On May
29, 1993, I returned to my Potomac, Maryland, home from my retirement
party at HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development). The
next day, I would turn sixty-five. When the euphoria of the party wore
off, I became dejected. I realized that everything that I'd worked for
my entire life--from elementary school to high school to college to law
school to thirty-six years of work experience--was over.
During
my career, I had served as the first woman attorney in the General
Counsel's Office at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
and as the highest paid woman executive at the headquarters of two
multinational corporations: GTE in Stamford, Connecticut, and TRW in
Cleveland, Ohio. I was also a founder of the Second Wave of the women's
movement, having been a founder of the National Organization for Women
(NOW), the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL) and Federally Employed
Women (FEW). Now all that was behind me.
At
work, I had had a structured environment: I left my house each morning
by car and metro; worked from 8:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.; and frequently met
friends for lunch and dinner, followed by a movie, lecture, concert, or
theater performance. What would I put in place of all those activities
now?
I had
almost limitless options. Did I want to work as a volunteer? To travel?
To take college courses? To move to another location? To find part-time
or full-time employment? I had enough money to see me through just about
anything I wanted to do, within reason. But what did I want to do?
There
followed a year of total confusion and trial-and-error attempts at
various things, none of which worked out. I tried finding part-time and
full-time employment: I answered help-wanted ads, attended job fairs for
seniors, and contacted employment agencies in both the Washington, D.C.,
and Baltimore, Maryland, areas. I did not receive a single job offer.
So, I
essayed volunteer work: I spent several months training to be a
volunteer with the Smithsonian Institution; worked at the Museum of
Natural History for some time thereafter; and then served as a volunteer
attorney with the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission.
I
became depressed and began seeing a therapist regularly. It appeared
that my life was over.
I
began to think about commemorating the historic role I'd played in the
women's movement. But I didn't want to pour through all papers and write
a lengthy tome myself. So I embarked on a search for a writer to work
with me. I spent a year in libraries, talking to friends, writing to
publishers and writers' organizations, and meeting with writers.
What I
learned was that a writer would work with a non-celebrity only upon the
payment of thousands of dollars. I was loath to invest that kind of
money in a project that might never result in publication.
A
friend suggested I go to the library of the Foundation Center, a
nonprofit organization that focuses on foundations, in Washington, D.C.,
to research information on grants. There I could learn how to apply for
a grant, which I could then use to pay a writer.
When I
contemplated going to the Foundation Center, I knew I had come to the
end of the road. I decided that if my trip to the Foundation Center
didn't produce results, I would give up the idea of writing a book. So
before I left for the Center, I spoke to God, something I rarely do.
"God," I said, "if you want this book written, you'll
have to make it happen. I've done all I can do."
At the
Center, I found that one needed expertise in order to apply for a grant.
And I was not prepared to spend the time and money involved in
familiarizing myself with this field.
Mixed
in among the brochures on grant seeking were a résumé and business
card from a woman named Sara Fisher. She described herself as
"Writer, Editor, Proofreader." I decided to call her. This
was, after all, going to be the end of my efforts. We agreed to meet for
coffee at Zorba's Café in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C.
At
coffee, Sara and I chatted casually about our lives and about my
interest in writing about my role in the Second Wave of the women's
movement. And then she said something that changed my life: "That's
not the book you want to write." She went on: "You want to
write a book of humorous stories about your parents, the kind of stories
you've been telling me. And you want to write it yourself."
Her
words reached me, and I decided to follow her advice. After all, I'd
always wanted to be a writer. I just hadn't wanted to write. I went home
and began to write the story of my parents' lives and my own.
I
spent the next five and a half years learning my new craft and
researching and writing my book. I joined the International Women's
Writing Guild (IWWG), the National writers Union (NWU), and local
writers' groups in both the Potomac, MD, and Sarasota, FL, areas. I
subscribed to the Writer's Digest
and read books on writing. I took a course on writing a book at the
Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and attended a two-week
Elderhostel memoir writing program at the University of Iowa Writer's
Workshop. I hired a lawyer who specialized in literary matters to review
my book for possible invasion of privacy and libel issues.
At the
same time, I began to market my book--writing to magazine, e-zine, and
book publishers and literary agents; contacting libraries, colleges and
universities, bookstores and book festivals, and organizations and clubs
to set up speaking engagements and memoir readings. I ordered business
cards and prepared a display of my book cover for memoir readings.
While
this was going on, I took a vacation to Sarasota, Florida. A friend who
had moved there had been urging me to visit for years. I fell in love
with Sarasota at first sight. It is a small town with big city
amenities: a symphony orchestra, an art movie theater, other movie
theaters, opera, and lectures and restaurants galore. I rented and later
bought a condo there and created a second life for myself, with a new
environment, new friends, and new activities.
At the
end of 1999, my memoir, Eat
First--You Don't Know What They'll Give You: The Adventures of an
Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter, was published in
paperback and hardback in the U.S. and as an e-book. In January 2001 it
was published as a paperback in the U.K. The results have been beyond my
wildest expectations. I have received accolades and recognition for the
work of a lifetime that had previously gone unnoticed except by
feminists and a few friends. Excerpts from my memoirs have been
published in newspapers, journals, and magazines in the U.S., Canada,
and South Africa; many are running on-line. The book was used as a
textbook at Cornell University and American University, and I had the
great pleasure of speaking to both classes. It was a thrill to return to
Cornell, fifty years after my graduation from that institution, and to
enter a classroom where the professor and every student had my book at
his or her desk.
At a
gala reception and dinner-dance at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in
Washington, D.C., I was one of four awardees given the Women at Work
Award by Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) for 1999. Prior awardees
include Katie Couric, Jane Fonda, Linda Ellerbee, and Hillary Rodham
Clinton.
In
March 2000 I was one of five women inducted into the Maryland Women's
Hall of Fame, and I will be included in Women of Achievement in Maryland
History, a reference book to be published in the fall of 2001. I am
included in the Gallery of Prominent Refugees (www.unhcr-50.org)
established by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to commemorate its
50th anniversary (I was born in Berlin, Germany).
At the
age of 73, I am represented by a speakers’ bureau and am in constant
demand for speaking engagements and memoir readings at colleges and
universities, bookstores, libraries, genealogy societies, and other
organizations. In April 2000 I did a memoir reading at that august
institution, the National Archives.
At
first, nothing I tried in retirement worked out. When I gave up and
opened myself up to new experiences, I entered the richest phase of my
life.
- Sonia Pressman Fuentes
