Sylvia's Journal

More concerts followed the Afghan-American extravaganza. Friday night the Walker Creek Band from Gloucester celebrated its 30^th anniversary with oldies that connected all the baby-boomers in the room, now balding and grey, with their naughty, wild and irresponsible past. A video played in the back showing the same line up as the one in front of us, just 30 years younger.  So much has happened since to all of us. But one thing had not changed – people danced with the abandon of twenty- and thirty-somethings.I had put on my orthopedic boot which makes for great pivoting and provides some protection. However, it also activates the neural problems in the other foot.  Still I danced, albeit with less abandon.

On Saturday, before going to yet another concert (a snowstorm-delayed performance of local talent singing love songs and reading love letters penned by famous people long gone, and accompanied by desserts), I tried my hand at sushi again, after 7 years or so. We have, not far from us, a fish market that caters to the needs of people who love raw fish, fish eggs, and seaweed.  We also discovered that the short shrimp season is not quite over. Enormous piles of the tiny shrimp were available in five or 10 pound bags. We took some home for lunch and then ate some of them raw and others cooked.

We brought the raw shrimp, the scallop carpaccio and some irregular shaped maki rolls to a friend’s birthday celebration and renewed acquaintances with people only vaguely remembered from earlier meals taken together.

Sunday another snowstorm hit us, one that appeared to hit only the coastal areas. And so we stayed once more in our pajamas all day, watching the snow swirl and drift outside, keeping the home fires burning and working ourselves through the Sunday NYTimes.

This week has been defined by the two concerts I attended of the Afghan Institute of Music (ANIM). Wednesday evening’s concert attracted friends from Maine who drove 4 hours and got their just in time to get a seat and relax. Getting lost in Boston would require either a stiff drink or better, a concert by American and Afghan kids who have a love for music in common.

Anyone with a bit of an Afghan connection seemed to be there, in the basement of the New England Conservatory. We sat around tables while the orchestra members sat on chairs or on carpets on a podium in their midst. The American kids were dressed in orchestra black and grey while the Afghan kids were dressed in colorful and/or embroidered tunics and dresses, the girls with scarves in the colors of the Afghan flag (black, red and green).

One of the many highlights was the adaptation of Ravel’s Bolero for Indo-Afghan instruments. Extraordinary! Our friends from Maine, also SOLA parents, joined us for an after-concert dinner at Ariana, sampling mantu, aushak, burani, kaddo, dupiazza and qabuli rice. They stayed overnight at our house before making the long trek home on Thursday.

Once I realized that the Wednesday concert was only an appetizer for a longer concert the next day, I showed up again. The Thursday concert was less colorfull (dress-wise only) and showcased more individual talent. It ended with a joyful singalong featuring Bob Marley and an old eastern European kletzmer song that I remember from my girl scout days. Funny that that was the song the Afghan kids taught their American counterparts. It shows that music knows, although sometimes composed and used for nationalistic and ideological purposes, can be a joyful medium for bringing together people who are ignorant of such roots and simply enjoy the act of singing and listening.

We hunkered down while blizzard Nemo (2013) was roaring outside, sweeping the cove into a frenzy of large swells and waves that rolled in like thunder and broke over the granite wall onto the street.  Inside we were enjoying the company of Sita and Jim and little Faro, sitting by the fire, stoking it up just in case the power would go off. It never did, nor did the internet connection go down. Thus we were able to document the course of the blizzard through facebook postings.

Steve was told to show up for work and was then turned back when the mayor of Boston put a driving ban in place: one year in prison or 500 dollars. Imagine that. Apparently some people were stopped and sent home but no one was sent to prison. Our governor referred to those as knuckleheads). All the while Tessa was frolicking around in Los Angeles. A fortuitous departure the day before the storm allowed her to use her free ticket that would have gone ‘poof’ after March 1.

If we were in danger because of the storm, Tessa was in a place terrorized by a rogue police officer who had gone off the rails. The whole affair seems to put into question the main story line of the pro-gun lobby that it is the bad people who use their guns on innocent people.  I presume the policeman was once considered a good person and given training and access to guns, just like the mujahideen in Afghanistan who we gave Stinger missiles (and now we are considering a similar move in Syria).

I never got dressed on that blizzard day and decided it was a good day for a 1500 piece puzzle. Sita and Jim helped and we completed it in no time. Encouraged by the success I started another puzzle but I couldn’t convince anyone to join me. Alone I cannot finish a puzzle between meals and so it takes over the dining room table forcing us to take our meals in front of the TV. Tonight I decided to put the thing back in its box even though I did not quite complete the (all black) edges.

Over the weekend we were supposed to assist Sita in a series of networking sessions at Harvard’s Social Enterprise Conference. Sita barters her services in exchange for connections and access to even better connections.  The snowstorm cancelled the first day of the conference and Sita’s crew of scribes and facilitators were not able to make it into Boston and so she mobilized her parents. It was fun working with her again and watching her scribe the two keynote speakers.

I read the entire New York Times book review from last Sunday. It is rare that I do so. I read the review of the book The Insurgents by Fred Kaplan about the …plot to change the American way of war. The illustration features Petraeus against a backdrop of warriors. I share a common ancestry (Dutch) with the man but that is about the only thing, plus maybe the ‘hutspot’ and small talk we shared on one 3rd of October at the Dutch embassy in Kabul.

He was the reason why, in our work in Kabul, we suddenly had to insert COIN in all our writings and reasonings of our, American-financed, health project. But then, one day, we didn’t have to use COIN anymore. The book review told me that …’the counterinsurgency cult was more than a fad (…) but much less than a revolution.’ All of this a reminder that things look so very different and compelling, inevitable even, when you are down in the weeds in the valley instead of high up in the clouds.

I also learned from the review that the army is trying to become a learning organization. Just like MSH. We advocate the military’s After Action Reviews as a learning organization’s tool, which it is for folks in the weeds, but not for the Gods on the Olympus. The lesson I retain is that we should focus on how people in organizations can learn new tactics quickly, rather than sweeping changes in operating systems – where do we see this happening after all? It’s about mental maps and agility, about the dynamics among the powerful, more than getting things right each time, every time, a mantra of efficiency specialists that makes me cringe.

We finished part one of the coaching course on a high note with an exercise that turned everyone into a poet – quite wonderful. This group of 13 people who didn’t know each other 30 hours earlier had started to gel…we will be going through the 8 months coaching program together. I am a lot less hesitant than I was on Friday morning.

We left in a gentle snow storm, Axel hurrying home to see the game while I couldn’t care less.  Back home I fell asleep on the couch until Axel nudged me to bed.

Today I said goodbye to the hand doctor who says I don’t need him anymore, but with every doctor scratched off the list a new one comes around. There is the doctor to check out the nerves in my right foot to figure out the cause of the abnormal sensation that has been with me since the accident.  I also scheduled surgery for the left ankle (March 5).

I had my fourth acupuncture session in a row which confirmed that something happened this weekend that was visible in my body according to the acupuncturist. The way it showed up for me is that I quickly went into deep relaxation, needles and all.

One of my resolutions after the weekend was to re-start my yoga practice at home, using the DVD that kept me in shape in Afghanistan and which I haven’t touched since I got back, now a year and a half ago. With my hand healed enough for a down dog or plank, I was all set up when none of my computers would play the DVD. Hours later, downloading programs that didn’t fulfill their promises, the yoga mat, spread out in my office, sat there, unused and I was none the wiser.

One of my new mottos is, tomorrow start over again. So that is the new resolution.

Axel and I completed day one of the coaching course. It is exceeding my expectations. The biggest insight from yesterday was about people pushing one’s buttons – my reflecting about this has always been about the people who are doing the button pushing, but I came to realize it is not about them. First of all, I can’t change them, but secondly, and more importantly, it is me that is providing the button to push. Visualizing this made me laugh – me, with all these buttons spread over my body that are blinking and are waiting to be pushed. Ha!

We have an interesting mix in the group – it is the cohort that we will be working with until we complete our classroom work sometime in September. I am sorry that the guest invitation, extended to Axel, ends on Sunday night, but at least he knows what this is all about.  Experiencing these three days of reflection reminds me of our Cape Cod Institute days – learning in the morning and digesting everything (alongside with some great meals) in the afternoon and evening. Then, at night, we further digest the material in our own in our dreams.

Yesterday was all about ‘down energy’ – the kind of energy that drains, saps and pulls self and others’ down. We could all think of lots of examples. We are promised that today is about ‘up energy’ and I already feel that way when it is only 8 AM in the morning.

Against the strict orders from our daughters, who had Axel promise not to let me put on a pair of cross-country skis, I disobeyed all and loved getting back on skis. I was careful not to fall because I wasn’t wearing my hand splint – it wouldn’t allow me to wear gloves in 0 degrees Fahrenheit weather. We took it easy and skied like old people for about 45 minutes on flat terrain in a freezing cold wind. We had our skies waxed by a professional. He taught us some tricks and showed us how to wax one ski, after which we were on our own for the other three. We learned things we had forgotten. We had also forgotten where we had stored out supply of ski wax at home and so we had to buy from scratch, a costly affair. Only after we came home did we find our old stash. I am ready for more.

Since then another week has gone by and we are getting ready for a second weekend away from home, this time for the first of three training weekends that are to transform me into an executive coach. MSH has decided this would be a good investment. I was allowed to bring a guest and bringing Axel along. This will be a completely different adventure.