On my 70th birthday my brother welcomed me to my eighth decade! While he was accurate, that declaration gave me pause.

The summer after my senior year in high school I was in a local show, written, directed and produced by friends (including two who went on to conceive MyRetrospect decades later). There was some loose theme, but we sang Broadway show tunes. I sang a song from “Zorba” – Life is what you do, while you’re waiting to die. Life is how the time goes by! It was dramatic and quite suited me. We danced the Miserlou to prove that we were very much alive, we had our lives ahead of us.

I began taking serious care of my skin in my 30s, yet in late April, I had something removed from my cheek, which was biopsied (and was fine). Before I was 30, I used a reflector and sat in the sun, soaked with baby oil, trying to get color on my pale skin. My mother warned me I’d regret it. Sometimes she got it right.

I joined my fancy gym, Equinox in Chestnut Hill, 10 years ago. I take a class (Pilates, Barre, Barefoot Sculpt, which substitutes for my beloved Core Synergy taught by the irreplaceable Josie Gardiner which I now stream on my computer at home) three times a week and do my own workout on other days. Before turning 60, I was determined to get into, and stay in shape. Recently, a woman from one of those classes came into the locker room, out of breath. She was in a chatty mood, bemoaning how she felt and how old she was. We are both 70, but she had stopped coming to the gym for a while. She mused, “Don’t you wish you were still 30?” I thought for a moment, “I wish I had my 30 year old body with my 70 years of wisdom.” It is not a new or profound thought, but it rings true.

I won’t do the “organ recital”. I am not in ill-health (having just had my annual physical which confirmed this), but have had my share of things go wrong. The last time I saw my wonderful physical therapists (a husband and wife team) on Martha’s Vineyard (that time for tendonitis of the left elbow – another gym injury), I joked with Larry that they’ve worked on just about every part of my body. He didn’t believe me until I listed the body parts, starting with both shoulders (frozen shoulder), working my way down to the my big right toe. He shook his head in disbelief and laughed. He had to agree.

I try to put up a good fight, but Mother Nature always wins. I thought it would be fun to show my passport photos through the decades, as a marker for the aging process. I got my first one for my trip to visit my brother in Israel in 1972.

1972

1983

1993

2003

2013

2023

Passport photos aren’t known for being flattering. You can’t smile in such a way that you show teeth. And you have all the official stamps and bars across your face (the last one is before I sent it in for renewal; the current passport has two versions of the photo, one in black and white so it is less easy to counterfeit). You also see hairstyles through the decades here, weight fluctuations, etc. But the aging process is inexorable. I began wearing hearing aids two years ago. They sort of work, but my husband rarely looks at me when speaking and tends to mutter rather than enunciating, then gets aggravated when I can’t make out what he’s said. And noisy restaurants (aren’t they all these days?) are the worst. I just smile and nod my head a lot.

I know I don’t have the mental acuity that I once had. I search for words, I used to remember EVERYTHING, now things come to me later. It is very frustrating. My husband and I joke that we have one good brain between us (and indeed, since he is the math/tech whiz, and I am the emotional, artistic one, we compliment each other in our areas of expertise).

I’m seeing lots of articles from legitimate sources about how women after the age of 65 lose muscle tone and tendons become less flexible. GREAT! I’m doing all this work in the gym to try to counter that, but can I? I know I do not look like I did three years ago at the beginning of lockdown, though I exercised six days a week, taking classes from my favorite teachers over Zoom (with weights and bands, and even treadmill work). I feel like Sisyphus, trying to roll that rock up a hill forever, losing a little more ground each year. Yet, I persevere, losing a bit more flexibility with the passing of time. But hopefully gaining some wisdom.

70th birthday

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Mothers are dead. Children are far away, one overseas who celebrates mothers in March, so may not know when Mother’s Day occurs here in the United States. Husband is on Martha’s Vineyard. I am alone with my thoughts. It doesn’t matter, but there is no one to fêtê me, no one with whom to celebrate.

In an effort to honor the work done by mothers, a holiday was established in the early 20th century, but Hallmark commercialized it. If one is always valued, do we need to be singled out on a specific day? We all wish to be valued.

Flowers from my kids during lockdown, 2020

#Retro Flash – 100 words

My senior year in college I had dinner at Dan’s parents (still living in Newton, MA) every Sunday night. Gladys might help me with my lesson plans first semester, as I was a student teacher and she was a seasoned one. Second semester, after Dan and I became engaged, we talked about the future. She (later claiming she was joking) told me that if she had to take the last name Pfau, so did I, quite emphatically. She was a tall, commanding presence, with distinct opinions about everything. We grew to be great friends and she helped me tremendously as the years went on. On her death bed, she told me that I was her fourth daughter and I loved her like a mother.

In those early years, we had long debates about the first wave of feminism and “can we have it all”? Can a woman really find a fulfilling, demanding career, be a good mother, and do everything else with her life to find fulfillment? It was, and continues to be, a perplexing question. My in-laws moved away when Dan and I had been married about three years. Then I had no close relatives in the area to look to for advise, or emergency babysitting help as the years went on.

I have written many stories about my career and how I got to various positions, so I will link to those stories (some are quite old now), rather than re-tell them. I was a Theatre Arts Major, graduating with a BA, magna cum lauda, with departmental honors from Brandeis University in May, 1974. I had a secondary education teaching certificate in speech and English. Dan and I married and moved to Waltham, MA a month later. He began graduate school that fall and I needed to find work. I never got a teaching job.

I was not going off to wait tables, audition and try to seek my fortune in theater. I wasn’t a great actress and I needed a steady paycheck. I went to work at the software company where Dan worked, knowing nothing about computers. I did data input, not understanding anything about computers. Over-Educated, Under-Qualified.

From that job at SofTech, I moved to Chicago to get into professional sales, which really better suited me. I stayed 16 months, worked very hard, was quite successful, though there were obstacles along the way. Seven Double Chivases on the Rocks. No doubt about it, it was difficult to be a woman alone on the road, or doing a sales job in those days. But I persevered. I worked for ASI a total of three years, then, FINALLY got to Management Decision Systems, another company founded by smart MIT professors and a few of their students, selling software and consulting services. Here, I found peers and a welcoming work hard/play hard community. The sales cycle was long, the sales typically large. I became their top sales person during my 3+ years there. But I traveled a lot and worked long days. Walt at MDS.

At this point, in 1984, I was trying to become pregnant, which was not happening. After a year of interviewing, I took a job at a start-up company, selling software that could be used as a front-end to the product I sold at MDS. Three of us were hired on the same day, with the same job offer. I, of course, was the only woman. I had the local territory, much smaller than the other two (which I protested and was basically told to pound sand). I tried to hang on to one of my old clients in North Carolina, who had already told me they’d purchase this product, based on my endorsement, but was not allowed. The salesman who did come back with the signed contract told me they absolutely signed because I was with the company. It didn’t matter to this new crew. I became pregnant a month after joining the company, a fact I did not reveal for a while, but I had – not morning sickness – but all-day sickness. When others were concerned that I had the flu and was contagious, I finally ‘fessed up. I told management that I planned to take a four-month (unpaid) leave. They still had not announced how much stock we sales people would be awarded. Finally, just as I began my maternity leave (two weeks before my due date), the stock proffer came through. I was furious. Mine was considerably lower than my two male counterparts. My manager had not defended my work in front of the board despite the fact that I was demonstrably the most successful of the three. 60% of the Revenue, 40% Less Stock. I was 10 days late delivering David, had a difficult delivery, took a while to heal, had little help, then began life with a newborn and a traveling husband. We lived in Boston’s Back Bay and I loved walking everywhere with my baby in his Snuggli or stroller to do my errands, or walking him to the Public Garden to show him the statue of George Washington on horseback, or the ducks in the pond (he was too young to pay attention, but it was all wonderful for me). I determined I would not go back to that company.

We moved to Newton and just as David turned 18 months old, I decided I was ready to go back to work in February, 1987. Dan mentioned this to someone at his office who ran a series of paid executive conference programs. He already had one working mother (a former employee of his) working for him and invited me to come in and interview. He told me that it was all telephone work, I could do the work from home and it would be easy. But I’ve always felt the need to be in front of people to be successful. Lynn, the other salesperson, had already held many of the companies where I had contacts, so for me, the work entailed travel (Dan and I now both traveled) and I quickly hired a live-in nanny, with mixed success. Jill-Sharon. Who Slept Here?

We couldn’t both be out of town at the same time. David wouldn’t let me touch him if I’d be away. It wasn’t a good situation, so I contacted a former manager, now working in Waltham at Cortex. They had been in business for ten years but still functioned like a start-up company. They has just received a new infusion of cash and were looking for more salespeople. Barry wouldn’t be my supervisor but facilitated an interview. Drew asked if I planned to have a second child. I told him that was an illegal question but yes, I did, just not immediately. I began work there in Oct, 1987. I found the place incredibly disorganized, with no idea how to approach clients or talk about what their product was or the benefits thereof. No wonder they still had a limited client base. I also found that having a young child at home was a great distraction. I would make a grocery list at my desk; think about running errands on my way home. Being SuperWoman is HARD! For the first time in my career I encountered a product that I couldn’t figure out how to sell. I transferred to marketing and became the liaison to existing clients and the User’s Group. They had their big User Conference coming up in October, 1988.

There had been so many reorganizations that at this point that I was working for my old friend Barry. I was early in my second pregnancy and has already told everyone that I planned to work through it, then retire. I would not return after the birth of this second child, but the company was in turmoil and Barry called me into his office. Rumors of lay-offs were rife. I told Barry that he could lay me off – no problem. This pregnant lady would not sue. He was relieved. And I could stay home with my youngster, collect unemployment and get ready for #2 as I got bigger and bigger (I put on a mere 44 pounds). By this point, I’d had three nannies and was not about to look for another. I was working just to pay the salary. My children needed me.

I have never regretted that move. With Dan traveling as much as he did, I was a single mother three or four nights a week. Vicki’s diagnoses (ADHD, Asperger’s syndrome/autism spectrum disorder, severe depression, and at that point, difficulty putting her thoughts on paper) accumulated and meant that I was able to spend a lot of time volunteering in her classrooms, taking her to various doctors and therapies, supervising her homework, and just BEING there for her. As she grew up, I volunteered on other boards that had meaning for me.

So my discussions with my mother-in-law about women doing it all, almost 50 years ago, gave me a moment of reflection. The only women I know who “had it all”, either were able to afford significant, steady housekeeping help that gave them great freedom, had lots of family close by, or had very supportive husbands who were home and took on much of the household responsibilities. Others had to make choices; there is no such thing as “having it all”.

Twenty-eight years ago this week, danger came in the form of domestic terrorists striking Oklahoma City.
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