Sylvia's Journal

Sunday morning I biked to Quaker meeting in weather that was spring like. There were flowers on the azalea bush, the rose bush and on the ground cover in our garden. Everything should be in hibernation now but the odd weather pattern has thrown things off course and all the flowers are confused.

Sometimes our meeting for worship is entirely silent, sometimes it is not. Two people spoke this time. A few of their utterances stuck with me all day.

One was about the a Sufi epic poem, the Conference of the Birds. I tried to imagine its Persian name, majlis-e-parandaha perhaps? This book has been around in various forms for centuries and is now re-issued and richly illustrated by Peter Sis. I promptly ordered two copies. I think I know who to give these books to.

The other utterance I have lifted out of its context which makes it even more haunting: “[…]the beyond that is inside us…” I kept meditating on that sentence, adding context…the beyond as in ‘unthinkable, unimaginable both positive (spiritual, divine) and the negative (cruelty, evil). Then there is the ‘beyond’ as in the cosmos – the stuff that everything including us is made of.

Thinking of myself as having some ‘beyond’ particles in my cells stretched me, gave me some perspective and shriveled up my own puny needs into something the size of a cherry pit. I’ve got to remember this when I start to feel whiny.

When I biked back everyone and their brother seemed to be raking leaves, piling them by the side of the road and stuffing them into large paper bags. We are lucky to live by the see. Our land is slowly crumbling away with each storm. So we push garden debris over the side to counter the forces of nature that nibble away at our land.

The warm temperature made it an outdoor day. Axel had a few chores listed and I took the ones that didn’t require heavy lifting. The last storm door has been installed, the flower boxes and lawn chairs put away, the rack for the firewood on the porch filled with logs and anything superfluous that we found along the way was announced as ‘Offer’ on the Freecycle website. We made a few people happy. they picked up a TV, a computer monitor, wireless headphones (a gift from American Express), a school back pack, a trap for squirrels (they won) and a recliner chair. We feel a little lighter now.

This evening Sita came over and brought people who do the same kind of work we do and believe in such outrageous things as ‘the wisdom is in the group.’ We had talked a few months ago on Skype when I was still in Kabul, they in Stowe and Sita in her Easthampton home.

Tonight we finally met over a wicked awesome lentil/sweet potato stew Axel had prepared and talked about the things we do to get people to solve their problems together – something that is akin to my own personal mission (helping people have productive conversations). That is how I found out a group on the west coast is busy transposing Alexander’s pattern language to groups. I spent much time thinking about that earlier this century and found little traction. I gave our guests my paper from 7 years ago hoping it will lead to exciting new contacts and more traction.

I have never heard my name spoken so much in one evening. We went to a theatre production in Gloucester entitled ‘Sylvia.’ Having the same name as the play got us in at a 25% discount. I don’t think I have ever received a discount for being Sylvia.

The play is about a man, a dog by the name of Sylvia and a jealous wife. The man loves his dog and his wife. In the end he chooses for his wife but then the wife changes her mind and the three live more or less happily ever after.

The dog, portrayed by an actress, behaved uncannily like Tessa and Steve’s dog Oona. If I hadn’t know Oona the actress speaking dog thoughts would not have been half as funny. Her behaviors were right on, the barking (“hey, hey”), the eyes that say “I love you the most of all,” the dumb stare into space, the reaction to cats, the crotch sniffing, the slobbering, all of it. From the program I learned that the dog actress played her first role as a dog 40 years ago, presumably as a little girl. She’s gotten very good at it.

I spent a good part of the day looking for the email confirming our berths on a clipper ship tied up in one of Groningen’s canals as a hotel. It is really infuriating when you think you have everything organized, put in the right folders and then discover you had not. This may well mean that the exotic clipper ship adventure I had planned will not take place because I can’t figure out how to contact the owner. The website where I found this lodging has it now greyed out – the listing has disappeared, just as my emails about it. Mysterious and very annoying.

Tessa told her that she is re-establishing human domination in her household, over the dogs that is. We are dog sitting tonight and Tessa gave us a little mini training on how to deal with the dogs in a way that makes it clear who is the boss. Things had slacked off a bit and the dogs were thinking that they were in control. They are finding out they are not.

And we, poor grandparents, are worried about doing the wrong thing – being too emotional, confusing the beasts about their place in the universe. I wonder whether the same thing happens with grandchildren.

I completed four days of training in a software package that lets you model various public health intervention scenarios. It is a complicated thing, this modeling, and it requires good data. For our practicum I chose to work on Afghanistan but the files were full of 99.9 or 0.00 values, code for missing data. I sat down with a colleague to try to fill in those cells about coverage of child and maternal health interventions t and realized how little we really know about what actually happens in Afghanistan, in its far flung corners especially.

I am starting a new physical therapy regimen, picking up where I left off with the same therapists and working on the same issues – the crash is not entirely behind us and maybe never will. We have yellow rubber bands all over the house, clamped between doors and their frames. Axel is also working out.

It has happened two times in my life and yesterday was the third: walking to where you thought you parked your car and then not finding it. The previous two times was in Lebanon, a long time ago, and in both cases the car was stolen. But yesterday was in Cambridge and I had parked on a street cleaning day and the car was towed away. The fine and towing cost were over a hundred dollars, plus the nuisance. This was a rather downlifting experience – but richly compensated by more uplifting developments that preceded and followed it.

We spent the beginning of the weekend thinking long and hard about the coming year and came to the conclusion that we will hang around with me travelling a lot and Axel preparing himself to get the right credentials and experience for whatever will show up on the horizon next fall – likely another overseas assignment as a year of much travel will probably create some wear and tear and a desire to settle in one place for a while without losing income.

With the agony of what’s next put on the back burner we enjoyed a wonderful weekend. On Saturday we gained an entire new family that is marrying into Sita’s inlaws family. It was one of these unexpected joys of meeting people that one wished one had known all one’s life. We came together to celebrate the engagement of Jim’s brother, a graduation, a birthday and the marvel of a two month old baby. Only Sita was missing, on one of her jaunts in Europe.

Sunday we visited our grand dogs. We went for a very long walk in Gloucester’s Dogtown after a lunch served by Tessa in her doll house. I am practicing long walks in preparation for our trip to Holland, and (re)breaking in my hiking boots. It’s blister time.

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I brought Tessa some of the sheets of Japanese paper from the Tokyo Papierium (Ito-ya) – something her artist eye can appreciate. It is not clear what to do with them other than taking them out of their envelope and admiring them from time to time.

Yesterday I visited the rotator cuff doc to find out what’s up with all the trouble I am having with my right shoulder. His verdict was pretty obvious – too much heavy lifting. After two years of no lifting (women in Afghanistan don’t lift), the work around the house since I returned has irritated my shoulder. One of the four tendons that hold things in place hasn’t been functional since 2007. My right shoulder is effectively running on three cylinders – something that will not ever get better. So now I have a doctor’s note against any further heavy lifting. Axel, with his own rotator cuff issues, is having physical therapy like crazy so there is at least one of us who can lift stuff up. We are a sorry pair.

The final uplift of the last few days – entirely erasing the unpleasantness of having one’s car towed – was dinner at Pia’s where we celebrated everything that is to be celebrated in great company, great food and wine. Axel drove me home, this being my second trip in and out of Cambridge that day.

I have started to slack off on my daily writing habit. I am adjusting (still) to the unsettled feeling of not knowing what is next. As there is no fall back full time position to catch me between assignments – only small HQ pieces of work, the substance (and I admit the joy) of the job will require plane rides to faraway places.

In Afghanistan there was another kind of ‘not knowing what is next,’ related more to the political situation and wondering where the next attack would be. But I had full time work and my travel schedule was very predictable with trips roughly 10 to 12 weeks apart.

Now that word has gone out that I am available, the tricky task of scheduling has commenced big time. One month ago when people asked me whether I was available my answer was always yes. I would gladly hop on a plane and get to my next assignment.

There are now several next assignments and requests in the hopper that have to be molded around my vacation to Holland, the holidays and my next assignment to Japan. Maybe ‘shoe-horned’ in is a better expression. Could I come to Kenya, to South Africa, before December 15 or early January? That sort of shoehorning.

Afghanistan is missing from the queue and I fear that by the time a request for the first visit (1 of 4 budgeted trips before august 2012) comes to help set up the new team for management and leadership (something I would like to do very much) I am booked for the year. I already see that four trips won’t fit if I don’t want to live in airports.

I am rediscovering how this travel will mess up my social life, not to speak of my marital life as Axel, watching this shoe-horn kind of scheduling from the sidelines. Another overseas position is becoming more and more attractive to him (and somewhat less to me but that might change soon), even if it were to be Nigeria where an opportunity is now presenting itself.

My day started early (3 AM) and badly (I dropped my new smart phone in the toilet). It didn’t get a whole lot better after that as no new work materialized while I was in the office. So I went home early.

Back home I found Axel entirely preoccupied again with the management of our estate. I can’t get over how busy it is to be home. I lent a helping hand with the winter windows on the porch. A few years ago I could carry and place the heavy windows on my own but two years of a sedentary life have taken their toll. We both struggled to get the windows up. We are like our parents now, needing young strong bodies to help with the winterizing chores.

It is only now that I realize how much exercise one does by simply working around the house: lifting heavy stuff, pushing a wheel barrow, pulling weeds, dragging garden debris across the yard, going up and down stairs – all this is just a variation of lifting weights and using the exercise machines in a fitness club. Why would one need to pay for membership when all this exercise can be done for free around the house.

I thought that my exercise routines in Kabul, 30 minutes on the elliptical machine and 45 minutes of yoga would keep me fit but my muscles and joints now tell me otherwise. It will require a lot more yard and house work, exactly the stuff I am complaining about. I should be grateful.

All through Sunday morning we were trying to hold projects at bay and enjoy ourselves. This is turning out to be very hard to do when we are at home. And so we went to visit our friend Chuck in Newburyport who had his knee replaced.

On the way up there Axel asked me to read some of my old poems – they surprised me and brought back memories of the places where I wrote them – many at airports or in planes. I haven’t written any poems for a long time.

Seeing Chuck in his hospital bed with ice and pillows and strong pain pills brought back many memories, some not very good. After other friends had come over to look after him we went to see a series of skits performed by the City Comedy Club at the Firehouse. It was an afternoon of good laughs with no room to think about projects. Coming out of the theatre we both thought probably the same thoughts, we ought to do more of this!

We declined to join our company to watch ‘The Game.’ When people use capital letters when they refer to a game you are supposed to know which sport, which game and which teams. I don’t know any of this so declining the invitation kept me from making any faux pas in the midst of sport fans. Axel wasn’t too interested either. It is hard and awkward to re-acquaint with people you haven’t seen for a while who may ask you questions about Afghanistan in between cheering for good passes or jeering at mistakes of the players on a large TV screen.

But we mainly excused ourselves because we had planned a cooking adventure with the loot from our last visit to the local farm stand. It is empty now – a sad sight. We left the stand with armfuls of root vegetables, winters squash, apples and mushrooms. Some of this we transformed into a delicious roasted chicken and mushroom risotto with a good dose of parmesan cheese. We ate it in front of the TV watching Jeeves rather than sports, until our eyes closed all by themselves.

Sita and Jim are two of several million people without electricity. It will take days to get it back. Their electric box was jerked off the house by a large tree limb that succumbed under the pressure of a foot of heavy wet snow. They are only able to communicate with us after they re-charge their cellphone batteries by driving around. Jim had to go hunt for a powered internet café to put in a regular workday. We are grateful that it is only electricity that is missing.

We flew, or rather I flew, with Bill handling the communications and alerting me to unintentional losses or gains in altitude, around the Quabbin Reservoir. Bill had taken us out to the west, to Northampton but we never quite made it there because circling the reservoir was more fun.

We were about half a day ahead of the first winter blizzard. We flew in the direction that the weather was going to come from so we’d see it in case it would move faster than expected. By the time we landed at Beverly the winds had picked up and fall had ended.

When we returned from a dinner party in Jamaica Plain the blizzard had arrived in full force. The drive home was long and arduous. In the west where Sita lives a foot of snow had already arrived. If you don’t have to go anywhere winter blizzards are wonderful.

With full day meetings to facilitate and annual report revisions at night I am one busy bee who is taking only short breaks for food. The launch of the project is going well. Even if at times it is a bit uncomfortable because of the ambiguity that goes with any start up but with this project even more than I am used to. The guidance to not work at country level but at regional level makes it even more difficult to conceptualize what results can be expected.

The purpose of this five year effort is to guide major actors in health in Africa towards promising but unused or underutilized approaches to reduce preventable mortality and morbidity – from everything, everywhere in Africa and to have that done by Africans themselves.

The necessity of focus creates both comfort and discomfort and the newness of the team adds to the soup. I am seeing all the usual turbulences that go with such a challenge. I don’t think I have ever seen this (mandated and quick turnaround) planning process generating the fun, creativity and cohesion that people want it to be or think it should be. I think it could be but not under the time constraints we are working under.

People use the words excitement and innovation all the time but I sense they are often pushed aside by more immediate considerations about how one is seen and whether one’s selection for the job was warranted – at start ups I am sure these thoughts flash through people’s minds all the time: “will I be liked, seen as competent and effective?” This is Will Schutz stuff by the way, not my invention, but powerfully explanatory.

I have not once turned on the TV or gone to the pool or exercise center. I am told they are nice. Only twice did I manage to follow a 30 minute AM yoga teacher on a DVD I brought. That routine from Kabul is very hard to recreate here. My days aren’t as predictable and circumscribed as they were there.

The big celebration event of MSH being 40 years – of which I witnessed 25 – took place on Wednesday night and I am very sorry I missed it. Axel went and represented me and got to see all my favorite MSHers, old, new, retired and gone elsewhere.

Last night I missed another event, Sita’s 31st birthday which was celebrated with friends, dad, pizza and bowling. I got to hear the happy voices in the background and was, once more, sad I missed that too.

This is indeed a taste of what’s to come – missing a lot of events with people I like to be with. The urge/search for another overseas position has not gone away, in fact it is getting stronger as work is piling up on the horizon – work that makes for a heavy ecological footprint.

I am back in my element – doing what I like to do most: helping people have productive conversations together. I am helping a new project get off on a good start. It is fascinating; I am learning a lot and am awed by the deep experience that is in the team brought together for this project. It is also great to see the team from our donor, the folks who selected us, asking the project team to have fun – imagine that, the thought even! How far away Kabul seems once again.

I am seeing lots of colleagues who I haven’t seen for two years or more, some dear friends. We are sitting in a glass-walled room right across from the glass-walled entrance so I see everyone come in in the morning and I wave discretely to my friends or dash out for a quick hug.

Now most people know about my plight and everyone indicates there will be work. This makes me complacent and tempted to stop looking for a new job. It’s seductive to stay; it is easy and comfortable. But there are no firm offers yet, just ideas and assurances that something will come. I wonder when and keep looking.

Back in the home office my new office is taken away again – I am moved to a room without windows but I am told I can’t be picky. It would make me want to come to the office less. I need to see the sky. But I understand that the less you come in the less attractive your office – the nice spaces with windows, I am told, are for 5-day workers – the fact that I am a 25 year worker doesn’t seem to carry much weight. We are a very flat organization in that respect.

My friends from Holland are being entertained at home by Axel who wants to take them places but they just want to be at our house and relax. I would too after having rowed 3 miles in the Head of the Charles. Resting at Lobster Cove seems just the right things to do. I am sad I am missing out on the fun but grateful that I have work this week. C’est la vie!