Chapter 59. Women

I love women.  

I love working with them, living with them, being friends with them. I especially love that I am one.

Years ago, I was a lobbyist.  I was one of a few women in the field at the time.  At times it was unpleasant. Unwanted advances, comments and just plain dismissals were routine.  Don’t get me wrong.  I loved the work but after ten years, I decided to switch careers and enter the nonprofit sector. While I was still in grad school, I thought I would need to compete in the world using men’s rules.  I didn’t know what those rules were, but I instinctively understood that they weren’t to my benefit.  I think that’s why I loved my career move to nonprofits.  Women have been the sustaining force behind the nonprofit sector since forever.  At first, we were founders and volunteers.  Then, we became paid.  Sometimes we were well paid.  Sometimes not.  For me, it didn’t matter.  I loved working on behalf of something I considered more significant than a paycheck. My grad school training was a combination of social change and business administration.  Odd combination but one that has enabled me to follow my passions to become a volunteer, board member, founder, development director, consultant and executive director.  My 50 years in this sector have reinforced my appreciation for working with women.

Women are easy to work with.  We listen to each other.  We’re not fearful of being wrong.  We like to try the new and untested.  We have common sense and that leads to our other stellar qualities led by organization.

Our commonsense makes us natural organizers.  We know immediately that if there is an activity, we must do something to make it happen. We can’t just ordain it.  

My friend, the late Wendy Bergen, was an organizer and a collector of women friends.  She would establish an event and let us know what needed doing.  Each of us would pop up with a response.  “I’ll do the AirB&B”.  “I’ll bring the veggies.”  “I’ll make a salad.”  “I’ll find restaurants.”  Within hours, the event was planned and expanded from the original Wendy concept.   And, what if not everyone was enamored at attending a Broadway musical?  No problem.  The Met Opera duo peeled off from the group.  We’d all meet up for drinks after.  

For a long time, I thought Wendy was unique.  Turns out, she wasn’t.  There may be a gene that turns women into extraordinary organizers.  

At Everleigh, where GB and I now live, there are several pockets of super-organizers.  There’s a woman who runs the Everleigh Facebook page for residents. She also organizes a monthly Girls’ meeting that pairs food with a theme.  She tosses out the menu and the topic and asks for volunteers to bring whatever is on tap. This month was volunteering and charcuterie.   There were six large cutting boards and women arrived an hour before the event beginning to curate them.  There weren’t just the usual cheese, crackers, and salamis.  There was goat cheese, brie, salumi, herbs, fruits, dried fruits, olives, dips.  Twenty women accepted assignments and came together, chatting and creating.  

And April, the Yappy Club director who also plans outings to concerts and art fairs.  Then, there’s a woman who goes fishing in Alaska and each summer plans a dinner with featuring the pounds of salmon and halibut she’s caught. 

There’s another woman (might be a few) who plan a bi-monthly residents’ breakfast.  They collect in the great room and design a buffet filled with sweets, lox, bagel, cream cheeses, eggs, sausages, fruits.

If you see a theme here, you’re right.  Food, thought, and conversation.  It goes well together, and women make it happen.

Women organize.  We do it constantly.  Some of us are better than others but, yes, we all do it.  We need to.  We have homes, jobs, animals, children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors, parents, grandparents, relatives, spouses and partners to manage and tend.  Oh, don’t forget to add our volunteerism to the list.  Our brains, well, at least mine, work in circular patterns, each chore overlapping another, creating the inspiration for something new.  We have, I believe, the ability to open ourselves to a world of options, friendships, and experiences.  

For years, I resented the term “caregiver” as it may have applied to me.  I never saw myself in that role.  I was a professional woman.  Not a caregiver.  How wrong I was!  I cared for my home, family, animals, friends.  I curated our travels.   I was the one who brought the outside world into our home so that eventually it became the small farm I always wanted.  I cared for the dogs, the chickens, the hurt and injured animals, and the small bird who flew freely in our home.  I arranged for the vet, the plumber, the gardener, the lawn guys, the painter, the contractors.  

Yes, I organized.  It was second nature to me.  

I’m damn glad I was born this way.