Sylvia's Journal

We are enjoying the beauty of the Cape and the bounty of its oysters. Last night we brought a dozen home. I tried to shuck them but made a mess and Axel took over. How did people learn, way back when, that inside this hard shell was this slimy thing that would become a delicacy? How did they open the shells without oyster knives and Kevlar gloves (and no emergency room nearby)? 

As we usually do when we attend Cape Cod Institute sessions, we talk a lot. It is what makes this such a rich experience. There are moments when I forget that I don’t have to go to work next Monday and that we can keep living like this – wake up together, have breakfast together, go for a walk together, and keep talking. Such things used to be weekend luxuries. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remind me this is for real. Of course the missing pay check, every second Friday will pinch us, but I am not too worried about that, at least for this calendar year. A few income generating opportunities are have popped up on the horizon. Some of those have disappeared, but a few (small ones) look like they will stay: one to Japan and one to Zambia. The latter a place I have never been to.

We made arrangements for Axel to accompany me to Japan. It will be a familiar routine: I work and he plays, though we will get to play a bit together as well. We arrive Thursday afternoon. I am busy on Saturday afternoon, Sunday and Monday morning and afternoon. Tuesday afternoon we fly back to Boston.

Next week I will start thinking and talking about the modalities of my new, not quite retired, phase.  There is the choice of how to operate: my own LLC, a partner in my daughter’s LLC, independent consultant. I am consulting with financial, tax and legal experts to figure out what to do. Then I have to figure out how many days of the year I want to work – definitely not full-time. And then the contracting can begin while I sort out my website, new business cards, logo, name, etc. I am very lucky that I have a daughter who does this as a business. I offered to be a training project for my son-in-law who she is training to be a graphic design partner in her venture, Align Graphics. 

The classes are over. Axel has to show something for it: two etched plates, one with an oak leaf and one with clouds, plus several passes of prints. I have nothing to show for my classes (I forgot to pick up my certificate) except 7 pages of scribbles, some new brain circuitry not visible to the naked eye and two business cards of women I may want to see again, one a judge in western Massachusetts and the other in charge of learning and OD at the Board of Governors of the FRB.

We kayaked twice, I biked every day, we had fish every day, and we slept so-so every night, had rain three of the 6 nights and one and a half days out of our six and a half days of camping. I think it may not have been the last time. Next year I may want to take an art class too.

We broke camp on Friday morning before the rain and before classes, leaving the big tarp up to keep the rest of our belongings dry. At 2:30 we had packed every remaining piece of gear and equipment and were on the road to New York City.

At 3:15 PM we were off the Cape, over the Sagamore Bridge. At 4:30 we were at the Bourne Bridge, a mere 2.8 miles from the Sagamore Bridge. We had wanted to be in NYC for a 8:30 dinner but our GPS indicated that now we’d arrive at 9:30. The trip that should have taken about five and a half hours took us more than 8 hours. Knowing we’d miss dinner in Brooklyn Heights we stopped at a Fusion restaurant somewhere in CT, that had advertised itself as ‘fabulous décor, good cheap food,’ with lots of positive reviews.

Naively we stopped (as naively has having taken route MA 6 West that stopped us in our tracks) and had dinner. The fruit, non-descript soup and crab legs were OK, nothing much to go wrong on, but Axel was more adventurous and came to regret it soon after we got back on the road.

We entered NYC in the rain but then all our worries were over. We even found a parking spot around the corner of our host, and all was well again. The Zugmsith Society’s 30th reunion was in full swing.

Memories of my early professional training came rushing in after my first day at the Cape Cod Institute where I am attending a class on ‘covert processes in organizations,’ taught by Bob Marshak from American University. Part of the appeal of the class is the topic (overt) and part is the people who go there, the duration (only in the morning) and the phenomenal breakfast served at 10:20 AM (covert).

Two other classes are taught at the same time. During the break I mingled with two psychotherapists attending a class on therapy of children. One of them was trained some 40 years ago in a new-fangled area of research called family systems dynamics, taught by a man named Minuchkin. I did an internship at that time – mid seventies – still a psychologist in training, at a psychiatric clinic in Leiden which was experimenting with cutting edge therapies. Minuchkin was one of the people we had to study. Family systems dynamics was very new, very exciting and very American.

I remember sitting behind a one way screen with another student and a mentor, watching an intake conversation with a family that had a black sheep, a young boy, who needed to be fixed. I think it is there that my fascination with group dynamics started.

But then I married, moved to Beirut and that was the end of my family systems therapy dreams. Yet also a stepping stone to my international career that bent around to organizational systems (therapy) over the next 40 years.

Within less than 24 hours after my arrival at Logan airport we were stuck amidst 1000s of other holiday makers on their way to Cape Cod. Vacation rentals go from Saturday to Saturday which makes for much congestion on the two and one lane roads in and out of Cape Cod. We had taken the station wagon which is old. Its airco doesn’t work and it has a stick shift I can’t really work because of my ankle. Stick shifts and being stuck in traffic, on a hot day can be pretty awful. Luckily I was in the company of my best friend and we had two weeks of talking to catch up with.

At the Audubon campsite in Wellfleet we checked in 45 minutes before closing time. We picked one of the few remaining sites not paying attention to signs of water runoff and pitched our borrowed tent on a flat surface without too many pine cones and sticks.

Dinner consisted of scallops and leftovers from the Manchester fridge. Axel had to do the dishes as I claimed jetlag and retired. And then the rains started, slow pitter patter in the early morning and then buckets and buckets for a few hours. Our poor camp making skills showed instantly with water running under the tent and the tarp hung up the wrong way which made for periodic dumpings of huge amounts of water which then found its way to the lowest point of our site.

I had also slept very poorly on our thin camping mattress and decided that this may well be the last time camping. Luckily I am reading a great book and I found a small section of the picnic table that was dry enough for sinking into the book and ignoring my surroundings. Things had gone from damp to wet to soaked in a matter of hours.

Alison had invited us over for brunch in her North Truro apartment which made for a nice (and dry) diversion, good food that was cooked for us, dishes cleaned up, and of course great company. By the time we left Truro summer had returned and our wet things in the car had steamed up all windows.

We sorted out where Axel had to be for his printmaking class on Monday, bought his supplies, and the ingredients for a meal that didn’t require a stove since Axel’s ancient camping stove had stopped working when we had wanted our second cup of coffee in the morning.

Once again he did the dishes (last time, he threatened) while I retired early again, still claiming jetlag (avoiding the dishes a nice benefit). This time we had added Steve and Tessa’s camping mattresses underneath ours which made all the difference. When I woke up this morning I was well rested and the sun was out. I think I like camping again.