Sylvia's Journal

In these frantic days before Christmas my commute from Cambridge to Manchester at the end of the day sucks. It goes by three major shopping centers and the traffic jams are intense. All the men of eastern Massachusetts have started their last minute shopping.

I shortened the perception of being stuck in traffic by chatting with my sister in Brussels about her first grandchild. He was born yesterday, a sturdy little fellow named Fedde. He arrived a week early. That was a good thing because he was already so big that he didn’t fit in the newborn outfit she had bought him. Fedde’s mom is from Scotland and tiny. It was heavy labor indeed.

By the end of the conversation I had left one shopping center behind me and tackled the second by talking with girls about their new cousin once removed or whatever you call the child of a cousin. That got me past another shopping mall and finally Alison talked me past the last. With all these wonderful conversations the ride home was a cinch. Our lawmakers are proposing to forbid mobile phone conversations, hands free or not, from the driving experience. From a public health perspective they are responding to the statistics and how could I oppose. Maybe they should make an exception during the last pre-Christmas shopping days.

I have made some decisions about work that make me walk more upright and less whiny. I was given a corporate assignment that allows me to do meaningful work without getting on a plane. I am teaming up with a (new to me) colleague on an assignment that is interesting and possibly challenging. It involves dealing with feedback loops and people’s reactions to what is in those loops. It would be the kind of assignment I might get for a place like Kenya or South Africa – just no travel.

The 30 cubic yard container on our driveway is now largely filled. I have to admire Axel who has been singlehandedly responsible for filling it. Throwing things away is not his forte but the mold is making him decisive. I told him I don’t want to know what he threw away. Not knowing is better as the prospect of dragging things out, removing the mold (I would have to do it myself) is very unappealing. If I have lived happily without these items for the last few years, I can make that a lifetime.

But no matter how much we throw out, the house looks more cluttered than ever. Having a Christmas tree and Christmas ornaments around doesn’t help. I am accused by my family of not getting into ‘the Christmas spirit.’ Only once in a while, when I am driving down a road with houses that are tastefully decorated, or singing Christmas carols with other people do I get into that spirit. But most of the time the Christmas spirit is about too much sugar in and too much money out – in and outflows I cannot resist – that is when my Christmas spirit is at its weakest.

One thing about being depressed that always surprises me is the feeling that this is going to last forever, a sense of ‘no way out.’ And then there is a way out, even if only for a while. Drawing in deep clear breaths while being ‘out’ helps to have the kind of conversations that lift up rather than press deeper downeven more.

And so this is a period of ups and downs. Yesterday I left work early, deeply depressed and all teary, not seeing any way out, pitying myself, always on the verge of tears. I remember one of my first bosses at MSH, a woman, saying to me over twenty years ago that crying was unprofessional, especially for women as it would ‘hurt our cause.’ It stuck and I so I held my breath until I was in the car, driving home, bawling.

But then there are the uplifting conversations, the kind that reframe situations or allow me to see hitherto unseen possibilities. One such conversation was with Sita. I asked her for advice on the design of a visioning workshop I will be doing in Kenya in a few weeks. It is the most exciting and satisfactory thing to receive professional advice from one’s child. I think we would make a good team – in fact I already know we do since we last worked in Kabul, now five years ago. Sita has a vision of a family business. Maybe.

I also talked with my new supervisor who put things into perspective, painting a picture that is realistic and sobering. Thoughts about loyalty and entitlements are irrelevant in this picture.

Someone asked me the other day whether I was suffering from PTSD. I immediately answered that I was not. But then I began to read about it and now I am not so sure. My return to work has been difficult, my sense about future employability has been severely shaken and I go through these cycles of not sleeping well, feeling weepy and mildly depressed.

The mild depression is not helped by social events that remind me of my situation when people ask me about what is next. People with very friendly intentions have also asked me about the plane crash and about what it was like to live in Afghanistan – they can’t imagine either one – but I don’t think my telling makes a difference – they still can’t imagine. I realize that I don’t want to talk about these things and prefer to be a wallflower at these social events – of which there are many at this time of the year.

In fact, I would prefer nothing better than that envelop myself in a warm blanket and sit in front of the fireplace and watch uncomplicated movies like Miss Marple or documentaries. I can’t seem to concentrate long enough to read a book or even something as short as a New Yorker article.

It is mustard time. Before we left for Afghanistan I would spent many evening nights before Christmas making mustard. I would produce over a 100 small jars. A real cottage industry. I would lugs boxes of mustard jars to MSH and put them in the pidgeon holes of colleagues dear to me or who had been particularly helpful over the year.

This year I won’t make so much. Only a few will go to my workplace and the rest for family and friends. Maybe that is the most telltale sign about how marginal I feel in my work life. I have been back for over 3 months but nothing much has become any clearer in terms of full time employment. Paradoxically, I am not without work, but all of it is in faraway places that require at least a day of travel time.

Axel already knows his Christmas gifts. In fact one was already delivered and enjoyed: the trip to Holland. The other is also a trip. He will accompany me to Japan at the end of January. This is one benefit of travelling so much – I can take him along on frequent flyer miles.

Axel’s other big Christmas gift is, we hope, a clean cellar. The company he selected sent a team of mesoamericanos to spray and vacuum our cellar and remove the offending mold. I had expected a drawn out affair, over days. But when I came home one day it was all done and a huge container was parked at the end of our driveway. It was half full with stuff that was either too moldy to clean or should have been thrown out a long time ago.

Upon closer inspection, after the team had left, we discovered so many nooks and crannies that still had their cobwebs intact that we asked the boss to come back next week. We would pay the 5000 dollars the insurance company gave us for a job well done, as per specs, but this was hardly worth a fifth of that amount.

yesterday I joined four of my MSH sisters, colleagues of more than 15 years, for lunch at a restaurant in Jamaica Plain where we had celebrated so many things over the last 20 years. It was a trip down memory lane without too much reminiscing and much joyful news about grandchildren in the near future and meaningful work. Three of the five have left the organization, only two of us remain.

In the evening Tessa had invited us to a party organized by her friend James in his bachelor pad in Gloucester. Coming from a generation who generally considered adults ‘the enemy,’ it was good to know that in Tessa’s circles they are not.

We were the only representatives from the parent generation. I was wondering whether any of her crowd could even imagine bringing their parents to a party where everything they did was observed. But Tessa did not mind. Maybe it is considered cool to have parents who survived a plane crash and then went to live in Afghanistan. For Axel such parties with young people are a real treat as he moves effortless between generations.

All of Holland is a memory again, rather than real time experience. We have been back for more than 24 hours and it is as if we never left. We did not take any cheese or licorice back, intentionally, to indicate that the vacation is over and that the pounds gained so easily need to come off again.

Part of me was happy to come home and end suitcase living ‘with a limited palette.’ Part of me was sad to leave Holland behind, wanting to stay there. I did not want to come back to more job uncertainty, not knowing how to bill my 8 hours in the office and the stress of making commitments and then the dates change. I love it when clients say, ”these dates are firm, go buy the ticket.”

We found a large rubbish container in our driveway. The contractor who is going to clean up our moldy basement put it there. We can’t wait. Within an hour of arriving home Axel started to have upper respiratory problems. The effect of the mold on his lungs is painfully obvious.

Our neighbors started to throw out things that should have been thrown out years ago – all moldy now. I haven’t gone down yet but according to Axel their part of the basement is now empty. Now it is our turn, starting with moldy board games. I am not too attached to them but the kids are; Sita wants her Pony Jumps and Tessa the Arab-Israeli wars, for a friend. We never played it, too complicated, just like the real thing.

We are now back to a more typical American visit of Holland: it is Tuesday, this must be Holland. We ran the ‘randstad Holland’ from Rotterdam to Haarlem via Leiden and the tulip bulb region in one fell swoop. No tulips of course. They are all tucked away 6 inches into the sand awaiting spring and the tourists.

We visited my sister in law in Den Haag so I got to see the two nephews we had missed on the island. We went for a long walk through Den Haag’s many parks giving our friends the wrong impression that Den Haag is all meadows with sheep and geese and woods. After a very quick swing through the urban part of Den Haag we drove to Leiden, trying to squeeze in as much as we can of the remaining Dutch treasures on our last two days.

I showed my friends around Leiden where I spent 5 student years. One of the pilgrimage sites was the Frisian bakery which still has the same sweet bread specialties from way back when. I lived above the bakery and remembered the smell of freshly baked bread, and then bought a ‘pof’ (raising bread with a cinnamon sugar filling) and Frisian sugar bread plus a few leftover Saint Nicolas sweets.

On our way home we passed a wool shop and I couldn’t help myself, even though the same wool is probably for sale in the US. After I completed my selection I was asked to pull a chance card from a basket – to celebrate the shop’s 10 years of business. It was my lucky day and I won my entire purchase, having pulled a winning ticket.

In Heemstede I showed my childhood home and the woods that were such an important part of my growing up. It was dark and much of the detail of my early childhood environment was not really visible. I am sure such pilgrimages are really interesting for others – they are more significant to me – a nostalgia trip.

I had ourselves invited for dinner at the flat of our longtime (25 years) friends from Newburyport who have settled in Santpoort Zuid. She’s Dutch, he’s American but ready to get his Dutch passport. He speaks fluently Dutch. Although Lobster Cove is one of the most beautiful spots I have ever seen, part of me would like to do what they did – live in Holland for a bit. Now that I have spent two weeks as a tourist I am aware of all the things I miss. We had a fantasy about finishing 2011 in Holland but the realization of that fantasy was not very obvious.

But then again, there is nothing like home, and the promise of sleeping in my own bed two nights from now, and not having to pack and unpack all the time is increasingly appealing.

We have ended our grand tour of Holland at the house that has become my home-away-from-home in Holland, 15 minutes from Schiphol. Tomorrow is our last chance for Haarlem.

I know I am really on vacation when I only periodically check my email. This is indeed the case. For about 3 evenings I was obsessed with the 1000 piece puzzle which I finished just in time before we packed out.

In between these puzzle evenings we walked, in rain, wind, sun (all in quick succession) across the beautiful landscape of the province of Utrecht, in between museuming.

Today was our Rotterdam day. We checked into a wonderful Art Deco hotel smack in the center of Rotterdam and then we peeled away from our friends who did more musea. For us Rotterdam always requires a visit to Hotel New York, the old terminus of the Holland America Line, another Art Deco behemoth that stands on a small strip of land in the middle of the world’s busiest port.

Today’s visit took the whole afternoon as we lunched on cockles and whelks and periwinkles, shrimp and crab, served on a dish on stilts, filled with ice – a magnificent sight and taste. Armed with pins we pried out the little creatures from their shells, popping the tiny Dutch shrimp unpeeled in our mouths.

To and from the hotel one takes a water taxi. It took us through the very choppy waters from one side of the river to the other, that in itself is fun – looking at Rotterdam from the water is worth the fare which has increased by 300% since we were last here. It is a bit like watching the Statue of Liberty from the Staten island ferry. That used to cost 10 cents – you know you are getting old when you start comparing prices of 1973 with those of 2011.

We met up with our friends on a busy shopping street – a rather chance encounter in this big city – and explored more of the city, its yachting harbors (Veerhaven and Old Harbor) now by night before settling in a lovely restaurant by the water – just in time for the next weather change.

We are now planning our last 2 full days of our vacation – there is much we wanted to do and can’t anymore; people to see, musea to visit, cities to see – but the clock seems to be ticking faster than last week – unstoppable towards the 12th.

We are now happily ensconced smack in the center of Holland in the summer house of my brother in law – a birthday gift that keeps on giving for several days. We spend evenings sitting in front of the fire after simple home-cooked meals. I am working on a 1000 piece puzzle – a sure sign of vacation.

On our first day we visited the Kröller Mueller museum – one of Holland’s most spectacular modern art museums. We had a late start so we had to drop the tile museum nearby. The weather cycles between rain, sleet, sun and wind, alternating between cold and chilly and not so cold and chilly.

On day two we ventured into Utrecht, getting hopelessly tied up on narrow streets going back and forth over and along canals in always one-way-streets, looking for a parking garage. We can now advise others to not look for those in the center of the city.

We visited the Dick Bruna (of Nijntje or Miffy fame) house, part of the central museum and learned about his influences (French impressionists), his work illustrating familiar childhood books (Simenon, The Saint) and his relentless search for simplicity.

We found the same theme in the Schröder-Rietveld house, a remarkable piece of architecture with vanishing and re-appearing rooms, result of so many sliding walls and doors and windows – as if by magic.

From there we biked back into the wind to the central museum on our central museum bikes, graciously made available to get from one museum to another.

Back home I struggled with a forgotten timesheet and more re-integration glitches and the threat of not being paid for the last pay period. I had forgotten to take care of this before I left home and am now suffering the consequences. It created a momentary upset in the otherwise perfect vacation mood. Thanks to a good internet connection a temporary solution was found that will keep our automatic payments from bouncing. Sigh.

All day we walked, along the wide and endless beach of Schiermonnikoog. We could see seals play in the breakers just off shore. The wind was in our back blowing us fast and far for a very long and slow return. Just at the right time a small dune restaurant appeared which had hot chocolate with whipped cream ready plus countless other goodies for tired beach walkers.

Inside we found another part of our family clan, already ‘on the coffee’ as we say in Dutch. The Dutch love their coffee (and apple pie and, again, whipped cream). The only reason the Dutch aren’t all overweight is because of the bikes. That was another activity we could have done. But by the time we returned from our very long and windy back (against the wind back) we were too pooped for a bike ride. I fear that all the calories we did consume will be showing.

For our evening meal the hotel had given us a separate room far removed from the regular dining hall. I am not sure if we asked for it but we had been so noisy that some of the other guests may have complained.

After singing every birthday song known to mankind in two languages we had a most delicious meal. There were speeches in Dutch and in English from ‘the warm side’ (the direct descendants of my father and mother) and the ‘cold side’ (those who married into the family) and a side that has no name (those who are friends of the family). After the last dishes were served Saint Nicholas showed up and brought me presents, quite an honor as usually I always had to go to Saint Nicholas to get them.

At midnight there was another birthday and we sung again but by then many had gone to bed, especially those belonging to the older generation (that is us now) and some of the people who had been walking for 5 hours.

Most of the clan took the first of three possible ferries back to the mainland, one in the morning and two in the afternoon. From the Manchester clan only Tessa and Steve stayed in a suddenly very quiet hotel.

We parted from Sita and Jim who headed back to Amsterdam with their cousin who is graciously lending his apartment to them as he move sin with his girlfriend. Tessa and Steve are by now also in Amsterdam with another cousin on the other side of the city.

After our goodbyes we left for the east of Holland to my brother’s place, stopping along the way in a tiny museum, beautifully crafted in the lowland landscape, full of art from Friesland’s best modern and contemporary visual artists. The museum (Belvedere in Heerenveen) is situated on a large estate that is open to the walking and biking public.

We arrived in the dark at my brother’s house and were treated to a French dinner consisting of tartiflette (potatoes, reblochon cheese and bacon), a salad and tarte tatin (apple pie) for desert.

Afghanistan is still very much part of my life. On this day, my 60th, my first congratulations came over Skype from Kabul. M called and it made my day. I am sitting downstairs in the sitting room of the old hotel where my siblings and most of their offspring gather yesterday. The calm and quiet of the living room (I am the only guest from the entire hotel) with the extreme noise of us dining together last night.

The calm and quiet and warmth also contrasts with the howling wind and rain outside. The weather is even worse than I had imagined. All night the wind was like a wild animal nipping at our windows, banging into the roof of the hotel where we sleep under the eaves. But when I planned this trip this is exactly the weather I was longing for in hot, dusty and dry Kabul.

Our clipper ship experience was great albeit a bit cramped as we slid into our berths. The next morning we walked all over Groningen center to admire the city, visit the market and trying to unlock our phones. That it was a young man from Kabul who did this and sold Axel a new phone is hardly surprising. Fate keeps pushing us in the way of Afghans or Iranian. I have had more chances to practice my Dari in the last 2 days than in the last 2 months.

We drove to a tiny town north of Groningen to pick up my grandmother’s restored cookbook. The restoratrix introduced us to her husband, a doctor who used to live in Ken, who is now a coin collector. She herself used to be a biologist specialist in penguins but found bookbinding to be more than a hobby. She did a great job and I can now use the cookbook again.

We were received by the couple as if we were family. We got a tour of their enormous barn and living quarters and marveled about this beautiful moneypit. We got some glimpses of what the house may have looked like nearly a century ago.

By the time we arrived at the ferry terminal it was dusk. So I never quite saw where we arrived. Now it is dawn. In addition to hearing the bad weather I can now also see it.