Sylvia's Journal

Just hours before my departure for Amsterdam I walked into the American Airlines cargo office at Logan and gave the lady at the desk the number that would get me my passport. “Is it a dog?” she asked incredulously, checking off my number on the paper in front of her. “No,” I said, “that would be a spelling error. I am expecting a doc, not a dog, actually a very special document, especially for someone leaving the country in a couple of hours, by plane.”

She returned from the backroom with a large box, the size that tall boots come in. I was starting to get worried, a dog after all? I asked her to unpack my parcel until we got to what I wanted. Inside the big parcel was a smaller parcel and inside that was an envelope – this remained a game of suspense till the very end. Inside the envelope was my passport, the brand new one, with one page-size visa stamp from the embassy of the Bangladesh in Washington. And as some sort of reward for my endurance there was one surprise: it was a stamp for multiple entries, valid until the end of July. I better get myself some more business in Bangladesh.

And with that the adventure ended and I learned once more, as if I don’t already know this, that miracles do happen and whatever you name that benevolent power that exists in the universe, it is looking after me.

Getting my passport was the high point of a long day of preparing for what looked like a trip with all sorts of possible surprises. I had decided to pack light, in case I would be sent back to Dubai, and carry hand luggage only, even though this is a most likely going to be a three-week trip. That way I would not need to worry about checked luggage. Besides, I was not sure what might happen in Dubai with a terminal change in the middle of the night. There were simply too many plane changes for luggage to get lost. Furthermore, I will travel via Bangkok and I remember the airport chaos there a month ago – I am not sure how stable the place is now but I figured that with hand luggage only I could be nimble and respond quickly to last minute changes and other surprises.

Thus the packing became a little more complicated than usual, which is done mostly on automatic pilot. Now I had to decide which of my usual creature comforts to leave behind. It took me a good part of the day to make those decisions, in between other tasks that had to be completed.

Late in the afternoon, while the temperature was dipping far below freezing, we went for a walk with Chicha using the choker collar with the torture spikes because otherwise Tessa and Steve would get mad at us for messing up their dog training routine. It remains painful to watch the dog practically choking itself and making awful guttural sounds. The poor thing just can’t help herself – there are too many squirrels to chase; it’s in her genes. We’re probably doing the routine all wrong, telling her to heel when the choker hurts most – she probably figures that ‘heel’ is something better not done since it is associated with pain. We are not dog people and have no idea how dogs think and we don’t seem to get any wiser. Axel wants to take the whole family to a Petco dog training session so we are all on the same wavelength – sort of like family therapy instead of individual therapy, for the dog as well as the humans.

Axel drove me to the airport and after the passport was reclaimed we celebrated the miracle in the nice restaurant by the security lines of terminal E. It has become a bit of a routine to have a meal there before I board the plane so I can start sleeping right away. Next to us were three Russians drinking hard liquor as if there was no tomorrow. I am glad I was not on their plane.

The plane was only half full; nevertheless I did not sleep much, despite the meditation tapes; when the soft voice would come on after a long silence it would jerk me out of semi-consciousness and ended up having the opposite of its intended effect. We arrived early because of a strong tailwind and then waited 40 minutes for a gate to open up. I walked straight to the humongous new KLM lounge, took a shower and loaded up on good coffee and ‘broodjes met kaas.’ And now I am waiting for the signal to board the plane to Dubai, one I have now taken 3 times in the last two months, as if I have a real estate business there.

When you travel you discover the universe of people; its variety in size, intelligence, skin color, dress, and of course level of attractiveness. One thing that makes flying less tedious is that there is so much to see and guess about. I am curious about the people whose lives temporarily intersect with mine.

Here are some of my co-travelers on the Sunday evening flight to Amsterdam. There is the young Indian family with three small children, one boy and twin girls, pint-sized copies of their mom, even their clothes are similar. They wriggle like little fish when not asleep and talk with high-pitched voices, asking questions that no one answers. I am sure they are going to see the extended Indian family, grandma, grandpa and all the aunties and uncles and cousins. If this is the first time, they will be in for a shock, if the description of a such a reunion in the book ‘The Namesake’ has any grounding in real life. Because of the book I can imagine the reunion. The little boy exclaims, in perfect American English, pointing at the impressive cloud formations below us, “Dad is that Europe?” His eyes are the size of ping pong balls and everything is new and important to him.

In front of me, across the aisle, sits a young (also Indian) fellow who is studying for an exam. One chapter is about Integer Programming – it looks complicated and tedious; there are lots of tables and graphs for him to remember. Next to me, on the other side of the seat that was left empty, sits a young teenager. He is probably about 18 and is dressed the part: hair dyed black with a few orange streaks, stuck together with some substance to make it stay up in a loose version of a mohawk cut; his pants barely held up by thin hips below a too fat belly. His arms are tattooed with text and pictures. When he leans too far over to my side I can smell the sigaret smoke in his hair. But his face is that of a big little boy and when we land he clutches a large teddy bear that wears a T-shirt with a Happy Hanukah greeting.

A few rows in front of me sits a short and heavy African American woman of a certain age. She has to be told which of the three seats is the window seat. Like the little Indian boy everything is new. She has no idea about the rule ‘ stay seated when taxiing.’ Her suitcase is of the size that ought to have been checked. Two flight attendants squished it into the overhead bin. I wonder about her story and what gets her to travel by plane so late in life and on such a long trip. Even after we land she is not sure what happens next. She is told to wait for the wheelchair and then sinks back into her chair. Her seat row mates are an elderly Indian couple, she with a cervical collar on, he tiny and bespectacled. I admire the flight attendants with their infinite patience. I wonder whether they are patient at home.

Across the aisle from me three enormous men are folded like pretzels in their exit row seats. I am glad I am not big. The only thing to their advantage is the way the seat is shaped around their backs and neck – good for them, not for me, I am too short for the curves to fit. And so we are all having trouble sleeping in these chairs.

And finally, in back of me is my colleague Jean who is on his way to the Comoro Islands. His ticket presented a challenge for the Northwest lady who had a hard time figuring out where to ship his luggage to – she’d never heard of the place. Jean will be working with Oumar who is flying into Amsterdam later today from Conakry. I will be gone by then and so we will miss an impromptu and unexpected reunion in Amsterdam.

It was a bit of a downer to hear about our new president while tea was served, an hour before landing. I had hoped, expected, wanted the pilot to get on the public address system and yell out ‘he won!’ (with all of us instantly knowing who ‘he’ was) but pilots are probably told to not disturb people who try to sleep (and I was one of them). When we got ready for landing and everyone was awake, we were told the good news by the pilot and everyone clapped. Still, I would have preferred to be with family and friends back home. I called Axel as soon as cell phones were permitted. It was 2:30 AM for him but he was still awake. Too much excitement! I think we all knew that Obama was going to win but we did not dare to say it aloud, lest we jinx the works. And so, with this election, I continue my perfect voting record.

What a day, yesterday. I finished my packing and my to do list by 10 AM. We went to the polls and then had a leisurely brunch at the Beach Street Café. We did a few more errands by foot and then took Chicha out for a long walk. She now has a collar that looks like a torture instrument with metal spikes that push into her throat when she pulls. Tessa and Steve think it is the best thing since sliced bread and will surely train her quickly to heel and not go after anything that runs or moves. I hate it and remember the days when I walked with her at the end of her leash, swerving from left to right, going after anything that caught her attention while pulling me along. I probably undid months of training then.

To assuage my guilt about using the terrible collar contraption we took a break at Singing Beach where Chicha was able to go collarless and romp around with all the other dogs, catch balls and sticks and run into the waves. It was a mild Indian summer day and one of the more joyful days I can remember.

And so, now I am at Schiphol and about to sit down for breakfast with my ex and dissect American politics. In back of me large TV screens show the map of the US with its red and blue checker pattern, more blue than red, luckily. I watched the crowd in Chicago and the excitement there and wonder about what’s happening in Kenya and whether they feel that he is also a bit their president.

Later, after breakfast – I picked a bad time to be outside the US. The only signs of festiveness are on the TV screens. Here, at the airport, life goes on as if nothing momentous has just happened – people stand in lines like they did before, the are worried about catching their plane, buy stuff – a normal day on Schiphol. I feel like jumping up and down and saying, hey guys, something great happened, we are going to be back on the rails in the US. I watched the festivities in Obama’s native village in Western Kenya – he is their president too, and all of Africa’s – I hope he has strong shoulders, it is a heavy load to carry in addition to all the messes he inherited elsehwhere in the world.

The party of Reinout is over in more than one way. A swift train ride took us to the airport and I am now in a place that is beginning to feel like my second home, Schiphol airport. The train ride on the second floor of the train allowed us to see the Dutch landscape, on another 10+ day, slide by in all its glory. It does make me a bit nostalgic. When I lived here I did not appreciate the beauty of my own country. I found it boring because it was flat. Bicyclists got onto the train with their bicycles. I wished we could join them, although going back home has its own appeal.

All 150 people invited to Reinout’s party showed up; there were few I knew other than direct family and one person who I had last seen about 45 years ago.

There were a few songs, a long, rambling and wonderful speech by my Irish twin brother Willem who gave Reinout a contraption made by one of his patients in the far east corner of Holland. It is called a shoe-saver and is constructed to help older gentlemen avoid the post-pee dribble that can mess up nice shoes. Axel and I see a business opportunity that would start with advertisements in the retired persons magazine. When not peeing, the gentleman can use the contraption as a walking stick. We also see an application for women.

It is summer in Holland; a premature summer that dresses people in shorts, tanktops and flipflops. Who cares that is still early May. The tulips have accelerated their blooms and some people who travelled long distances to come to the famous Keukenhof tulip park will be disappointed in missing these blooms if they don’t get there soon. We made the trip yesterday; Axel for the second time in 2 weeks. The tulips in the shaded areas were still in the prime of their bloom and the park has been expanded with many other varieties of flowers, among them a lily pavillion with more lillies than you could throw a stick at in enormous vases in a thousand shades of red, yellow and white.

We bought fresh asparagus, just picked from a field next to the small store. They are white and fleshy and taste nothing like the thin green ones we know. We served them, traditional style, with eggs, collected that day from under Sietke’s own chicken, ham (not from her pigs) and new potatoes; for a final touch, melted butter, also from the farm, was dribbled over everything. Dinner was preceded by cocktails: raw herring and white beer and ended hours later at dusk, which starts here about 10 PM.

Loaded with heavy suitcases and bags full of licorice and other Dutch delicacies that have to make the trip back with us tomorrow, we dropped off the car at our friends house in Hilversum and then took the train via Utrecht to Tilburg. This was no small feat because we were carrying what feels like 100s of pounds and no elevators or escalators, only stairs, everywhere. We have come a long way since July 2007.

My nephew Pieter, last seen swimming in the fridgid waters of Lobster Cove in the middle of March picked us, and our heavy luggage, up and drove us to his dad’s home, my baby brother Reinout, where the preparation for his 50th birthday party were in full swing.

Reinout had organized an outing for the early arrivals to visit the local modern art museum. It reminded us of MassMoca. It is built in an old textile factory. I learned today that the not so nice name for people from Tilburg is crockpissers (kruikenzeikers). Reinout explained that, in the olden days, the woolfactory workers had to bring their pispots to the factory because the urine was used in the processing of the wool. It gives a whole new meaning to human resources.

When we came back a giant inflatable Abraham decorated the yard. In Holland, when you turn fifty, you ‘see’ Abraham (women ‘see’ Sarah). It has something to do with longevity.

I woke up from a dream (or dreams) that had my ex in it and various sinister figures with bad intentions. Anxiety dreams perhaps now that I am to throw myself int the arms of Africa again? I am certainly not looking forward to the long trip down south, interrupted in Khartoum before I land in Addis in the evening. It is now 6 AM. This will be a long day.

Our short vacation together in Holland went too fast. Two full unprogrammed days seemed endless, from the distance of time. But once started, they passed by quickly. Although I woke early on Monday morning, Axel did not and so, after breakfast I went back to bed for a bit and then it was suddenly noon. We had set as our destination for the day the center of Haarlem where, as I had assumed, we would find the weekly market with its cheese stalls, warm ‘stroopwafels,’ home-cooked Indonesian food and a place to eat herring or fries (Flamish, not French) in a pointy bag, or both.

We meandered northwest to Haarlem through the tulipfields which are always amazing, no matter how often I have seen then. They grow on the sandy soil right in back of the dunes. Axel noticed that the soil is really sandy, grey-colored like you would find it in the woods on Cape Cod, and that is was therefore no surprise that our tulips in Manchester don’t do so well, as they are planted in very rich dark soil.

The market was not there. Instead there was a midway complete with merry-go-around, bumper cars, shooting galleries and some scary thing with two arms that held people like a giant and took them on a wild right high in the air, upside down and then down again. There was a lot of screaming and it made me dizzy just to look at it. We did find the herring, the fries, and even a large piece of apple pie with whipped cream. It was lunch and part of dinner. We even found edible tulip fields in a pastry shop.

In the evening we drove back to Jan and Louise in Hilversum to pick up Jan’s car which he so generously loaned to Axel for the duration of his stay. The mother of the bride from yesterday’s dream showed up, by chance, and we had another wonderful evening and once again came home late. But not too late for a small glass of California wine with Piet, our host, who we still only see occasionally.

Sietske and Piet have one of those coffee machines that requires only the pushing of a small foil disc into a slot to produce a steaming cup of coffee in seconds. Drinking too much coffee is very easy this way. Axel reacts badly to too much coffee (caffeine) but loves it too much. Lucky for him I fed the machine red foil discs which, I did not know, are the decaf ones.

I suspect we are both gaining weight. There is simply too much good food to eat. For me this is also about catching up on foods I miss in the USA such as raw herring, licorice and cheese. It is only partially about taste. Eating is a social activity suffused with memories and associations.

My niece Emily is not allowed to engage in this activity but is fed, instead, by a small pump that, over a period of 15 hours pumps about 3000 calories of a nutritious proto-porridge directly into her bloodstream. After the visiting nurse comes in at night to hook her up she walks around with a backpack that hides the large plastic bag and the pump. Only the thin tube that ends in a port below her right shoulder is visible. We were a little hesitant to show up for dinner but our timing was off and so that is exactly when we arrived.

She said she didn’t mind, while her mate Hicham cooked for us, happy to have eating companions. She sat with us at the table, sipping a small cup of bouillon, one thing she can eat in a more traditional way and claimed to enjoy seeing us eat; she even likes to cook for others these days and fantasizes about fresh asparagus and strawberries – but this may not be in the stars for her, at least not this year, she fears. One operation and a dose of good luck is what she needs before she can enjoy the things we take for granted.

I dreamt last night of travel again and of going to Ethiopia. My dreams usually contain very vivid images but this was a dream of a concept, an idea, a feeling rather than a view. The dream may well have been triggered by Emily’s brother Daan who is an artist and has a project, worldtravelcard, that maps the whereabouts of holders of 500 plastic cards he handed out a couple of years ago. The small blue cards look like credit cards. You log onto the site whenever you arrive at a new place with your exclusive card number that is yours as long as you keep the card in your possession. Card ownership is temporary; you are supposed to pass on the card to others who you meet along the way. It is a bit like the audio tapes or books that have numbers on them that hook into a website. You are to give the tapes or book away and the new (temporary) owner is supposed to register the book and then pass it on. This allows you to trace its itinerary. Both are products of our new borderless world but also of the ideal of shared resources; that notion appeals to me. It contrasts starkly with the idea of borderpatrols and fences that scream mine and thine. It is about the itinerary of stuff. Stuff has, of course, always traveled as you can see at flea markets, especially in cosmopolitan centers. But now we can actually follow the journey from place to place and from hand to hand (foot, eye, ear, mouth).

It was nice this time not to have to say goodbye to Axel at Logan airport and to go through security together for a change. It has been nearly two years since we last traveled together to Holland for the Vriesendorp family reunion. Now it is for a reunion of my maternal grandmother’s extended family. It was also nice not to have to worry about touching your neighbor when positioning your head for a try at sleeping. Not that it did any good; I think I slept less than I usually do.

As usual when I fly the Boston-Amsterdam route (or the return), someone else from MSH is in on board. This time it was Matt, on his way to our office in Dar es Salaam.

I had looked very much forward to the flight because it would be the first time in weeks that I could actually relax and read (for fun) rather than chipping away at my to-do list.

The virtual celebration that I had prepared for the course was well received. The best part was being copied on an email that circulated among the members of the first team that I had called to the front of our imaginary ballroom to accept the imaginary applause from the imaginary audience in honor of their very real accomplishments. Completing such a course for busy professionals is no mean feat. I totally get that. It was no mean feat for us facilitators either.

Yesterday was still a full day of work; cleaning out accumulated emails, responding to forgotten or postoned requests; there was another virtual event to close and one to attend, this time as a participant. OBTS had organized its third webinar, a one hour conversation with Bill Torbert from Boston College. He looks at leadership through a developmental lens which appeals greatly to the developmental psychologist that I am by training. Of the 20 people that attended there were three of us from MSH. I am not sure my colleagues enjoyed it as much as I did but it was worth a try to see if they would.

It is always a strange experience to enter Holland. I speak the language, I carry its nationality but it is not the Holland I left more than 30 years ago. “Count me the ways,” said Axel and I did, in my head. I am more of a stranger in this country of my birth than in my new adopted homeland.

We arrived at an empty house in Aalsmeer; Sietske is in France and Piet was in Amsterdam. The cat was there to greet us. We had some coffee and a few ‘boterhammen met kaas,’ bread with cheese before heading west out in our tiny rented car (a one size upgrade from what I had ordered – my big suitcase barely fit) to the middle of the country and meet the relatives, some I hardly remember, many I never met.