Sylvia's Journal

Today the countdown will really start as there is only one week to go. People ask if I am ready. No, I am not. Part of the getting ready is saying my/our goodbyes. We had a few of those this weekend.

Alison’s goodbye was hardly a goodbye, more a comparison of note cards about transitions. But the visit to Uncle Charles, who is just 7 week s shy of turning one hundred years, was more of a goodbye.

We took him to his favorite lunch place, down the road, Lindsey’s family restaurant. It serves traditional New England fare, much of it deep fried, to people who shouldn’t be eating such foot; that their arteries are clogged is visible from a distant to the non-trained eye.  Charles, a regular at the place, had his usual dish; he doesn’t even check out the menu: fried scallops and a cup of coffee. Sometimes the restaurant doesn’t even charge him.

Lunch with Charles is always wonderful; unlike conversations with other people of a certain age Charles never repeats himself, only when you ask him. He has at least 95 years worth of stories and we can never exhaust the reservoir in our few visits. We hope that we can pick up where we left off a year or so from now. When we drove away, watching him wave to us in front of his trailer, we both had to swallow hard. Although he was in great shape and has the Wilson’s longevity genes, a goodbye at that age maybe more of a farewell. I invited him to come visit us in Kabul. “My plane is warming up,” he quipped.

From there we drove straight to Ipswich where another goodbye was organized by Edith and Hugh for our Ipswich and Newburyport friends. Edith reads my blog first thing in the morning and I better get this part of the story in before I am heading out to the physical therapist, the hand doctor and MSH where I hope to see Razia Jan and the person who introduced us to her, Ghia.

Edith and Hugh have half a share of a fish CSA (a CSF?), an experiment that is going on simultaneously in Newburyport, Ipswich and Gloucester. They served us this week’s bounty on the grill, a delicious haddock surrounded by agricultural bounty from Essex  County. At the end of the gathering there were more hugs and more goodbyes (of the ‘see-you-later variety), and reminders that, at our age, one year is nothing. Everyone agreed.

My workday yesterday was punctuated by wonderful distractions, starting with an early rise that led me into my Outlook task box. I am chipping away at both tasks and email and discovered a great way to get rid of more than a hundred messages: I asked my Gmail account to download from my MSH account and something went wrong and suddenly my MSH inbox was empty. No one yelled at me. I think I am going to try this again when there are too many MSH emails.

The next piece of work was my visit to the physical therapist who measured my right arm’s movement. At one point she moved it too far and my entire body sized up producing some dismal measurements. Later, when she observed me doing the over-the-head-with-a-stick exercise she noted a 40% discrepancy with her measurement and corrected it upward. Of the 180% I need to reach I am already at 150%, with no pain. I feel very ready to abandon the sling.

After a brief interruption of MSH work, including a call from my colleagues in Kabul, I headed out to see Abigail for my weekly massage. She tries to massage away the mess in my upper back. I was in heaven for a full hour, feeling limber and slippery from all the oil. This weekend Abi is starting a course to become an Ayurvedic practitioner; she already uses the most wonderful oils with exotic Hindi names.

The combination of sling and sitting a few more hours in front of a computer did undo much of the massage’s effects but then there was another distraction that had been planned months ago.

Armed with warm clothes, yellow rain slickers and rain pants we walked around Smith Point to join Sallie Craig, Douglas and their two friends Danny and Parker for a sail out of Manchester Harbor. The Hubers had won the sail in an auction for the Esperanza Academyl in Lawrence last year.

The weatherman had predicted storm and rain but it was the only time we could all get together and so, unfazed, we congregated at one of the more stunning houses on Manchester’s inner harbor. Douglas had quoted Axel’s most favorite saying: “there is no such thing as bad weather, only in appropriate clothing.” Hence the slickers and sweaters.

For an hour or so we beat the prediction of 70% chance of showers as we sailed fast over enormous swells with Douglas steering an obstacle course between lobster pots. After that the rains came and we all changed into our gear. Photographically this made us a much more interesting bunch because of the bright colors.

Our host Dave, who, we think, had not expected this prize would ever to be cashed in, and certainly not with yesterday’s weather predictions, served us wine, shrimp, cheese and other goodies that he handed us from below deck while we swayed back and forth with the waves. He was a gracious host and let total strangers sail his 43 foot yacht, occasionally nudging them this way or that. He embodied what, in my mind, good coaching and mentoring is all about; something about keeping an eye on the big picture combined with a good dose of trust and the joy of seeing others do well.

We arrived back at the dock just when the light started to fade. Wet and cold we were greeted by mosquitoes that must have learned that the dock is a good place to wait for food. For our own sustenance we proposed dinner at our house with the very appealing attraction of a roaring fire in the new fireplace; it was instantly accepted.  We cobbled together a dinner and toasted to our new friendship and a wonderful sail, then sat in front of the fire and discussed the state of the world.

It wasn’t until everyone had left and we considered going to bed that the phone rang with Kabul on the line. I had entirely forgotten that I wasn’t done with the workday and that there was one more meeting, with my Kabul colleagues. The call lasted until after midnight.  And now off to our next adventure: a wet and wonderful weekend on the Cape with Alison and another goodbye.

Between migrating to my new computer and talking with folks in Afghanistan on the phone, most of my day was spoken for. Much of my mental energy these days goes into ‘anticipating.’ Trying to image what I need to have taken care of, fixed, understand, settle or get within the next 10 days. It’s exhausting, all this anticipating. Luckily I am fairly good at it. I am from the school that tries to always have at least a plan B and C on the table. But this does make the anticipating more complex.

I received the sad news, via facebook (where life truly happens in front of your eyes) that my friend Carol lost her 29 year old Ashby in a car accident. I Googled his name, all the social networks showed up – he was a very social creature. In between I found a report from the Nevada State Troopers that a young man named Ashby had rolled over in his car and that he was, despite his seatbelt, killed on impact. As the report said, no way anyone could have survived on the driver’s side of the car. His passenger apparently did survive and was released from the hospital shortly after.

I first met Ashby when he was 11, in Bamako. Hardly sticking above the dashboard of his mother’s old clunky station wagon Peugeot, he drove us along the Niger River to a lovely island where we spent the night, surrounded by snorting hippos. I was rather taken aback that I was being chauffeured by an 11 year old but he was good, albeit a little too fast for my liking.

Carol and her family are of the type of people whose lives are intense, sometimes dangerous and never dull. As a result they have had more than their share of sorrows and scares that went along with the high peaks that you see when people live their life to the fullest. This is the abyss that comes after the peak. I can’t even begin to imagine.

My network of contacts in Afghanistan or with people who are here and have connections continues to grow. Word is spreading that I have entered the Afghan ecosystem. I received a call from Rachel from Groveland, a friend of a friend. She rattled off a list of names of amazing Afghan women she knows, hosts, or has worked with. They are all, in one way or another, involved in changing the lot of their sisters. I am entering this web of connections that is expanding at dazzling speed yet I know I am barely scratching the surface. Maybe it is because of this that I am hopeful about my sojourn in Afghanistan.

Most of the bad stuff we hear or read about involves men as agents and women as victims; but what I am discovering is a whole other universe in which women are the agents and, as far as I can see, no one a victim. The work is done by extraordinary women, quietly and only noticed by people who are inside this intricate web of relationships. I hope that Axel can contribute during his time over there to bringing some of this to the surface of the American consciousness.

I spent the entire day at MSH’s Cambridge office. I don’t have my own place anymore so I am like a visitor, occupying an office of someone who is travelling (Alain’s in this case). There are new people already in the office who I don’t know and it feels different already being there. I suspect that some of my colleagues are getting tired of saying goodbye. I have been in the process of leaving since June and it’s high time I get on the plane. My last day in the office will be next Thursday.

The large kale plant I brought from Lobster Cove Gardens was slowly dismantled as one by one people tore leaves off the giant stalk. When I left at the end of the day all that was left was a naked stalk with a few of the most elderly leaves clinging stubbornly to the bottom. I saw people walking around the building waving large kale leaves in my face – clearly no one is planning to make ‘booerenkool’ as they would have taken the whole thing. Some were put in vases and others, I supposes, added to soups and salads. It was nice to see so many people enjoying this bounty.

I received my shiny new computer, bringing the number of new computers  in our household to three. I think Steve also may also have gotten a new computer but that one stays at his workplace.

My new computer is not as small as the previous one which was not as small as its predecessor; slowly the size increases until it won’t fit any longer on the economy class tray table in the plane. Luckily I won’t be travelling as much by plane, and for my next trip I was able to get myself an upgrade for the 17 hour flight from Atlanta. I will have plenty of room.

Changing computers is a lot of work. It is like moving: a good opportunity to get rid of stuff – that’s where most of the effort goes. I also had to train the new computer in recognizing my voice. I stayed up past midnight to move into my new computer, with occasional interruptions, by Skype, from one of my Kabul colleagues who had just started his day. He wasn’t even surprised I responded. It was after all the beginning of the work day for him and I bet he doesn’t have a clock with Boston time on his computer.This morning the roles were reversed when we Skyped again, he at the end of the day, hungry because of Ramadan (called Ramazan in Afghanistan) and me more or less rested after a short night.

All of our coversations are about the workplan for next year, how to make it better, more complete and with clear accountabilities. The end of this annual planning exercise ritual is coming into view. This is ratcheting up the pressure and therefore also the number of conversations we have. Telecommuting to Kabul is a more than fulltime job because of this, with a workday that runs nearly uninterrupted for 24 hours a day.

I am counting the days till my sling can be put in the closet, 4 more. I am religious about my exercises in the hope of a faster recovery. I am using my right arm/hand more and more giving the overtaxed left arm/hand some badly needed respite. My left hand is now in a nearly continuous state of numbness and tingling which I hope (but also doubt) will subside once the sling is off

For the first time in nearly three weeks I am going to the office in Cambridge. There are many things to take care of that can’t be done from home. Even before I leave there is much to do as the series of PT exercises for my shoulder is expanding. The physical therapist is pleased with the progress of my shoulder’s mobility and, as if a reward, added a more daring one to the mix, one that actually brings my arms over my head.

Most of yesterday I combed over hundreds of excel spreadsheet cells, inserting tiny comments here and there in a distant effort to make the plans of my teams more coherent or at least something that I can live with the coming year. I had to ask myself, do I do this because it can be better or am I looking for perfection in a place where that should not be looked for?  I am usually a believer in ‘good enough for now,’ but first I want to make sure it cannot be better.

The tricky thing is, how to convey the questions to my teams in a way that is supportive and not embarrassing, via email. I try to be sensitive but we are spanning eight and a half hours and language barriers, just to mention the most obvious ones. I am glad my Cambridge colleague and suitcase carrier, Alain, is there now to act as a bridge. We will talk later today.

I harvested another two kale plants of gigantic proportions from our garden. The total weight of frozen kale in our freezer is now about six pounds. This does not include the plant I will bring along to Cambridge tomorrow to distribute among garden-less urban dwellers (who also were happy to take the baseball bat sized zucchini and giant patty pan squash of our hands) and the one that is still standing tall in the garden; not a bad investment for the 1.99 four-pack that I put in the ground in May.

At the end of the afternoon we had invited Robin for tea or a drink. She has lived and worked for four years in Kabul and is well ensconced in an interesting network of Afghan-Americans and people who work in the same ‘industry’ as I do. She is close to one of the senior leaders I will be working with. DJ turned us on to her, his neighbor, via facebook, and so we finally got together after a first introduction by phone some weeks ago.

We discovered that she grew up in Manchester and even lived on the same street that Axel grew up on, just a decade or so later. She was a cub reporter for our very own Manchester Cricket (“only the good news!”) but by that time Axel had left town so he never read her byline as the high school football reporter.

We discovered more connections and a host of new contacts with returned Afghan Americans that she will broker for us. She also gave us some great ideas for what do to for fun on weekends; I hope to report on these in the not so far future. Now there are three families with Afghan connections in tiny Manchester-by-the-Sea, imagine that!

It was hard to ignore all the emails that came in from Kabul where everyone was busy working – they dropped into my inbox with a soft ‘bleep.’ Still, I managed to spend Labor Day more or less labor-free.

It is also hard to ignore the increasingly loud voices that cry out about the election fraud in Afghanistan. Karzai’s legitimacy, if he is elected with a 50% vote, is already compromised and this cannot do much good.  The fraud is blatant in the eyes of us westerners, but learning more and more about Afghanistan’s past, it makes total sense. Why would anyone in his right mind let his opponent win?

I am deeply drawn into Sarah Chayes’ book ‘The Punishment of Virtue’ and have discovered that the quick impact surge of activities in which we are to play a role is not new. A similar quick surge, under another administration and with another cast of character tried the same without success some 7 years ago. Even the name was the same. It makes you wonder about institutional memory.

Still, undaunted, I keep throwing things in the large green suitcase we bought in Dubai; things that I may want to have with me, like sewing patterns (outfits that cover arms and legs), a flashlight, nasal spray, hot and cold packs for the continuing physical therapy, hiking boots….By the time the suitcases will be closed, less than 2 weeks off, I am sure I will remove much again for not being all that important after all. Packing for travel is all about choices.

In the afternoon, as if by design, Tessa and Axel decided it was time to visit the Apple Store, to look, which of course means to buy (such a clever store). We ended up dropping a huge amount of money in Apple’s lap to set up Axel for his stay in Afghanistan and Tessa for her studies. I pouted that I wanted to get a new toy too and pocketed the ‘free’ iPod touch that came with the new computer. Among all its apps it has weather and a compass, handy tools to have in flight just in case I get lost over the woods of Maine. It was one of the arguments I used to appropriate the gadget from Axel. He looked a little disappointed, but hey, he has a much bigger new toy. Tessa kept hers; she is after all paying for her new toy out of her own John Snow earnings.

Having a new electronic toy is always a huge time sink and kept me occupied through the evening. I discovered that I have not maintained my iTunes library very well; my last iPod purchase was a lifetime ago. Still, it was a nice re-introduction to the fabulous music that I have on my computer and can carry around in the palm of my hand as I make my way to Afghanistan.

We are getting one 10+ day after another, as if Mother Nature wants to apologize for the month of June when it was only summer in name. We are spending time at the beach, hanging out with our new neighbors, playing with Chicha, and reading. Axel attempted water color again but that got interrupted, a common occurrence. There is so much to do that it takes a lot of will power to just sit at the beach and relax.

The moment I step inside my office I am confronted with a jumble of stuff that divides roughly into three piles: ship to Kabul, move back into the living room, leave here but consolidate and pack up. In addition, a constant surge of emails from Kabul is spilling into my mailbox. There is no long weekend there; everyone is at work; the new week started on Sunday morning and Alain has arrived. This produces an additional flurry of activities and even more emails. I am not responding to any and tell myself that this is OK because it is Labor Day weekend.

I went to Quaker meeting by myself, in the car rather than on the bike. I suppose I could have tried biking with one arm but decided it would be too risky. Only 8 people showed up and so it was a rather still meeting. At the end I said goodbye to Gabrielle, one of our eldest members. She is getting increasingly frail and when I embraced her so say goodbye I suspected we both knew it might be the last time we see each other.

Gabrielle is from Germany and sometimes reminds me of my mom. She came to the US during the war when she was a young woman. Once or twice we have talked about that time but she mostly keeps that period of her life to herself. She never speaks in meeting because, as she told me once, if she were to speak she could only do it in German and that would be useless. I could not convince her that no one would mind and that I could then practice my German again, but she has remained still, except when she falls asleep; I gently touch her to bring her back.

Tessa, Steve and two of their friends showed up with all the requirements for a cook out on the beach. We have a pit that Axel dug out earlier next to a large granite uprising out of the sand. Over the years it has seen some big fires and it is cracked all over but it remains a great natural cooking place.

A campfire needs an instrument and so I had practiced my ukulele chords in the afternoon and was ready for some singing but no one joined in. I think it is because I play rather haltingly. I need more practice so I can slide from one chord to the next without changing tempo. Still, I can now play the chords of Oh Susanna, Goodbye Ladies and more; and I can certainly accompany myself. I will perfect it in Kabul with my house mate Steve who loves to sing, traveling there not with a banjo but with a ukulele on my back.

Axel and I switched from the outdoor fire to the indoor fire that we now light every evening and sometimes even in the morning. It’s lovely and heats the downstairs in no time thanks to an ingenuous fan system. We will miss it this coming winter.

My knitting and sewing material, plus an exercise ball, some 100 licorice tea bags and a good stash of licorice should be on their way to Dubai right now and onward to Kabul tomorrow, if everything is going to plan. I dropped a full suitcase off at Alain’s house in Belmont. When I turned around heading home I joined the avant-garde of the big Labor Day exodus into vacation lands further north.

The carpal tunnel doctor must have been among these vacationers because when I showed up for the appointment he was not there. This wiped away the fantasy I had nursed to leave for Afghanistan with the next diagnostic step (an EMG) completed. That would have made it possible to have the surgery during my Christmas vacation, if so advised. Scheduling such things during my short leave around Christmas is unlikely. So I will go one step at a time with only one step completed before my departure.

My work these days consists of combing through the draft work plans of my three teams in Kabul. It is detailed work which is not my forte, and thus somewhat stressful. It also requires sitting in front of a computer which is hard on the body, especially the mess of traumatized muscles in my neck and upper back. I finally had to resort to chemicals to manage the discomfort.

I had my second PT appointment and my arm and shoulder feel so limber this morning that I could easily forget to put my sling on. The range of motion is improving rapidly. I can do things I am probably not supposed to do without any discomfort, such as hanging a (small and light) picture on our newly painted living room walls. I do it when Axel is not watching. The urge to move everything back to normalcy and into the empty living room is hard to contain. Now that the hearth is in it feels completed, yet we are still waiting for the cabinet maker to put in the bookshelves that we had forgotten in the original design some 16 years ago. So there will be more sawing and hammering and normalcy will have to wait and my office will remain a storage room.

We attended a cocktail party with town officials at Woody’s to say goodbye and thank Nina, a member of Axel’s Community Preservation Committee. As chairman of the committee he has benefitted greatly from her contributions. Nina has one rule for committee meetings: at 9 PM she gets up and leaves, saying that a one hour meeting should be a one hour meeting. It has kept everyone on task and left more time for the guys to get a beer afterwards in the local pub.

Axel will soon be leaving this committee as well and he is still looking for a person to take over the chairmanship. Serving on town committees is usually considered a thankless and pain-in-the-neck job; yet there they were last night, all people who do this with (mostly) good humor and much dedication. Community stewardship still exists and I am happy and proud that Axel is one of these stewards.

When we returned home I could stay up just enough to say ‘hi and bye’ to Sita who arrived with Jim for a short night. By now she is at the airport waiting to board her flight to points further west, on her way to China. She will return in 12 days via San Diego, just in time to see me off to points further east. She left us a nice good bye drawing, as she always does; she is, after all, an illustrator.