Sylvia's Journal

Indian summer has started after a few very cold days and nights, including a near frost. Everyone was out in flip-flops, shorts and tank tops and I was happy to follow suit. I ahd asked the girls and their mates to come to help us clear out the attic. We started late and first had to go through the Afghan treasures so we didn’t quite finish the job.

We filled three enormous fisherman’s boxes with paper recyclables such as rejected artwork, books, homework from 9th and 10th grade and miscellaneous artifacts from earlier decades of our family life. The girls made these decisions pretty easily; their father had a harder time.

To compensate for these losses the girls filled their cars with afghan embroidery, Ibrahim’s patchwork sheets, the small stools and tables that are too low for our living room and several books on how to speak Dutch. And then they left stuff with us for safekeeping – something we are trying to avoid but failed at. Now all the empty spaces in our house are filled again with things in transit – a process that seems without ending.

It was lovely to have the girls and Jim around for the day. I get a kick out of watching them having a good time together commenting on each other’s old writing, drawing, stuff that was important a long time ago that now make us laugh. Axel didn’t quite have such a great time because I keep wanting him to throw things out and he can’t.

Axel reminded us to clean the squirrel hair off everything that left the attic. Dog hair in the house, mold in the cellar and squirrel hair in the attic: it is nearly as bad as Kabul.

One of the treasures we found was a wind chime that Axel’s dad brought back from the war. It is a rather naughty wind chime that cleverly combined several male body parts into a bizarre statue that includes a voluptuous woman. We can’t quite hang it outside our home to catch the wind as it would make all our visitors blush. I suggested we bring it to the Antique Road Show when it gets to our neck of the woods – it certainly would create a stir. Some clever statue maker in Italy must have sold a few to the troops stationed there and made a killing.

And then there was Axel’s early artwork, letters from his 8th grade students when he was ill several decades ago, pictures and personal messages from way long ago girlfriends – that’s the problem when you can’t throw things away.

We just scratched the surface of what’s in the barn’s attic and one day I hope we can make our way to the end and open boxes that contain treasures we have forgotten about.
We celebrated the successful disposal of a few cubic yards by not cooking and going out for dinner. It was a lovely day and I am so happy to be home.

We are now learning that the mold removal companies are part of a racket – we could have figured this out – it is just like healthcare; as long as insurance companies pay, and not the home owner, who cares about the cost. The insurance adjuster will come and determine whether the sky is the limit or whether we are staying closer to the, moldy, ground.

Summer has returned, and with it the monarch butterflies that are fattening themselves up for their long trip to Brazil – it is hard to imagine these tiny fragile creatures being able to travel that far. They are attracted by the butterfly bush (buddleia) which Tessa planted during our absence. It’s beautiful and the butterflies think so too.

I took advantage of the warm weather to give all the plants that have summered outside a good wash, get rid of dead leaves, remove the bugs, clean the pots and, if needed, cut back the root balls so there is room for water and soil in the pot again. The next challenge is shoe-horning them all into our house near windows. Now, with the gigantic couch in our living room there is little space for large plants. A few plants died since we left for Kabul – this may have been a good thing. Where are we going to put all these plants?

In the evening Tessa joined us and we drove to Portsmouth to celebrate David’s 60th and see his kids, our kids’ friends. David is from the same year I was born in 1951 – a good year. David used to be Axel’s night nurse during the first week after his release from the hospital – on Thursday. We’d sit and talk until it was bedtime and then we had bagels and lox in the morning – a nice ritual. David always came with his little dog She-ra, an animated little creature that terrorized the local chipmunk population. I learned this evening that She-ra is no longer of this world.

In the meantime the chipmunks and squirrels have also recovered from Tessa and Steve’s two dogs and are reclaiming the yard, hiding nuts everywhere, in the ground, in the potted plants and between the sill of the house and its insulation.

The mold people are coming to our house to assess what it will take the recalcitrant growth out of our cellar. With the recent flooding in Beverly and Danvers they are busy these days but ready to take on another customer. Our flooding is a little older and the mold is everywhere, making Axel wheeze and breathe with difficulty.

The prescription is a bit of a bitter pill: anything that is cardboard or paper has to go – go as in: into a dumpster. This includes the Dutch and American games that have been sitting in dampness (“oh no”, said Sita), coats that are too far gone, old Gourmet magazines and cookbooks that we stupidly had stored in the basement.

Once the insurance adjuster has come we won’t have much time to make the hard decisions. But a Buddhist would say that this is all good luck as it is about time that we rid ourselves of all our earthly clutter. There is some appeal in this I must admit. I look forward to the dumpster.

I had a little bit more work today but my timesheet is still mostly filled with vacation hours – a little troubling as I think I must near the bottom of the vacation time barrel.

In the evening we drove to Cambridge to have dinner with Pia but instead we found Omid knocking on the door of a dark house. Pia had been called away to an emergency situation and so we settled in at the bar of the Elephant Walk, a lovely Cambodia-French fusion restaurant near her house until our table was ready. Pia joined us before the food arrived and we had our evening together after all.

As we drive home the thermometer indicated a slow drop in temperature. Freezing was predicted for most of Massachusetts and so I had picked the last red tomatoes and the purple and green peppers. We moved all the outside vacationing indoor plants near the house and covered them with plastic. Winter has made its first appearance. It will go away for awhile but not for long.

I took my gloves out of their summer hiding place and used the cashmere scarf that Sadiq’s wool ladies had knitted for me as a goodbye present.

Today I went to work. Not that there was a whole lot of work to go to, maybe more of a day of ‘work hunting.’ I went in to talk with people about how I could make myself useful and earn a living. I also went in to collect my access card to the building, find a space to sit, drop off books and Africana no longer needed back home and have lunch with a colleague not really seen/spoken to for a long time. And finally I also dropped my computer off for a thorough checkup which lasted through the day.

Having a space to sit lifted my spirits. I felt adrift before, not having a place to call my own – I can’t imagine what homeless people go through –and I was only missing a work home. I also will soon be part of a team, as we prepare for a proposal, so I don’t feel as much like a retiree. A space and a team is all I need – I was never so aware of the importance of these two things. Oh, and my computer back of course – being unplugged all day is risky as everyone here assumes you are plugged in all the time.

It was Tessa’s Steve’s birthday today and so we drove to Lanesville to join them for his birthday dinner. We ate a sinfully rich lasagna from the plates that Tessa remembers from her childhood, now hers to keep. Just as we are finally feeling settled into our house, they have nearly completed their nesting. Their little dollhouse is snug and lovely with everything carefully put in its place. It’s wonderful to have kids all grown up who prepare meals for you, serve you wine and then do the dishes.

I am losing count of the number of lobsters Axel is catching. Yesterday he came with the biggest catch ever, a two-and-a-half-pounder. After it had been given a hot bath we discovered a whole colony of tiny mussels that had settled on the inside of the giant’s tail – infant mussels. We hope this is a good sign that mussels are coming back. There have been no mussels in the cover for several years now.

Steve came to pick up his stuff, we brought the boxes to the dump and then I cleaned up the barn that has been used as a staging area for too many things. With winter coming Axel is moving indoors and has been spending the entire week to get his inside office organized with shelves and places to put the 100s of records that are occupying every existing horizontal space.

I did a project that took the entire morning and that ended exactly where it had started with us none the wiser. Being home is a lot of work.

We rewarded ourselves after this day of toil with the tail and claw of the giant lobster, a stiff drink and an evening of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves for entertainment. We’ve got to learn to say ‘no’ to projects.

I have three widgets on my desktop. Only one is still really relevant: the one that tells me how many days until we will celebrate my 60th birthday on an island on the far north-eastern tip of Holland. The other two I keep out of a sense of nostalgia: what the exchange rate is for Indian Rupees and what day it is today on the solar calendar (which uses the signs of the zodiac). Today it is the 9th day of mizan (‘scales’ or libra) in Afghanistan, while here we have arrived at the last day of September.

As it was the last day of the US government’s fiscal year it was now or never for some awards we have been waiting for. Some 11 months after we put in our bid MSH was notified today that the Sustainability, Leadership, Management and Governance project, the 6th incarnation of the project I started my MSH career with, was ours.

This is good news for many people at MSH whose job was tied to winning this project. As for me, I am not sure how this will affect me. I am not listed as permanent staff on this proposal and I am not entirely sure what the work will be. But at least I won’t looking for work in an environment that doesn’t have enough to go around for everyone currently on the payroll.

Sita pointed me to Freecycle.org – a localized website that tries to reduce what we put in landfills by providing a (virtual) marketplace for giving and taking without money changing hands. It’s a brilliant idea that I am discovering much too late. I joined just in time to advertise the availability of enormous amounts of packing paper, bubblewrap and Afghan moving boxes – wares that were immediately picked up by three different families who needed exactly that. What a concept!

Axel interpreted my very vivid dreams from last night as anxiety dreams. After three weeks at home I’ve come to the realization that this is what forced retirement must be like: one moment you are fully engaged with work and with the world and then, from one day to another, you are not.

My anxiety comes from being completely disconnected from everything I have been involved in over the past two years, or even the past 25 years at MSH. My homecoming was wonderful and sweet but it was also incomplete as there was no re-entry into my former professional world. Vacation is not really a vacation if you don’t know what happens after it is over.

Although I am considered 100% employed (billable we call it), I don’t have a desk, an entry card to the building, or a place to sit and call my own other than what I have at home. At first I thought this was a good thing but now I recognize it is not.

When I went to the last week I parked in one of the parking spaces assigned to my company. For this I had to sign in a book, much like I used to before I left for Kabul. I was told I had to pay 15 dollars if I was going to stay longer than 2 hours. I responded, “I am here for a meeting,” to which our receptionist responded, “but you are an MSH employee, are you not?” Employees have to pay for parking. I realized that I was indeed an employee but I didn’t feel like one, more like a stranger coming in for a visit. That exchange was a turning point.

This feeling of disconnection has only intensified since then. And so this morning I called in and asked for an entrance card and a space to sit. Once I have those I will discipline myself to come in three days every week, like I used to, and re-insert myself physically and psychologically, so I can feel like being part of something again.

Everything was unpacked today. The only things that did not emerge were my 20 colorful kites. I suspect they were at the bottom of one of the wooden packing crates and, because of their lightness and thinness, overlooked by the moving guys. It is such a shame as kites don’t transport that well any other way but at least I have the pictures to admire.

Most of our stuff has been slotted into existing spaces and our house has now a bit of an Afghan feel to it, replacing the pronounced African feel it had before. All the African stuff is packed up and ready to go to people who are into African things.

Axel has been busy re-installing himself in his winter (which means inside) office so we don’t have to heat the barn all the time. This is turning out to be a very time consuming task.
We realized that this is the first time since July 21st 2007 that we are living all by ourselves in our house again – so this is really a move back into our own.

I have booked my ticket to Holland at the end of November. I will be visiting my brother for a few days before picking up Axel and friends whose departure dates are still under discussion – before we all head out to the island in the north where I will enter my next decade.

Our shipment came in today, not our ship, the one Axel has been waiting for for so long, but the stuff packed up on September 5 in Kabul. All 3000 pounds were taken by two beefy men into our empty barn which is no longer empty. The night before I had not slept well, waking up every few hours agonizing about where all the stuff was going to go.

We had a big living room in Kabul, much bigger than here in Manchester. Some of the items that came out of the container are rather out of place here, like the small 4-inch high tables and stools that are meant to be next to Afghanistan’s traditional seating arrangements, the tushaks. These low to the ground pieces of furniture are of no use here where all our furniture is high off the ground. We don’t know what to do with them other than store them or give them away.

Despite our lack of absorptive capacity We are complete again, gone full circle from two years ago. Everything is here now except for things I left in Kabul – things I expect to need/use during a visit to Kabul in the future, if there is to be one. Now with the new twist in the (public) PAK-USA relations it seems all bets are off.

In between the unpacking of the 18 boxes I skyped with old friends and my future co-facilitator, fourteen timezones away, about the upcoming gig in Japan, one of my two pieces of work for the fall. I did accept the proposal writing offer because it was thrown into my lap. I have never done such a job before but people think I can do it.

M. called me from Kabul to say that the third leadership workshop with the midwives had gone very well. It had left everyone inspired, including the facilitators, and produced more confidence all around. If this is my only legacy in Kabul I would be very pleased indeed.

Today we ate lobster number 10 and 11. Axel is having a steady record of catching two lobsters every two days with the increasingly smelly haring bait.

While he was providing sustenance for the family I went to Quaker Meeting, on my bike, trying to re-establish a routine that I had before I left for Afghanistan. Sitting an hour in silent expectancy of communion with God I found my head all but silent – my thought racing around my head remarking that this needed to be done and that, and that, and that. Whole to-do lists emerged while I was trying so hard to meditate and be silent. At the end someone said that the silence had been wonderful. Oh, how I wished…
But the bike ride to and from is also meditative, in a different sort of way, as one has to be careful about traffic and follow the rules. Feeling the warm wind on my arms, neck, face is an untold luxury, still; not having to be all wrapped up such a thrill.

While I continued to adjust to my new life of freedom and complexity and abundance, my two mentees did the third workshop with the Afghan midwife association chapters from several provinces. The first workshop I sat in the back, the second I was in India and so they were on their own – this had not been the plan but postponements had led to this. The third workshop, which was also supposed to happen with me still around also got postponed and so they were once again on their own. I have been thinking about them all weekend and am anxiously awaiting pictures and a report.