Sylvia's Journal

I am back where I started. The weather in Atlanta, where I was to have caught the plane to Dubai, was so bad that planes in and out of Atlanta were cancelled or delayed by several hours. Somehow my four pieces of luggage went to Atlanta on their own while I stayed behind. The flight they travelled on would not have made the connection (I hope it didn’t) and given the choice between spending the night and all of today in Atlanta I opted for a return home.

I had not meant to let my luggage out of sight but an error uploaded them rather than offloaded them. I had hoped to repack this morning to avoid the $200 extra payment that Delta exacted from me for the fourth bag. Today I am going to try to leave again and reunite with my luggage in Atlanta before we fly to Dubai.

It was a bonus for Axel and me. After much waiting, we drove back north, had a quick bite –spare ribs, my last pork for awhile – and then went to see Julie and Julia, a lovely movie about following your heart. And although I am following my heart to Afghanistan, last night I followed it back home.

I have embraced my daughters and their men as everyone went his or her way. I promised to be back at Christmas, if we aren’t evacuated before that time. Today is it, the day of my departure; it has been in the works for the last 5 months. Cast-off is at about 2 PM.

It is a time of ‘lasts.’ Last Quaker meeting, last PT session, last early morning routine which wasn’t all that routine anymore especially since Sita used up all the coffee for our fabulous brunch yesterday – I can’t write my blog without coffee. The flavor of the writing is affected.

To make my departure even more difficult than it already is, Mother Nature pulled out all the stops and Manchester, especially Lobster Cove, is at its most glorious. Yesterday morning I took Sita’s fancy camera, early in the morning, just when the sun was coming up over the trees and an empty Lobster Cove was basking in its pink and orange light and took pictures from every angle. These I expect to be looking at when the absence of an ocean nearby starts to get at me.

I am finally ready; a few more small things to squeeze in empty spaces in suitcases and some repacking to make sure the last suitcase closes and will stay closed. My next sign of life will come in from further east.

All of yesterday morning was devoted to bodywork. This is possible because all is quiet in Kabul, the weekend of Eid is upon us and people are getting ready to feast, so very little email activity from that end.

I started with PT, getting a few more exercises as I am entering stage II post-op according to the doctor’s protocol. I declined the icepack at the end and headed straight for Abi’s massage place for a last and wonderful massage. While she continued with Axel I had my nails done by a tiny Vietnamese girl. I arrive in the midst of a wedding prep party with young blond girls debating the colors that would go best with their wedding party outfits. It made me think of the girl at Yale, murdered days before her wedding party by a deranged lab technician and all the things that did not and will not happen as a result. So very sad.

With most of the body work done, one last PT appointment on the day of my departure, I will be limber and spiffy when I arrive in Kabul, with my shiny dark red toes, short hair and no visible signs of a recent rotator cuff operation.

After his massage, Axel joined me for a lobster sandwich lunch at Panera (as advertised) and from there we drove to a community that is built for mature persons with money, just behind Wal-Mart to say goodbye to our neighbor Jacqui. The place is like a forest of large buildings that have been sprouting up, one after another, for the last few years, catching the front end of the baby boomers. The complex houses thousands of them;  people who are tired of mowing grass, shoveling show and the risks of walking out one’s front door.

Our neighbor Jacqui is one of those and has happily exchanged her beautiful but large house at the end of Lobster Cove for a small apartment at this retirement village. She told us about the possibility of walking for miles around the place, from one building into the next, without ever getting outdoors. For her that was a good thing. It makes us hope we are not going to get old for a long time, wanting such things is very scary.

While we walked back to our car I wondered why we put people of the same age together like that, all in one place. Why not sprinkle a few day care centers across the buildings and impeccably groomed lawns? The very young and the elderly, usually only mentioned together when we talk about the flu or other infectious diseases, ought to be living together. They would be able to give each other what they want most of all: attention. It would also make the place a little more lively; children’s voices and the pitter patter of small feet in a place where people speak softly and shuffle; what a concept. I see a business opportunity there.

The rest of the day was filled with a flurry of activities, checking things off multiple lists and following the finishing touches of the carpenter in our living room. He had to be a bit more precise than I was (slower is faster), so that he did not have to come back on Monday and we could move things back into the living room and invite our dinner guests to enjoy the new living room. When the first guest arrived, he was just cleaning up; we had about 30 minutes to get the place ready. We succeeded and the living room, except for pictures on the wall, is finally done, about 10 months behind schedule and just in time for my departure. We had a lovely evening sitting around the table and eating the goodies that all the guests had brought in and then, when it was parting time, we pretended that nothing is going to change.

The suitcases are more or less packed, the goodbyes to colleagues and friends in the Cambridge area said, the locker with the smelly rowing clothes, not used for a year, cleaned out and its contents washed, the paperwork for our continued retirement savings completed, the old computer returned and wiped clean and the final to dos put down on paper. I am indeed in the final stretch of my long transition period.

Psychologically my final day of work yesterday at MSH/Cambridge was more like a field visit to headquarters. I no longer have an extension number – my computer and cell phone constituted my virtual working space.  I had plenty of times to chat and visit with colleagues I am not going to see for awhile.

At the end of the day I was tricked into a ‘surprise’ sendoff party that was not really a surprise because Nina had already spilled the beans early in the morning and Alison spilled them again at noontime. Also, I am not stupid, and had correctly interpreted what the 4 o’clock ‘meeting’ scheduled for me was all about. I have attended too many of those sending other colleagues off.

I was touched by the kind words of colleagues that accompanied the send-off, especially those of younger colleagues whose public health careers at MSH, so they tell me, have been positively affected by things I did and said.  I have also been positively affected by them as my transition, work wise, was so much smoother because of them. They, the thirtysomethings, are now pretty much running the place and they do it well. It felt entirely natural for me to move to another place where there are fortyandfiftysomethings who could use some help.

At the end of the day, after making one last sweep through the office for some final hugs I picked Maria Pia up at Central square to visit Said at Mass General. She had not told him I was coming. I caught a surprised Wafa who surfaced from behind a curtain where Said was being catherisized or cleaned or what not by medical staff at the pediatric floor of MGH.

Wafa and I waited outside his room by the elevators watching the evening fall over Boston. We mostly talked in mime as his English is about the level of my Dari. I had forgotten my verbs again, the days of the week and other things I was able to say a couple of months ago. It was frustrating not being able to have a conversation with him as there is so much I had wanted to ask him. All I could repeat, over and over, was ‘Boston khub?’ and ‘Shoma khosh?” (Boston good? You happy?).  My next priority is clear: language lessons. A teacher is lined up and waiting for me in Kabul.

This morning, now doing my exercises in the dark, I achieved the hoped for 180 degree stretch with my arms over my head when I touched the ground with both hands holding a stick; not bad, six and a half weeks post-op. I have decided that I will not travel with my bulky sling. Between the anti-inflammatory pills, the cortisone shot and my shoulder’s range of motion I feel as good as new.

Last time getting up at 4:30 AM, now dark again, to make sure I can leave for work at 6 AM. This one and a half hour used to be plenty for my morning routine, including the half an hour or so of writing, but now I am pushing it with about one half hour of exercises are added to the drill.

The car is loaded with book bags, duffel bags and other stuff I cannot fit in my suitcases. It’s what I think I can live without for awhile. I checked the weather in Kabul, which is now programmed into my iPod-Touch, right alongside Manchester by the sea, Amsterdam and Dubai – significant places for me these days. Surprisingly, at around 8 PM the temperature (55F), the direction of the wind (NNE) and the number of knots (3) was more or less the same for Manchester and for Kabul. I took a jacket out of the duffel bag and squeezed it back in the suitcase.

The pace is picking up for both of us, Axel’s to-do list, a paper one, looks overwhelming; mine is less so as the big stuff has already been taken off and only smaller things remain, mostly in my head. The trip to the office today pushed several items to the top, among them all sorts of manipulations and forms related to my pension plan that MSH has just changed.

Part of my own preparation required a consultation with a financial specialist to make sure I don’t make any unwise moves with the money I have saved so far for our retirement. Getting the finances right is something that we learned a bit late in life and we swore we would not let our kids make the same mistakes that turn out to be quite costly when you look back later in life. We bought Tessa and Steve a two hour consultation to make sure they get off to a good start with the little money they have now. Sita and Jim get to do the same, an early wedding present.

My hairdresser Bonnie gave me a haircut that is the shortest ever. I think she doesn’t want me to go to another hairdresser in Kabul and by clipping my hairs back to about a half inch, she may indeed succeed; I won’t need a hairdresser for months. We made an appointment for December 23 when she can do it again.

She informed me of the latest developments in her nasty divorce and abuse case and it occurred to me that the only thing we have in common is the power of a community of friends that rallies around one during difficult times; without that, she thinks, she would have died. I can relate to that. But in any other aspect she and I are on opposite ends: self confidence, self sufficiency, family relations, housing situation, money in the bank, job security, technology and administrative savvy. 

I have my mother to thank me for much of that – she was a feminist in a quiet way and taught me that I should be able to take care of myself and the business of running a family/household in all its aspects (financial, administrative, insurance, taxes, maintenance, etc.). She also taught me that a strict division of woman’s work and man’s work in the household has never hurt a man and always hurts a woman when things go off the rails. She saw it around her and I still see it, Bonnie being the latest case in point.

All through my dreams I was looking for my missing files. Surprisingly I kept finding them, yet I never acted on that knowledge. Now that I am awake again, I can’t remember how to get there. So they remain missing.

My itinerary is now hanging on the kitchen window, next to the phone, where all my itineraries have always been posted so the members of my household know when I am going and when I am coming back. This time the return date is July 17, 2010. This date is somewhat arbitrary but it does get the message across that I am packing for a long absence rather than the usual 10 days or 2 weeks. That kind of packing was easy – I have packing lists and things ready to toss in my suitcase or even in my carry-on. This kind of packing, for the long haul, is an entirely different story.

I have sorted things in piles: need right away, can wait. The ‘can wait’ bags and boxes are going to MSH where they will wait until a traveler to Kabul is willing to take some stuff along. The rest will have to fit in the two suitcases that are spread open on the bed.

An alarm went off on my computer to remind me that tomorrow is my last day in the Cambridge office of MSH – as if I might forget. This is a last chance for some of the to-dos that require my presence there. It includes a trip to the boat club across the street to empty my locker. I will also ask our IT people to try one final attempt at locating the missing files and while they do that I will say my goodbyes to colleagues who are unlikely to travel to Kabul in the foreseeable future.

Yesterday I had my last follow up with the shoulder doctor who gave me the thumbs up; I am good to go. His assistant also gave me a cortisone shot and a prescription for some strong anti-inflammatory pills for the other, the ‘good’ shoulder that has been increasingly painful. Hopefully the effect of this shot and the pills will see me through the next few months and especially the two days of travel.

I woke up from having just resolved a word riddle that started with the words, ‘a notoriously famous cab…’ I was pleased with my accomplishment – seeing something hidden and yet so obvious in a jumble of meaningless words. I was about to hand in my solution to a gentleman who would determine whether I had succeeded when I woke up. Now, I will never know.

The puzzle in the dream was a continuation of a computer puzzle: files I had made to disappear from my computer screen. I did not delete them but can’t find them, and with that I undid hours of work. I went to bed still searching in my mind where I could have dragged them to. It has something to do with profiles and I hope that our IT Mamadou will help me retrieve them today. The alternative is redoing much of what I did last week which creates a slight bout of panic.

Yesterday was my first day without a sling. I felt both liberated and a bit anxious and new aches and pains have appeared. The latter may come from the new PT exercises that were added at the end of yesterday’s session. They are a bit more stretching than the original set. 

After PT I went to see the hand doctor. Axel accompanied me to the doctor so he can ask questions I forget; we have discovered that 4 ears and 2 brains are always better when dealing with doctors. The doctor confirmed carpal tunnel syndrome in my left hand/wrist. He offered to slot me in and operate, if I really wanted to, tomorrow. I must admit I considered it but then realized that with two recovering arms there was no way I could carry anything on my long trip to Kabul, so I declined and, in my mind, penciled in a date just before Christmas.

We then drove to Cambridge to attend a presentation by Razia Jan, the Duxbury Rotarian and tailor who we met in Kabul as well as Ghia, the arch-connector who we had only met by email and who has introduced us to all sorts of interesting people in Kabul, Razia Jan one of them. As she had a habit of doing, Razia Jan inspired everyone with her stories about the carpet makers in Bamyian and the girls school outside Kabul.

On our way back to Manchester we were intercepted by Rachel, a breathless ball of energy, a polo player, ex body builder, personal trainer, Rotarian, community organizer, feminist and peacenik as she calls herself. We met at Beverly’s Atomic Café where she rattled off name after name of women activists and others who know that educating women is one of the best development interventions known to mankind. We got more names, websites and contacts that will further embed us in Afghanistan and keep me grounded in what really happens (or does not happen) outside the government-to-government assistance that I will be part of.

Tessa cooked for us as I started to redo the haphazard packing followed by the file disappearing trick that made me dream about puzzles.