The Sevens

There are two sets of sevens that helped me create a life design framework for my work with women ready to construct their best life. The first is a group of seven questions that I ask women who are planning their lives:

 Life Planning

These questions help create a framework or blueprint for you to fill in to create your ideal life.

1. What will my legacy be?

This isn’t about finances, although that may be part of your thinking. How do you want to be remembered? Do you want to change the world – or the lives around you – in some way? I will always remember the professor who introduced me to transformative learning as well as my great aunt, who made the world’s best apple pie. Both of these people’s legacies are part of the life I’ve created for myself. I help people transform and, although I can’t recreate Auntie’s pie, I best some of the best cookies around.

2. What meaningful work do I now want to do?

This goes beyond paid employment. For some women, happiness lies in the perfect career; for others, the ideal volunteer activity; for some, a combination of paid and volunteer work. One friend chose a relatively dull job so that her energies were free for her political activities. One woman I interviewed has a high-powered job and still manages to be actively involved in raising prize-winning alpacas. Others have moved into heading non-profit organizations.

3. How can I fulfill my need to nurture?

Some women live for their grandchildren. Some bond with their pets. Some cuddle infants in hospitals and orphanages. Some have wonderful plants. Some mentor. There are many ways to nurture. The two rescue cats that boss me around can tell you that.

3. How can I sustain meaningful relationships in my life?

As we age, our relationships within our families and friendship circles change. Some will move from single to in relationship; some will become parents, grandparents, perhaps great-grandparents; some will lose spouses or life partners. People move away. People die. Interests change. The need for meaningful relationships, though, continues.

5. How can I express myself creatively?

Although we may not all be painters or sculptors or writers, we all need some means of expression. It could be baking or helping friends pick the perfect outfit or gardening. It could be singing in the choir or planning perfect parties. Whatever your outlet, creativity is part of a joyous life.

6. How can I meet my spiritual needs?

Spirituality does not need to be limited to formal religion to be part of a balanced life. In this context, spirituality refers to awareness of something greater than yourself from which you gain meaning. Perhaps you worship regularly. Perhaps you meditate. Perhaps you spend time in nature. Spirituality is about having a regular outlet for self-renewal.

7. What surroundings do I want?

This is about finding the right place for your ideal life. For every woman who moves to a big city later in life, there is another who seeks a simpler, more rural life. Will necessities like medical care or mobility limit your choices? Who will you want to be near? What services do you need? What activities are important to you?

Creating a Vibrant Life

The second seven is a set of characteristics that I found in the women I interviewed. These are the traits that supported creating a satisfying, lives and wild life:

1. Resilience.

Most of us face challenges in life. What’s important is having the ability to bounce back; to rise above them; to find an alternate path. Yes, we may initially respond with depression, immobility, grief and that’s both understandable and normal. But at some point, it’s time to move on. I’ve interviewed women who have lost children, husbands, parents, friends. I’ve interviewed women whose businesses collapsed, who got fired or lost jobs, who filed for bankruptcy, who survived floods and fires and rape and abuse and cancer. And they all found a way to learn from tragedy and to rebuild their lives. And they’re happy and successful moving forward.

2. Persistence.

If something didn’t work the first time, these women tried again. Or tried something slightly different. Or found a whole new path to achieve what they’d wanted from the original goal. They didn’t give up or walk away.

3. Curiosity and Restlessness.

So many women are lifelong learners. They are always exploring. Some described themselves as easily bored. It amazed me to find so many women whose attitude was, “been there, done that, loved it.” This was always followed by asking what’s next. Curiosity keeps us live, aware, exploring, and excited.

4. Openness to New Things.

This is similar to curiosity. Women who create their ideal lives are much more likely to say “why not?” than “why?” If offered the opportunity to create a new business or move to Asia, they’re there.

5. Scanning the Environment, Recombining and Synthesizing.

What do you see when you look at the world? This is about being able to take both a broad and narrow view. It’s easier to create your ideal life when you see how everything you know or have done can be recombined and synthesized – reused in unexpected ways or brought together in an unusual manner. Many of the most successful women I spoke with were also able to scan the horizon and see emerging trends and possibilities.

6. Dealing with Fear

Many of us may be afraid on a regular basis. What do you do when faced with fear? How do you separate unrealistic fears from realistic ones?

7. Creating a Legacy and Having Fun

According to Jung, the second half of life is about making meaning. What will your legacy be? What will you have contributed to the world. And finally, are you enjoying your life? Fun keeps us vibrant and young. What’s fun for you?

So, here are fourteen things for you to think about. I’ll go into greater details on each in the next few weeks. Stop by www.Susanrmeyer.com and see what’s happening.

Blondell is our first permanent loss and she’ll be missed. You can read elsewhere about Blondell’s public life as an internationally-celebrated dancer and choreographer. From time to time, she shared stories about dancing, living in Paris, leading workshops. But most of our conversation was about everyday things. And Blondell’s everyday life was always fascinating. She was always busy. She was part of several TTN groups, evaluated arts companies for grant funding and worked to regain control of her family’s Harlem brownstone, with the dream of creating a community arts center.

What I’ll remember most about Blondell is her energy. She’d sweep into the meeting, usually a little late, carrying a large bottle of water for herself and a bag of popcorn to share. She was funny and she was deep. We spent as many hours, as a group, laughing at ourselves and the foibles of everyday life as discussing the problems of the world.

We didn’t know that Blondell was ill. She was a very private woman. In retrospect, we may wonder if her illness was what pushed her to finally work on getting her papers and performance tapes in order. As proud as she was of  her body of work, though, we’ll also remember how proud she was of logging enough hours in her community pool to get an award and a tee shirt every year.

The rest of the group will go on. I hope that we’ll hold each other a bit more closely. All of us are over sixty; some over seventy. Even as the circle gets smaller, we’ll continue to celebrate and support each other.

This loss taught me to spend more time connecting and reconnecting with my larger circle. I’m being more intentional in making time for nurturing friendships. I’m experimenting with meeting and engaging a few new people as well. The new faces won’t replace those who are now out of reach; they’ll add something different. And I’ll add to their lives as well.

If you didn’t already know that tiny women are dynamos, just watch these three in action. Dr. Ruth is in her 80’s. I recently heard her interviewed at a Teacher’s College event and the woman couldn’t hold still. She worked that room! She’s a bundle of energy and enthusiasm. She’s brilliant. She’s funny. She touched everyone in the audience. At 87, she shows no sign of slowing down for a minute. She’s still writing, she’s still lecturing, and she’s having a very good time.

Have you ever seen Betty White hold still? She’s 93. Between her TV show, her guest appearances and her work as an anima rights activist, she doesn’t have time to hold still. And Bette Midler? Didn’t hold still for a minute the other night.

Now, I don’t expect to keep up with any of these three all the time (in fact, I’m sure that there’s down time we just don’t see), but I’m determined to give it my best shot. These women stand out for me because they also are part of my small-and-exceptional women collection (more about that another time), but there are so many others! Every one of the women I interviewed for Fifty Over Fifty is out there up to incredible things. Some of them are so busy that I got tired just listening to what they are doing.

So, my Fifty, Sixty, and Seventy Sisters – here’s the plan:

Have an adventure every week. It can be a small one – try a new recipe or a new restaurant, tae a walk somewhere you’ve never been, take a day trip, go out with a group of friends to explore.

Keep moving. Take a walk, take an exercise class, try to keep up with a couple of kids, go swimming, jump rope, lift weights, ride a bike. Take the stairs.

Exercise your brain. Read, play games, solve puzzles, take a class, visit a museum.

Express gratitude. I’ve read that some very successful people think of at least one thing they’re grateful for before they get out of bed in the morning. What a nice way to set up the day! I keep a gratitude journal. A friend writes thank you letters to the Universe. I’m also noticing that happy-looking people tend to say thank you often. Oprah keeps a gratitude journal.

Eat well. Real food instead of junk. Vegetables. Fruit. Lots of water. Save the treats for special occasions. So many of my friends are eating better as they age. They have more energy, feel better, and the biggest drawback so far is that they keep needing new clothes. (Tragedy!)

Sleep longer. As a matter of course, I record anything after 9 Pm. Now, instead of fighting to stay awake, I can toddle off to bed and watch later. My next step will be a latch on my bedroom door to keep early-rising felines out.

Dream. A lot. Be delighted with what you have even as you stretch for new things.

As I look at this list, I realize it’s really about doing what you love and loving what you do – with full-out intensity. I can do that! And so can you.

Saturday, February 28  10:00 AM – 4:30 PM

190 Marlborough Road Brooklyn NY (between Beverly and Albemarle Rds., Q train, Beverly Rd.)

This creative, interactive workshop is perfect for you if…

• You are lost in your own life

• You feel stuck and don’t know which way to go

• You want a change and are frustrated by not knowing how or what

• You are overwhelmed by too many choices

• You feel stymied by obstacles and don’t know how to get around them

By the end of this full day workshop, you will have developed:

• a clear, powerful personal vision

• concrete goals broken into easy-to-accomplish steps

• an action plan of what you will immediately do differently

• an expression of your vision that you painted yourself

You get the following (and much, much more) from this workshop:

• A detailed workbook that takes you through each step of your new plan

• A personally signed copy of Dr. Susan R. Meyer’s newest book, “Fifty Over Fifty: Wise and Wild Women Creating Wonderful Lives (And You Can Too!)

• All art supplies needed to create your Vision Painting

• Membership in a special, private Facebook group to keep you motivated and moving in the right direction

• A one-on-one personal, follow-up coaching call

Of course, we’ll be providing continental breakfast, lunch and snacks as you spend the day with like-minded women in a beautiful historic Victorian half a block from the subway station.
Bring a friend! Take advantage of the early bird discount from $249 to $150 if you register before January 31st.

Add to cart

I had lung cancer. I had half a lung removed. We lived in Framingham. George was out of the picture then. I had the lung removed and went back to work. All three kids were in college at the same time; I had to work. I had to help these kids out. Luckily, they were all good students so they all got scholarship money as well as financial aid, and some of them are still paying it off. Friends helped out, everybody was a big help when that happened. And I wasn’t laid up for that long. I remember being in the hospital for about three weeks. And when I came home my mother and my sister came to stay with me and all was well. 

The marriages Hochschild researched don’t make the news. Instead, we read about backlash against Sheryl Sandberg’s advice for women. What does she know about real family life? She can afford help. This is an excerpt from an interview with Nooyi:

“I don’t think women can have it all. I just don’t think so,” she told David Bradley, owner of the Atlantic Media Company, at the Aspen Ideas Festival earlier this week. “We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all,” Nooyi, who has been married 34 years and has two daughters, said.

There are only so many hours in a week, a month, a year. None of us can be two places at once. While Nooyi’s mother expects her to put a milk run before announcing her promotion, most of the high-powered women with children that I interviewed had support systems in place in order to manage multiple roles:

Corbette, a corporate executive who has become a professor:

We had the same nanny for 19 years. She and my daughter used to travel with me up to 8 times a year, especially when I only had one child, and that for me made a huge difference, really cut down on some of my own feelings about being an ineffective parent and it was an amazing, I spoke at  a lot of conferences because of my role in the industry and so I think I became even more well known that I might otherwise have in this industry because people knew I took my children so it’s been interesting experience but the person who recruited me gave me unbelievable opportunity as I tried to make investments, to run different businesses all under the benefit of the healthcare industry. 

Phoebe, a former CFO, spoke about the difficulties faced by many women in management:

I think it’s very hard to do that [set boundaries around work hours]. I think the demands are pretty intensive and you certainly don’t do it in the middle of a deal. You’ve got to be smart about this at all times. I’m conscious of this and who’s my competition? My competition, I always think of them as someone male who has a wife, a very capable wife who takes care of all of the parenting issues and all of the household issues, and so to the extent that the woman — I am involved in parenting and to the extent that I’m running my household, that takes time and energy from the workplace. We just have to be conscious of that as a society and as employers to think about that. Is it not wonderful to have employees who can be 24/7 totally devoted to what the company needs done and doesn’t have to think about anything else.

and about the opportunities that she’s had the resources to provide for her children:

We as a family have done international trips each year and as a family we have been to Africa, we have been to China to see the total eclipse of the sun, something you should do in life that’s a spiritual experience, we have been to Scandinavia, we’ve been to London, we’ve been to quite a few places in Europe, last year we went to the Olympics. We have tried to expose our children to many different — I’ve been to Japan with Kate, I have been to Mexico, so we tried to expose them to cultures and different ways homo sapiens live on this earth and that’s pretty important thing for us to inculcate in them, I think.  We’ve had the resources to be able to do that.  I’ve worked really hard just in terms of parenting things, to make sure my children know how to interact with adult, how to entertain, how to be engaging and so they’re both that. They’re just very, very comfortable in the global world.

I’ve heard from women who have made all sorts of accommodations. Skype and video chat have become tools in relationship maintenance. One woman has her assistant put in her briefcase pages from whatever bedtime story she’s reading to her children. No matter where she is, she blocks out this bedtime break and connects with her children long enough to read to them before they go to bed.

So, in my opinion, Nooyi is right. None of us can have it all. Life involves a series of trade-offs. But that doesn’t mean compromises and trade-offs are bad things. In fact, acknowledging that real limitations exist can be tremendously liberating.  It ramps down that superwoman pressure. It allows space for enjoyment. time to enjoy those little moments that enrich our lives.

The Nooyla quote above is from Mashable. The other quote are from my book, Fifty Over Fifty: Wise and Wild Women Creating Wonderful Lives (And You Can Too!), due out in October

Her first job was a little unusual:

I was asked to test the elongation of wire and had to write it down on a sheet. I absolutely loved it. I could wear jeans or shorts. That was unthinkable in a workplace back in 1968. We made all different types of alloy. I would have to check the elongation, or how long before the wire broke. I also did payroll, copies, etc. I absolutely loved it. I stayed until that October and I quit the job because my sister in law needed help with their first-born. I would pass ADP en route, and I would tell my mother, I’m going to work there someday.

She did come back to the company to work in ADP, processing payrolls. Then, her father accepted a job in Germany and she decided to join her family. Although she spoke very little German, she convinced a local company to hire her:

I decided I wanted a job and I said I didn’t know how to get a job. So we put an ad in the paper and got an interview with Berlin Life Insurance Company, Berlinischer Lebensverisgurng.

My German was very poor. I knew “Hello,” “Good-bye” and I knew the numbers up to 10. I had German friends that spoke English so they would translate for me when we were out. Herr Heinen had very bad English. Herr Heinen called up a programmer, Freddy Handloser, who translated for the two of us. Herr Heinen asked him how old I was and where I lived, and where I lived in the United States and if I had working papers. And everything was, Yes, Yes, Yes. And he said, Well, how are you going to communicate with your co-workers? And I told Freddy, I am here to work, not here to talk. He thought that was the greatest thing ever and hired me on the spot.

When she returned to the US, she continued in data entry until she stopped working to be home with her daughter. A combination of volunteer and part-time work broadened her interpersonal skill set:

There was an opening in our daughters school in the cafeteria as a lunch aid, so I did that instead. It actually worked out better as I knew what was going on at school. I was off when the school was closed so didn’t have to concern myself with a sitter. It was 2 hours a day. I was also Room mother, VP of our PTA, later became President, and involved with our Church. When she was in 8^th grade, they finally opened the Middle School. I was involved with PTA, and Room mother. Being a Room mother, the teachers always wanted me to go on the class trips; the faculty knew I could handle the boys. The boys knew my rules – 3 chances, they were out. But they loved me. I felt so bad when we actually moved. One kid showed up at our door. Every Halloween he came to our house. And I always made him hot chocolate.

I was in the library, or the library book fair, the regular fair. Plus, I was very involved in church, then I started dancing. I did the Mommy & Me with our daughter, which I also considered exercise. We were both in recitals and she danced for 14 years. I danced, I don’t know, probably 5 years altogether. So I really didn’t have time for jobs. So the other job just worked out perfect.

Then we moved to Georgia in 1992. I was involved within the week, joining Newcomer’s Club. I volunteered to be the Crafts Chairperson. They came here once a week and we did crafts. It was really just socializing. And then we started at everybody’s house a different week. And then we started the lunch group and everybody would bring their favorite food. Then the following year I became Vice President of the club.

My duties consisted of going to different restaurants or country clubs, meeting with the restaurant managers and then choosing for the year where we ate once a month. At one of the country clubs the manager asked me if I would like to waitress. I explained to him I had never waitressed but I helped at my daughter’s girlfriend’s mother’s restaurant for 3 months. So I worked in a country club for a little bit there. Then I had to quit. They wanted me to work more hours and it was conflicting with our daughter’s activities. I left there and got a job at Pike’s Nursery. That was seasonal. Loved it though; I got to learn about plants and soil conditions in Georgia. I then went to JC Penney and I was there a year and a half.

When she returned to work, she was able to combine her computer knowledge with her interpersonal skills:

I started at Digital as a contract worker. I talked to the [service] engineers and I absolutely loved the job. They would call in when they completed the job. Our Department would input the hours, what they did, and parts, when they finished the job, they would have a start-time and an end-time that you had to input. Working with them, sometimes you got the same people over and over. I worked there 4 and a half years, so I pretty much knew everybody.

Her mother had a serious fall, and Bunnie stopped working to take care of her:

The following year, I’m trying to get hold of my mother and expecting a call at work, and she wasn’t picking up.  By Sunday I still can’t get a hold of her. And now I’m starting to panic. I finally found a number for the neighbor. I’m going to have him go over there and see what’s going on. And the neighbor calls back; my mom had fallen down the steps and lay there for 2 ½ days. She was still alive and that was the end of me working. I left Compaq to go up north and start emptying out her house. I was up there for 6 weeks and by March we had to fly her down here. She was never able to walk again. So I oversaw her care in a nursing home environment.

This started a seven-year process of learning everything there is to know about caring for the elderly. Bunnie was a regular fixture at the facility and took on as much of her mother’s care as she could. She asked questions. She learned about the health care system. After her mother’s death, she was ready to go back to work, but the data entry field wasn’t looking good, so she made a bold move:

I tried the data entry route. No, you haven’t worked in 7 years. No one would ever call back.

Q. It had changed so much?

I don’t think so. However you input it, it’s data entry. If you’re doing Customer Service on a computer, it’s the same. No one would talk to me–and my age, too. By then I was 58-59. I saw an ad in the paper. They were looking for caregivers. And I said, well, let me just call up. Either they want me or they don’t want me. So I went to the interview and they saw my background, you know, caring for mom all those years. And they hired me. And the lady I was with was absolutely wonderful. I was with her for 3 years.

We spoke about how her early experiences contributed to her success in this new field:

My Mom always helped someone, and I was always dragged along, helping the sick. Yeah, I just didn’t think of it that way, but yeah. My neighbor up in Connecticut, she had hip replacement surgery. Her kids were out in California, so I was the one, when she had her surgery, brought her home. Brought her for doctor’s appointments. Cooked for her that first week. Figured out how to get food from her kitchen to where she would eat and watch TV or whatever. I finally made her an apron so she could put her food in containers and get it into the living room to eat.

And then  a friend from PTO got the news of ovarian cancer. So, I helped care for her. And then I had another old neighbor, and I would take her grocery shopping every Friday, you know, bring in the groceries, and yacking, or whatever. Went to Denny’s for breakfast, too. And I was taking her to see her husband in the hospital when he had a heart attack. So, yes I did caregiving but didn’t think of it that way.

Why is this new career perfect for Bunnie?

I just find my job so rewarding. It’s giving back for the loss of mom. I’ve always felt that way. I like helping, I guess. I just, you know, when Jen was little, I always had her friends over. We had a normal home life where some of these kids didn’t, or the siblings were creeps. So they’d hang out at our house. We always had her friends over. Even when Jen was in high school, the kids always came here. Not everybody has the knack for it. I’m very calm, cool and collected. The bosses give me carte blanche.

If you’re thinking about what’s next for you, don’t be limited by your resume. What else have you done? How could you use those skills?

Pauley’s book uses her own life experience as a frame for glimpses into the lives of the men and women she interviewed for NBC under the sponsorship of AARP. Her subjects are both ordinary and amazing and the book reminds us that little things, done with great passion, are what will keep us vibrant through these bonus decades. The book, like Jane herself, is both comfortable and inspiring. She spoke about all of us as seekers.

I was inspired by how much of what she said reflected my own feelings about change and adulthood. She describes this change as reimagining, eschewing the industrial-sounding reengineering or the potentially daunting reinvention. I know that I want to continually imagine what’s possible for me, what would be fun, what would stretch me. I don’t want to be reinvented. I kind of like who I am, thank you very much.

She talked about her skill in connecting the dots. Aha! Exactly my approach to helping people to see how they can use what they know in different combinations. She believes in stretching your comfort zone, not getting out of it. Exactly. Why create discomfort? Stretch and stretch (I call it expanding) until your comfort zone is enormous. Yes!

I was also so impressed with this group that Maureen Fitzgerald has created. What a lively, friendly, interesting bunch of men and women! I had several delightful conversations with people who were clearly enjoying their lives to the fullest. It’s inspiring to see how many women are already wise and wild and creating wonderful lives. Jane Pauley and Marlo Thomas are reminding us of the possibilities. Just wait until my fifty women add their voices to this growing chorus!

Persistence is what kept Sharon cold calling local businesses until she got an order that was the first step in creating a very successful construction company. Persistence is what led Herta to decide to attempt to summit Kilimanjaro a second time, leading to not only summiting but creating a video, raising money for a charity and writing a best-selling leadership book based on her experience. Who could argue with the value of persistence?

But there’s a downside to persistence. Sometimes giving up is exactly the right thing to do. Optimism is a major component of persistence. It’s what keeps us pushing that rock uphill or going to yet another networking event or replanting the strawberries. And optimism is, in general, a good thing. It turns out, though, that there’s realistic optimism and foolish optimism. Realistic optimism should be the driver of persistence. The task is doable; the goal is realistic. Expanding additional effort and adapting based on what was learned from earlier attempts has every chance of yielding the desired results.

Sharon, for example, didn’t give up when potential clients weren’t buying the product she was trying to sell. She figured out that, even if they didn’t need windows, they must need something – so she asked what they needed, said she could do that and went out and made it happen. Herta figured out that bad weather, poor leadership and a lack of team spirit thwarted her first attempt to summit, so she put together a team, assumed joint leadership and started off in better weather.

Buying lottery tickets is most likely foolish optimism. As a possible supplement to other income streams, it may not be a terrible idea, but persisting in relying on lottery tickets as a sole source of income just isn’t going to work out well for most people. Neither is persisting in activities that shouldn’t be done at all. I think about my father and the strawberry bed. He wanted to grow strawberries. He knew that he could grow strawberries. He was going to grow strawberries. He planted them and fussed over them and weeded them and loosened the soil around them and watered them. He gave those strawberries every ounce of energy he had. And they wouldn’t grow. Finally, after a season or two, he just gave up. We had enough strawberries to feed the entire neighborhood after he gave up. Turned out, all that persistence was stopping the berries from growing. They needed to be left alone.

So, is persistence holding you back? Are you being foolishly optimistic or overprotective or trying the same thing without variation? Maybe it’s time to step back and reassess.

P.S. If you need a nostalgic moment, here’s the Old Philosopher on YouTube.

I got pregnant when I was eighteen and married the father, and I had my second child while I was with him. He was extremely violent, and I was able to leave him because of LBJ and the creation of Medicaid and Food Stamps and the AFDC program. I knew that I could leave that situation and take care of my children, and that’s what I needed to know. So I was able to leave. When I was accepted by Columbia Journalism school, I moved me and the kids to New York [from Ohio].

Rita was an activist from her first stories for The Lantern at Ohio State:

I was handed this story to do about an African-American woman in Ohio State University’s Law School who  lost custody of her child, her son, during a divorce, not to her ex, but to her father. The judge had made this very idiosyncratic off-hand decision with the explanation that since she was going to law school, she wouldn’t have time to be a mother. And since the Dad wasn’t around, he would give the child to somebody else to raise. Part of the evidence against her was that she took flying lessons on the weekend I was so outraged that this happened. This was crazy.

I had met the mother and the child, and then I called her lawyer, who was a professor of law at Ohio State. He explained to me, so eloquently, why this was outrageous, and it violated the law, and I thought this is so cool. I can interview these smart people, write down what they say, and tell other people. This is great! And he expressed it much better than I would. And that’s sort of the essence of journalism, anyway.

This continued in her first post-Columbia job:

I went to work at the Patterson News, but… I don’t know the words… but I was really so hungry for the story. And on the other hand, because I had been on welfare and, you know, in and out of marriage, I understood a lot of what was going on in Patterson, which is an extremely poor town… what was going on institutionally that made things worse for many of the residents.

And so I quickly began to win reporting awards, and one of the… I don’t know if you saw the PBS special, recently, about the girlfriend of a Deputy Sheriff being found dead, and the… with the Deputy Sheriff’s pistol in her left hand — she was right-handed — there was a big story in the Times magazine, and a documentary on PBS, and I’m like  “Oh, I so did that story!” I did that story in Patterson, and it was the Chief of Detectives whose wife was found dead on the kitchen floor with his service revolver in her left hand. And she was right handed. He ended up being prosecuted for murder, in part because of the stories we did, and hung himself the night before he was to be arraigned. So I’m like “Ach…” You know, it’s like this whole thing, years later, people actually… we wrote about it — other people wrote about it — but this was a big impact story about officers of the law who killed their loved ones with their own service revolver. It’s all very tragic.

and continued throughout her career as a reporter:

I would go back to the lies they tell about welfare mothers. And it’s like “Wait a minute! This is not true!” And, you know, it was not just about me, but all the women on welfare, and this is punitive, right? They have so many stereotypes, and they make laws based on those stereotypes, and that hurts lots of families. I can remember going to a party at a National Organization for Women’s member’s home — after a lobby day for better welfare payments. Her home was in the suburbs, and a state representative was there, and he came up to me and he said “Well, I can tell you what they do to prevent having babies.” I’m like… what? He said “They just put an asprin between their knees. Put an aspirin between their knees.” And he thought that was hilarious. And I did not. I think somebody, some current member of Congress said that publicly, recently.

And then it became part of welfare law, in TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) legislation, that became part of the law, that welfare recipients could only go to school for one year. So that actually meant TANF… when Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich got together to end welfare as we know it, I was unprepared for how severe it was. When originally, when they were talking about it, I’m like “Oh, he’s not going to do that because it would hurt too many women and children, but then the news about the proposed legislation — it was all about blacks and often men, and there was one story in the Sunday Times Magazine about Mary Ann and I think Amour, who lived in Cabrini Green, and was African American and had four children.

The last two, twins, were conceived when she was high on cocaine. They had a picture of her on the cover, and I’m like “This is so racist! This is such lazy journalism.  And it’s all beautifully written, right? And so reinforces every stereotype. She was overweight, etc.

The unfairness of mainstream reporting about women’s issues led to the creation of what is now Women’s eNews:

It took me several years. But then I got an opportunity with NOW, with the Defense and Education Fund. They wanted someone to create an online news service covering women’s issues. I’m like “That would be me.” Right? You know, they had a search committee, but I’m like “Yeah, that would be my job.” So they quickly agreed, and I got this job that, with NOW legal defense, that would allow me to do a startup, basically. And I had a blank computer screen and no idea, actually, how to do this, although I’d been online since the seventies, and sending e-mails, etc.

So I set out to interview people who would design the website, and I had no idea what the difference was, what design meant. And then I was quickly educated that there’s the design, i.e. the looks of it and how it works, and then the design of making it work. And the two work together, but they’re two very different jobs. So I hired the only company whose presentation worked during the interview. Everybody else’s froze, or whatever. That’s how I selected them. So we launched in June of 2000, and we have published every day.

Stay informed and celebrate women all year by subscribing to Women’s eNews. Read more about Rita and forty-nine other incredible women when 50 Over 50 is published – it was officially finished on March 8 – International Women’s Day – and went off to the editor today.

Q. So you finished this – this career and you reached retirement. And from the outside, it looks like suddenly but it probably isn’t if, I want to hear the story, you decide that you’re going to create a very different life for yourself.

Yes. The first part though was to recognize there were capabilities I had as an educator that I was going to call into play for my own life. And so for retirement, the first thing that I knew was I wanted to address those things that I hadn’t been able to do so far—including fitness. I got into a situation with a trainer and did that several times a week.

I started art classes in life drawing at the Montclair Art Museum.  I took that class several times over. I hadn’t had any art classes throughout the whole of my life to that date. I’d gone to a lot of museums. I looked at a lot of art but I hadn’t done any and so I loved those courses.  Also, I started going to the actor’s institute one day a week. This was the general structure I gave myself coming out of teaching and into retirement. I wanted some structure but also I wanted to leave big chunks of time for more spontaneous kinds of choice making and so on. The initial idea was to do those things that I hadn’t had a chance to do heretofore. A few years later, my husband and I divorced and I began living on my own for the first time.

Q.  I remember you talking about how you helped him get situated into what was going to be the ideal life he deserved.

Right. Once again, I think of the educator coming to the fore. I had a real sense of the kind of setting/context in which he would flourish. I helped him find a place and  set up his apartment. He began to flourish. Yes, indeed he has. That’s been a very, very happy kind of, development. And my own has been very like that, too. It’s just been flourishing. My first apartment on my own was in Jersey City. I rented a brownstone there for two and a half years and then it was going to be sold. I needed to think about some place to move. I recognized during the time I was in Jersey City, there were weeks where I was in New York City five times. And so I dared at that point to think about living here myself. When I started looking for places to live, I looked in Jersey City again but I also came into New York City. I like to say that I started out in Iowa and began moving East until finally there was only the Hudson left to cross. And I decided to cross that, too. I’m  living here very happily.

Q. Great. Great. So you had a lot of structure  around this plan. One of the things that I loved about the first time you talked about your retirement to me was that you had – It wasn’t “Oh, I’m retiring and that’s it.” So I’d like you to talk about how you structured this. I remember you telling me that you’re going to do a least  – I think it was at least two new things a week and try different restaurants and study different things.

Oh, yes, I’ve always got ideas about that kind of thing. Yes. The Artist’s Way  by Julia Cameron has been helpful as well. I’ve gone through it several times–on my own, in a mediated way with a leader and other seekers and then on my own again.  Some of the tools that are recommended in that book are morning pages, which I think are great. I write them every day. And an ‘artist’s date; which entails going to some place different on your own at least once a week just to keep the creative juices going. In Walking in the World, Cameron adds walking to the tools that encourage creativity. I walk a lot. But, yes. I do like to have these specific ideas about intentions, I call them. I don’t have goals. I have intentions and then I like to be awake to the possibilities that show up. That’s a process which in itself keeps us alert, I think.

Q. There’s a couple of things that you’ve been sort of consistently working on, the flower arranging, the whole art of conversation and the salon. Could you talk about that up close?

Yes. Well, you see a part of these things grow out of saying “Yes.”  I got into flower arranging because a friend called and said “There’s this weekend offering of Ikebana, would you like to go?” And I say, “Yes.” [Laughter]  I’m so glad I did because all of these years later I am still practicing. I consider it to be my spiritual practice. Flower arranging for me is not just putting some flowers in a vase.

Q. There’s also discipline among other things involved in Ikebana. True?

Yes. Right. I studied first with a sensei who had been trained in Japan prior to the war.  After my weekend intro, I was told that was the kind of teacher I should look for. It just so happened  there was a woman in that weekend course who was studying with the sensei I eventually studied with. That woman and I are still practicing together and she was just here this week. We made our arrangements for the Holiday Season. We always start with meditation.

Each of us brings materials we share. Then we do the meditation and we make our arrangements. After we’ve completed our work and talked about them, we have tea — or lunch, depending on the time of day. It is a wonderful, wonderful practice.  The principles of Ikebana are something that just radiate through my life. This year as I thought about Christmas and decorating, I thought “I really don’t want to do it the way I usually do it. I want it to be different.”  One of the things I have done is to  take away a lot. That is one of the principles in Ikebana.

I want to be Bethene when I grow up!