he got off much of his medicine. I travelled south to pick up Nuha at the airport. She was my student at Boston University some years ago and is now a PhD student at Johns Hopkins after having returned to her native Saudi Arabia where she is a public health lecturer at a progressive university where men and women study together.

I had seen the start of her blossoming into an assertive young woman, a process that has continued over the last few years. Although she hasn’t reached her thirties yet she now comes across as very mature. And she is even more assertive. The coffee shop where we had our tea provided our drinks in paper cups. She walked up to the counter and demanded real cups, since we were consuming on the premises. I don’t think she would have done that when I first knew her. Although she didn’t believe me, I noticed how her English had also improved as she provided me with breathless updates about her life after BU and now in Baltimore. When I called her to say that I was nearing the airport and that she should wait on the curb she texted me back ‘what’s a curb?’ At least I taught her one more word.

This was the happy-sad-happy week sandwich week.

Although I am no longer actively celebrating the (Dutch) queen’s birthday on April 30, this day has the fondest childhood memories attached to it. There was the excitement and anticipation of the march (in my girl scout uniform) before our town fathers and mothers (which in some years included my mom). They stood on the elegant balcony of the town hall, waving at us, the children of the town, marching along behind a flag or a sign that explained who we were.

It was always a holiday with much to do. There was the fair and the guilder and riksdaalder (now together the equivalent of a euro and change) we got from our parents and grandparents to spend on anything we wanted: rides, cotton candy, sweet cinnamon sticks (zuurstokken).

On May 4, 1958 my baby brother was born which means the week got extended with another exciting event. As the older sister, I put myself in charge of his parties and felt big and important. I also was his teacher, confidant and little mother.

Then in 2001 something very sad slipped in between these two happy events. On May 3 Sita’s best friend, a spunky, slightly older girl, we were all very attached to, died of an overdose. It was probably the scariest day in our life. The memory of that phone call, the rush to find out if Sita was OK, the confrontation with the reality that we would never see Jennee again is as deeply etched in our brains as the plane crash that was to follow a few years later. We planted a beach plum for Jennee. It flowers every year on May 3, even after having been uprooted for a new septic system.

Simmons’ College’s Center for Gender in Organizations puts on wonderful programs and whenever I am in the country I try to attend these sessions. And so yesterday, with a couple of colleagues, we traipsed off to the school of management over lunch time.

We were treated to a wonderful experiential session about the multiplicity of identities and power we hold by taking a closer look at ourselves and the dominant identities we have taken on or were born into.

Usually the narrative about women is about subordination. What I had not realized is that we, women and men, have so many identities, some we were born into (race, skin color, size and body type, sometimes religion), some we become automatically (older) and some we acquire (education, sometimes religion). The first task was to write down, without thinking too much, the identities we have and then see which jump out, and make them bold. Just realizing that this one is a dominant or subordinate one can be startling.

I wrote: grey-haired white female of Dutch descent, married, mother, nearly grandmother and then some smaller identities. The grey-haired jumped out and I got to explore a bit more about why it did.

In an paired sharing with someone we didn’t know we were asked to talk about an identity (or bundle of identities) that is/are dominant, how we felt when we didn’t get the entitlement we deserved, when we were called on being dominant. It brought back some painful but life changing experiences from an NTL course many years ago. And from my partner, a tall black man I learned something about profiling.

The exercise was both refreshing and a little sobering. As women (or any other minority) we are used to emphasize our subordinate identity. The presenters made a surprising statement: no matter how subordinate you feel in your life, everyone has at least one dominant identity – an abused wife still has dominance in her relationship with her kids when the husband is not around for example.

After work and picking up Axel we drove to Newburyport to see our friends Anne and Chuck who returned from a 5 week tour of friends, many of them Peace Corps buddies. It was their homage to 50 years of Peace Corps.

We attended a small fundraising event for a scholarship fund for Mexican kids and I ‘won’ a gift certificate for the restaurant in which the auction was held, which we used right away.

Our friends run a B&B in Newburyport and we got to stay in the Sorrento room, looking out over the Merrimack River.

The cortisone effect on the shoulder is not obvious, ‘pas evident’ as the French would say, but I am told to wait patiently – it takes a few days said today’s doctor, another one.

Last night we attended a lecture about the Manchester public library. Everyone there was over 50, maybe even 60 – I belonged to the younger crowd. We learned a lot about the library from a friend who picks stock during the day and is an architectural historian for fun in his spare time. He called our library ‘maybe the building with the most historical value in time.’ Such statements do open your eyes to things you took for granted.

Commissioned in the late 1800s by Jefferson Coolidge as a memorial to Manchester men who died during the civil war (a lot), a place for the survivors to rest their crutches and tell stories and a library. He told the stories about love lost that were hidden in carved and other details of the library that we had never paid attention to.

During the after-talk-social we learned of another library story about a marble bust of Lady Liberty that an electrician has put in the crawlspace underneath the library, so commanded by the then chief librarian. It’s a valuable statue, as it turned out when it was discovered when new wiring was put in place. The chief librarian wanted to get rid of the statue because youngsters kept putting gum on the exposed nipple and she was tired of cleaning it off.

Today I went for a very long walk along the Charles, having missed yesterday’s due to the rain. I was carefully observing how the pain in my ankle moved around the ankle, experimenting with walking on asphalt, grass and more uneven terrain, inclines up and inclines down.  When I re-counted the pain pattern under these various circumstances later to the foot doctor he said he wished he had an intern by his side – I had produced a teaching moment.

He showed me the osteoarthritis at my ankle joint on his computer screen (this is a doctor who spends as much time with his patients as is needed), the resulting inflammation and treatment options (not many). In the end I got another cortisone shot, this time in the ankle joint. We keep our fingers crossed that this will give some relief and reduce the inflammation.

The rains have driven many new asparagus out of their dark holes, enough to produce another dinner again this evening.

My last window for travel before grandbaby’s arrival remains open despite a few nibbles for trips to places as far apart as the Ukraine and St. Vincent. But preparation time is running out now and with this week being a short one in many countries of the world I am afraid the window will stay open until it closes on May 18.

Sita seems to be carrying a bit lower but that may be wishful thinking – although she did admit that breathing has become a little easier. She and Jim played with the rest of the Bunwinkies in Portland and Belfast – baby coming or not, the band plays on.

I spent a good part of the morning watching lots of videos of health leaders from all continents and both sexes, young and old, speak about their leadership journeys. I had been searching for clips that would be a good alternative to middle aged white American males speaking about leadership to people who looked very much like them. I found this wonderful collection at a website a friend pointed me to.

In the afternoon Axel accompanied me to see the shoulder doctor.  We are making a habit of going together to see doctors as we discovered that together we understand more and ask more.  The doctor nixed the calcific tendonitis hypothesis (already disproved by an X-ray) because the tendon in which the calcification would have happened is no longer attached to the muscle (or rotator cuff?) – a miracle the doctor could not accomplish then and not now. My rotator cuff will remain traumatized until he does something a lot more drastic. He agreed that I was too young for that and sent in his assistant to give me a cortisone shot. I am still very sore but was told to expect that as such shots tend to make things worse before they get better. I am expecting another bad night that will require the help of some chemicals before being able to move my arm freely and painlessly again.

We ended the day with another Flemish asparagus meal – a Dutch variation with American asparagus that has the wrong color. The new shoots keep coming up fast and furiously. Today we harvested 20  and another 10 or so are already waiting in the wings. The asparagus bed was a gift from friends right after we crashed; a gift that has been giving ever since.

The trip to Bangladesh and back is already a faint memory – such is the blessing of forgetting unpleasantness. I arrived back in springy New England; amazing what changes occurred in just a week.

Axel had a full social agenda planned for me – a dinner with friends at the local country club to spent their end-of-year restaurant balance (use it or lose it). We were in the company of –as my mother used to call them – ‘the happy few;’ many also there with friends to do the same. It was like a sociology field trip and me the participant observer. I watched well-permed grandmas with their adult children and their young boys in blue blazers and pressed chino pants, the girls in pretty dresses.

Because of the many other grandmas eating there regularly, I suspect, the menu contained for most entrees the choice of a whole or half portion. I like that and did order a half so I would have room for a dessert. I started with a martini, my first serious alcoholic drink since our Ayurvedic cleansing. I drank it ever so slowly.

On Friday I was back on my physical therapy schedule (ankle) and resolved to get rid of bad shoes and invest in some sturdy footwear. So far the miraculous effect of this investment has not materialized and a long walk with Tessa, Axel and dogs left me crippled.

Saturday proved too windy for flying with Bill, at least for me, and so he went alone. It was not too windy for yard work. Axel planted the potatoes and I pulled out the perennials that gone wild. The asparagus are poking through the soil in increasing numbers and the garlic is looking good.

Last night we went to Waring for the annual junior class auction that is to generate enough funds to send the whole 11th grade class to France for a month. This is probably the most significant of Waring’s coming-of-age rituals where kids test their ability to speak French in France, sketch monuments and vistas and drink too much wine. The dinner theme was ‘Diner en Blanc’ which made for a festive white and gauzy appearance. Axel wore his Afghan outfit, the same he wore for Sita and Jim’s wedding – I wore what can best be called a ‘mother-of-the-bride’ ensemble which made me realize I have become my mother. Eventually we all do.

Today looks like another gardening day.

I am sitting in front of a sprig of quince blossoms, a gift from someone with an oriental eye for beauty, and a small vase with tulips and bleeding hearts, a gift from another whose life is all about gardens. Outside the birds are wide awake, blending their chirps into an unscripted morning jubilation.

More and more asparagus are poking through the soil. We are watching them like hawks because the asparagus beetle has already announced itself and it can dash our hopes of an abundant harvest. A cup with soapy water stands in the corner, waiting for the ennemy.

I am done with the Ayurvedic cleanse. We are instructed to add more variety to our diets, like one does with a baby trying out new foods, slowly and one at a time. The consumption of animal protein caused a reaction right away and makes me wonder how badly I need that. Alcohol is off limits for another week.  Luckily I am going to the land of rice and dhal and no tradition of alcohol. Such a diet suits me fine.

Sita was sitting in the yard sunning herself and reading about childbirth when I came home from work. She asked about my first delivery. I realized I could remember very little – such is the thing with painful experiences: the mind stuffs these into spiderwebfilled corners, far from our RAM. And so I pulled out my diary, book number one of many which contained a letter written to a friend, a faded copy of a typed epistel – a blow by blow account. I read it aloud, translating from Dutch as I went along. It was not the beautiful experience it was supposed to be, but life changing nevertheless. I think Sita is realistic enough to know that labour is indeed hard work.

I started to pack last night – trying to fit everything in a small suitcase that can be carried on or checked. I will only be in Bangladesh for 5 days, the other 4 days are travel, both long and straight through. My weak right arm argues for checking, the fact that the suitcase has to be transferred in Amsterdam and then Dubai argues for carrying.

I dreamt last night that I couldn’t find my ticket – my mind is still a bit behind the times, thinking that without a paper ticket one cannot get on a plane. I finally went to the airport trying to find out from some eastern European ladies on high heels when the next flight to Dhaka was. They were standing behind a high counter that forced them to bend over to be able to address their customers. The one who was helping me fainted and so I never got the answer. I am pretty sure I was about to miss the direct flight from Manchester by the sea, or wherever the dream took place, to Dhaka.

Axel opted out of the spring cleanse when his old-time friend Chris arrived from Long Island– he couldn’t imagine not having a beer with him and besides, Abi, our cleansing coach, had written to all of us that we should be gentle on ourselves and so he was. Today he abandoned the whole thing in favor of baked ham, more beer, wine and what not. So he will cleanse another time. I decided to stick with it which wasn’t all that difficult. Two years Afghanistan makes it easy to forego a glass of wine or beer.

And while we were celebrating new beginnings and hope and love, Kabul was under attack, another one of those complex attacks with people blowing themselves and others up all over the city. We received emails from friends that they are in lockdown and OK.

We had Ted from SOLA and two of the Afghan students over – both taking some time off from studying – to come celebrate spring with us on this glorious spring day. And then one by one our dearest friends arrived bringing flowers, food and each other. Sita joined us, giving everyone a chance to see her in her very pregnant state.

We sat outside until the sun went down and then moved inside to sit by the fire, watching the second half of an Agatha Christie movie. We seem to be unable to make it through one whole movie in one evening anymore these days.