Sylvia's Journal

Everything and everybody was converging in on us over the last few days: visitors from far away (Afghanistan and Holland), the Head of the Charles with a Dutch team to cheer on, preparations for the trip to DC and Japan which now all have to happen in between all the other stuff. I could so have used all these activities two weeks ago when I was twiddling my thumbs. Multi-tasking, although apparently not the good thing it used to be now comes in handy.

In the morning we picked up my colleague from Afghanistan and walked most of the race course of the Head of the Charles, from MSH where we parked out car, all the way to the finish, chatting about Afghanistan, America and everything in between. We didn’t meet up, as we had planned, with our Dutch friends as the wives were following their men in their Masters 50+ eight on bikes – there was no way we could keep up with their pace (boat or bike).

We did learn later that they came in 31st in their class and were not happy with their performance. When we saw them going underneath the Western Ave bridge they looked pretty good – but that was only 1 mile into the race.

Having lost contacts with our friends because of exhausted cell phone batteries we returned home and were just on our way when Tessa called that she was on her way into town to deposit a slightly invalid Steve at work. While he tried to work (and on Tessa’s insistence negotiated with his boss to return home) we took Tessa out for lunch. We had to step over a dead rat into the restaurant – it would give one pause but we were too hungry. The meal was fine.

On our way home I bought a new cell phone that is wifi enabled and thus works at home where T-Mobile’s signals don’t reach us. Now I don’t have to keep the landline tied up during long distance work related calls. A phone with internet is of course also a new toy which makes me want to sit in waiting rooms for long times so I can figure out how to use it.

When we finally came home the day was nearly over and the light was already fading when Ted from SOLA showed up. There was just enough light to show him around our estate and have him marvel at the cove and the ocean. Driven inside by the cold Axel lit a fire, and cooked our meal over it, consisting of foodstuffs that he cannot have in Kabul. We caught up on news of SOLA students here and there and finally said our goodbyes. Ted is soon returning to Kabul.

When it rains it pours. Not only on the Charles River were eights and fours and singles were clocking time against stiff winds and whitecap waves durng their final rehearsals for the Head of the Charles.

At work the pouring is also happening. Suddenly I found myself engulfed in work requests, all coming to me at the same time and all interesting and more in line with my skill set than the work I did in Kabul.

The timing is a bit off as my friends from Holland are coming to stay with us after having rowed in the Head of the Charles. When they settle in here at Lobster Cove, I will have to fly to Washington.

I spent hours reading up on health system reforms in Albania so that a colleague and I can propose creative ways to tackle persistent leadership challenges. Everyone who has been a consultant on that project has written a voluminous report. I spent a good part of the day plowing through them all so that I can ask intelligent questions not answered in them.

Another colleague who has had many bumpy landings after returning from a field project told me that each time she is in despair about finding work and starting to look around something comes through, making her postpone her search. Something to look forward to? Avoid? Accept?

Axel is of course worried that he won’t see much of me now that travel is picking up – all of next week I will be in Washington and then soon after that in Japan. Axel wants to go overseas again so we can be together most of the time – as we were in Kabul. If only we can find a nice place without dust, violence, guns, barbed wire and with an interesting job.

One of my Afghan colleagues has arrived from Kabul for a two week visit after he finally got his visa that we had requested for a conference in May. We counseled him not to wear is mullah clothes upon entering the US. He did enter in jeans and jacket and was very warmly received, welcomed into the country by a very friendly US Border Control employee. A good first impression, something that makes us all happy.

When he showed up at MSH in his western garb we hardly recognized him. At lunch time I introduced him to the abundance of Whole Foods and the complexity of their recycling bins.

After work we took him out to one of Boston’s three Afghan restaurant, the one that is not putting more money in Mahmoud Karzai’s coffers. I attempted some Dari and Pashto on the owner but I have to delve deep into my hard disk to retrieve words that came so easily to me only a few months ago. I am letting my languages slide.

Why is it that things need to build up to a crisis before they can find resolution? I think it has to do with attention – only the most urgent matters tend to get attention – this is why we don’t fix a problem in our house until it causes greater damage. There is also the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

I have been a little more squeaky lately, was much too quiet until now. I work in a large and complex organization and most people have no time to pay attention to something/someone that is not making a noise. My urgency has become a few other people’s urgency. I am a little more hopeful now.

I drove down to Duxbury to attend Razia’s fundraiser, a community affair that gives one hope in the goodness of others. Razia had gotten straight off the plane from Kabul and was busy providing way too much food, as she tends to do, for the number of people present.

To avoid the rush hour I had come early and was mobilized to cut the melons into small pieces – not anything like Afghanistan’s melons but at least a hint at something utterly Afghan.

Some 60 people showed up to hear her speak, watch yet another inspiring video of her school and then two of us in the audience spoke about her school which we had seen in action. It was an intensely affirming and inspiring event and I am glad I made my third attempt to go there successfully.

It is a bit of a long drive home after a 14 hour day but worth it. I shortened the ride by eating chocolate and listening to a tale of the Bin Ladens told by his first wife and fourth son – a somewhat irritating but interesting peek into the private life of this century’s most reviled person. It reminds me of a quote from Nietzsche in Also Sprach Zarathustra, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

I sent out some more emails to various places where MSH works or where some of my colleagues find themselves, South Africa, France, Nigeria and Washington, among others, to see what work there might be for me. I am no longer crossing my fingers as that isn’t working all that well. I am now casting my net far and wide.

The contract for my one week in Japan has been signed. Now I can use an entire day – such a luxury – on designing the two day workshop. I can also get my ticket before the price gets over what we budgeted. One could say things are lightening up but I don’t think the roller coaster ride is over yet.

Before dinner we went to the point hoping that the stripers would be chasing the bait fish into the cove – this happens nearly every year during the fall but we never know exactly when. Axel is checking the movements of the seagulls and other sea birds closely – they do tend to give us a heads up that something is afoot, or rather, a-fin.

Axel casted out a few times with no luck. I kept him company while trying to soak up the last rays of the increasingly weak sun. The walk toward the rocks is tricky for me these days – I think it is the fear of falling, a new sensation that I recognize from people much older than myself – Axel is more agile although I did wonder what would happen if a big fish would bite. I think he would topple right over into the water. Luckily no such fish were around. Fishing is mostly about trying, and while doing that enjoying being out in nature, I think. That works for me, with no fish on the line.

After the unproductive but relaxing fishing expedition Axel cooked a wonderful meal: scallops (bought, not caught) in a butter-Pernod sauce, not a weightwatchers recipe exactly, accompanied by a thyme risotto and Indonesian pickled veggies. I was responsible for the Swedish apple custard dessert – a fusion meal that was quite appropriate for the season but rather mismatched in its appearance.

If Saturday we missed the Charles Olson lecture because Axel had not really looked carefully at the invitation and got the address wrong, today it was me. We drove all the way to Duxbury, some 65 miles south to find no action at the Senior Center where Razia jan was supposed to have a fundraising for her girls school in Kabul.

I thought I would learn the lesson from Saturday and got the address from the flyer and then googlemapped it. We left with the directions in hand but not the invitation. I got the date wrong. So we drove all 65 miles back. If this is just a taste of getting older we better start some new routines: from now on all invitations will be printed out and studied by both of us. Maddening!

We have still not been able to get the lobster traps out – the sea remains too choppy and the wind was still gusting up from the southwest, away from land. If there had been any lobsters in the traps, remaining two weeks in close quarters with each other is not something lobsters do well – they eat each other. So if there had been two in any one of the traps there will now be one only – a bit bigger I suppose than before it entered the trap. We are anxious to find out. 

I went flying again, as a passenger; me in the right seat and Bill on the left. We had planned to fly to Katama airport on Martha’s Vineyard. But the strong southwesterly winds reduced our airspeed to about 60 knots forcing us to shorten our trip and turn around at Bedford.

It was a very bumpy ride; our little plane was tossed around like a leaf in the storm and constantly blown off course. Bill handed over the controls a few times to me and it took all my concentration to just hold speed and altitude. How did I manage all that plus the radio and navigation instruments I wondered? I was suddenly in awe of my accomplishments before. It seemed daunting to re-learn my flying skills.

Back on the ground we finally deposited six fishing crates full of Sita’s and Tessa’s old sketchbooks, Waring homework, old guidebooks, Gourmet magazines, our own life drawing practice pads at the Manchester recycling center.

In the afternoon we had planned to go to a lecture about the poet Charles Olson but we got the address wrong and ended up at the Fisherman’s Brew pub, sitting on a terrace overlooking the harbor and drinking our ales – once again Kabul was very far away.

In the evening we celebrated Mary Anne’s 80th birthday. We met at yoga class some five years ago. We became friends with this extraordinary artist – several of her pieces have found a place in our house. We share a common Dutch ancestry and a love for Indonesian food – a preferred potluck contribution.

We brought chicken satay with peanut sauce and atjar, a pickled vegetable salad, to the festivities. Our present for the birthday girl was one of the smoothest beach stones we could find with a Charles Olson poem written on it and wrapped in a lobster bait bag – a fitting present for a Cape Ann artist we thought.

Today started off bleak with me pitying myself, to tears, about my professional re-entry. I wrote to a colleague for advice – how to handle the stalemate, the not getting enough work to stay afloat. Support came from an unexpected corner – help to reframe and re-center – but none of it will help me in the short run I fear.

I did participate in a teleconference of the US team that supports the Afghanistan team and there was finally a tiny sense of belonging again. Afterwards I talked with my supervisor and I asked for more advocacy, more action and told him I felt totally abandoned by the organization I had served for 25 years. Silence.

I did some work on the proposal that is still far out into the future. By now I have nearly exhausted what can be done so far ahead. The two weeks of vacation I had reserved for my trip to Holland are kicking in on Monday.

It has been drizzling all day, miserable weather that makes the yard with its dead leaves look dirty and unkempt. The indoor plants appear to like it, enjoying their last few days outside, a last fling before hibernation.

In the evening we joined friends in Newburyport to see Woody Allen’s wonderful Midnight in Paris movie. On our way there I was acutely aware of our freedom, to do whatever we want without having to check with security, asking for a car and driver and drive along deserted streets with too many people with guns, go through checkpoints upon entering building and hoping that all would be quiet. The glass of wine afterwards was also a luxury I did not take for granted.

In the final equation being home does carry the day in spite of the new stresses at work.

We are sitting by the fire. I have just finished the Quaker sampler – done in reds and pinks and purples – for Sita and Jim’s first anniversary while Axel is trying to read our home insurance policy.

reading an insurance policy turns out to be a great remedy against sleeplessness. The whole document is about things that will not be covered (a friend who worked in the insurance industry told us that you have to pay attention to the exclusions rather than what is being covered. You will find most of the document covering exclusions.

Some of them are most bizarre. I can just see these lawyers sitting around a conference table cooking up scenarios that most of us wouldn’t even dream of.

Axel does this reading because he is handling all the insurance stuff and so estate management remains a fulltime job for him while I go to work and continue my so far fruitless search for work.

There is no magic bullet, my new boss tells me. Of course I never asked for a magic bullet, just some recognition that I have been at this company for 25 years next month, wondering, is this the best they can do?

I came home really flat, Axel could tell from my face, after an eight hour workday of which six are being charged to vacation time – ughhh.

I now regret that I did not seek more actively a job elsewhere before I returned as now its is a little late in the game. I will start to pick up that search again because the current situation does not look good. Axel is ready for me to ship out again if that is the only way to be fully employed and being together. This is going a little different than I had expected.

We have two cars again – it took a lot of time and much money to get the second car, the one that will give Axel his freedom to move around. And then it immediately broke, that is a pin in the gearbox snapped and so Axel had it towed to a garage. But it is fixed now and hope for the best. We did not buy the car our dealer had available even though it seemed in better shape: it was 2 years younger, 20.000 miles further along but also nearly 3000 dollars more. You get what you pay is the motto of course. We knew this.

I keep going to work as if I have a fulltime job but I am still mostly running on vacation time. The balance between vacation and work time (that is billable to one budget line or another) is subtly shifting as I get more work. My eight hour today was up to half vacation and half work, a first.

We completed much of the discard phase of our re-settlement into our own house. I brought several bags full of Africana to MSH and was happy to see how most of it has been absorbed into various offices. The IT team has the large mud cloth with a village scene (from Mali) draped over its receptionist’s desk and my colleague Mamadou got the red leather amulet, one of several – appropriate as they are both from Senegal.

Liz has the painting from the Eastern Cape on her wall; a gift from my one-time squash partner who I met through a notice on the hotel message board. Sandra who does gender at MSH has the tiny ceramic Lesotho rondavels and the bronze men from Benin. She already had a relationship with them that is worked into her daily routine. It is nice to see things that were living in boxes out in the open on my colleagues’ shelves and desks and enjoying a second life.

I have finally managed to have vacation – just when I have near exhausted my vacation days and it is time to find billable hours and get up early in the morning again.

Sita and Jim are staying with us for a few days. Axel, Sita and I went to the Topsfield Fair, the oldest agricultural fair in the US, about 173 years old or thereabouts.

Sita mobilized us so we could see the Bengal Tiger show – a little depressing and more than a little degrading to see the king of the Sundurbans lowered to slavishly do tricks for the (mostly) white men with their families. They rolled over, stood on their hind legs, jumped through a hoop and growled – all this in exchange for pieces of steak tip pinned to a long stick and everyone clapped, but for what?

More entertaining were the piggy races with miniature Vietnamese potbelly pigs, adults and adolescents, racing along a tiny racetrack towards an Oreo cookie (for the winner) or crumbs (for the loser). We watched two races with hundreds of people under a warm blue sky.

Then the draught horses and their well-preserved antique delivery carts, moving effortlessly across the tracks in the big arena, competing for prize ribbons.

We had some overpriced greasy food, a must at the fair, sitting amidst obese people who each had their own portion – calories added to calories with some bacon bits to top everything off. Yum.

We saw the flowers and garden club winners, the 4H club exhibits and then stopped at the bee house where I signed Axel up to become a beekeeper sometime early next year.

Back home Sita and Jim embarked on an extravagant cooking adventure that included pumpkins filled with cheese fondue and bread and then baked in the oven. Jim worked on a parallel meal that included marinated chicken and vegetable kebabs. Tessa and some of the kids friends came over to help us eat it all – we did not quite manage so dinner for tomorrow is already cooked.

Just before bedtime Axel took me out for a kayak trip in the cove under a full moon. It was the most peaceful experience I have had in years: the calm water of Lobster Cove and further out Massachusetts Bay, the soft sound of water lapping against the rocks and the sea like a mirror –and all this in October.