Report from Santa Fe; Gail Sheehy

. . Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. Hello, I'm Lorraine Mills, and welcome to Report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is an iconic writer and really your an observer of our culture. You've contributed so much. Gail Xi is with us today. Thank you for joining us. I'm happy to be here and always happy to come to Santa Fe. Well, Santa Fe loves you, and I must tell you, you are really iconic. The imprint you have made on our culture from this first book. This is an old edition of it, but it's called Passages. And tell us what you did in this book that changed the world. Well, I don't know about changing the world, but we started with American. It did make it around to 28 different languages and countries. There was a theory of a new theory about adult life. Eric

Erickson had started it. Propounding that we grow from one stage of life to another, with periods in between of disequilibrium when we're changing and uncertain. And they are not necessarily tied to the major events of life, you know, getting married or divorced or starting a new job. Very often these changes start from within, and you know they happen when your old defenses don't work anymore, and you feel uncomfortable. And what you have been doing, which might have been perfectly satisfying up to then, isn't quite satisfying anymore. So where am I going? Who am I going to be next? And I was thrilled that Eric Erickson invited others to flesh out stages and passage, what I called, passages in adulthood. And as a matter of fact, even naming that book, I had a little fight with my editor. At the last possible moment, it was going to press and I, you know, going through hundreds of possible titles. And this came to me on the spot at lunch. He said, what do you call it? And I said, we call it passages. He said,

well, they'll think it means excerpts. And I said, no. Not when they read it. Yeah, yeah. And it was true. Once people read it, they understood. This is something that's happened to me. And I thought it was just, I thought I was crazy. Or my husband told me I was crazy. What do you mean wanting to go out and go back to school when you're 40 years old? And then so many women did do that and continue to do that. Mid -life crisis. When people, you know, in their mid -40s or 50s feel like, you know, nothing I'm doing is exciting to me anymore. I'm talking to the same friends. I'm reading the same newspapers. What can I do that will give my life more meaning? Well, that's the beginning of a passage. And it can take several years, even up to seven years, to make a major passage. Well, speaking of years, your book was on the New York Times bestseller list for three years. That's true. And the Library of Congress said that your book was one of the 10 most

influential books of our time. I know you're very modest, but that's why I would just want you to know how honored I am to have you here. After passages, you revisited it with new passages. What was new passages about? Well, this was 20 years later, Lorraine. And I was ashamed to see that I was so young when I wrote passages that my idea was that what could anybody find interesting about stages after 50? And when I got to near 50, I said, wait a minute, this is the big time. And I came up with this idea that we have a first adulthood, roughly, from 18 to 50. And then we start all over again. We really have a second adulthood, particularly for women at 50, which is really kind of the freedom spot. It's when women say, enough with pleasing everybody else. You know, it's time to do something that reflects my own passion. And I'll be, I'll please the people who really matter to me. And the rest can just go fly a kite. And there's a takeoff point. And we've seen

it in politics in particular. So many women in their mid to late 40s run for political office for the first time. And then go on well into their senior years becoming more and more effective. You see Hillary Clinton considering running for president in her late 60s. Well, you are a literary journalist, and you've done a lot of in -depth pieces about Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, both President Bushes, Newt Gingrich, Maggie Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev. And you've got, seven times you've got the New York Times Newswoman Club Front Page Award for the Singles Journalism. So it's not, this is so grounded in fact. When you studied Hillary, it wasn't that, I mean, you use each part of your work to feed the other part. He was an example of what you were writing about. And yet she was a forerunner. Right. A forerunner. And actually, in new passages, I ended up writing about

path leaders. Pathfinders are people who make successful passages and are able to grow and go beyond the normal. But path leaders are people who often, at some point in middle or later life, are really rejected. For instance, Churchill was rejected. DeGole was rejected. They went off into the wilderness for some years, and then they came back. And they came back and used the incredible self -awareness that they had gained while when they were lost and had no identity, and then found themselves and helped to bring their culture back to deal with the big changes in the culture. And I interviewed Ann Warsadot. He did the same thing when he decided to go to Israel and offer to make peace with Israel in exchange for the sign I've returned. And managed to pull this off. These are the great, great people. Margaret Thatcher was a path leader. She's an extremely

conflicting figure, because many people thought her economic policies were extremely harsh, and made England into a very materialistic society. But she was also the go -between, between President Reagan and Gorbachev, and made them make up and work out a day taught with the Cold War. But she did get furious at Ronnie, her best friend, for negotiating with Gorbachev as if they were going to eliminate nuclear weapons. She said, this is madness. We have to keep these weapons. Well, that's such an exciting part of history. Now, you and your late husband, Clay Falker, he was a pathblazing journalist and editor and started New York magazine. Yes, tell me about him a little bit. Well, Clay was the one of the most imaginative people I've ever known. He could always see

over the hill to the next trend, the next trend. Where was it going to go next? Where was the story going to go next? And as a result, he was able to kind of wind so many writers up like a top and just say, go out and find out, why is this happening? What's the precedent in history? And report from the inside, he actually gave birth to the new journalism, which was where we used the techniques of fiction to enliven the story with dialogue and scene setting and character. A character analysis, but the writer was almost always saturated in the story by, for instance, when I was writing a whole series about prostitution in New York. I went out on the street dressed like a prostitute with an off -duty police officer pretending to be my pimp, so I could talk to the girls. Tom Wolf got into a party by Leonard Bernstein for the Black Panthers and did one of the great satirical

pieces of the 20th century called Radical Sheik. Now, a movie came from your work with a prostitute called Hustling. It did, that's right, Hustling. And starring Jill Clayberg, who was not a star yet, but she was wonderful and she was in that role and she became. There was very funny one point, we were shooting on 42nd Street and she had been practicing her, you know, prost walk and, you know, her come on to men and she wanted to show off. So I'm standing over to the side and she stops this toll, very good looking black man with a big, big black hat. And she's having a dialogue with him, but it's not really going anywhere. So I got a little closer, a little closer and finally she turns away and comes back, she says, you know what he said to me? He said, what's the matter with your sugar? I'm a pimp.

Well, that was such an unusual glimpse of that kind of life. But you have been in Santa Fe before because one of your other books, Sex and the Season Woman, you did a lot of the interviews among the season Santa Fe women. Tell me about your last trip here. Well, Marilyn Mason, who became a friend when I met her at a health ranch and who is a mover and shaker in Santa Fe life, invited me here when I told her I was doing research on women over 50 who were still interested in a sex life, whether they were married or divorced, and that I done a lot of research on them, but I really wanted to meet some of these women. And I knew Santa Fe has a lot of strong, vibrant, independent women, many of whom come here either divorced or to patch up a marriage and then it ends up in divorce or widowhood. So we had a wonderful time. We spent all afternoon talking. I met Natalie Fitzgerald, who has a very famous store here and was just getting over a divorce.

And they were, they were my favorite interviews. And then I've come back many times since then for various fundraising events and always to interview fascinating people here. Well, you are actually being honored. One of the reasons you've come here now, the Women's International City Group is giving you their Founders Award. Well, it's very great, because I'm not a founder. I'm just here to talk about the three women who are going to inspire those researchers who come to help me with the pronunciation. As Cateria House, you know the, oh, I say Kimundri. Yes, yes. Well, the three women, three generations of women who built that house and who contributed so much to Santa Fe culture with Native American market that was started by them with archaeology and anthropological researches that were done by

them. They were bold, they were adventurous, they weren't militant, but boy did they kick up a lot of dust and make enormous contributions. So it'll be an inspiring place for women researchers who have a book to do or who want to know more about Santa Fe culture can spend a week or a month there, seeped in that environment. Well, they've chosen the perfect person to honor because you are one of those pathfinders that you talk about. I want to come back to your husband a little bit because you have written one of the most courageous books I've ever read and it's called Passages in Caregiving, turning chaos into confidence. And this is based on your own experiences, taking care of your husband for 17 years. Talk about blurbs. Bill Moyer says, trust me, there is no better book on caregiving. And on the back, Roslyn Carter says that this is one where,

the rare gift of this book is that it lightens a burden no matter how heavy. I'm a paraphrasing it. Well, it can be a very heavy burden. I was fortunate in though, although Clay had cancer for different times over the course of 17 years, there were periods of victory three times and we had long periods of respite. When we changed our lives, moved from New York to California, he reinvented himself as a professor guiding young journalists into how to actually make magazines and making them. So we had a wonderful, lovely life in Berkeley for 10 more years. And the book, while I was caregiving, you know, I couldn't quite, I couldn't fit it into my usual scheme of passages because it wasn't linear. And one day I was given a retreat and I walked a labyrinth. And here we are in a labyrinth which goes around in a circle because continuous path takes you to the center. In the center, you kind of go into your inner place of knowing and then you

come back out and it will guide you all the way out. But in the process, you're constantly going through sudden abrupt twists and then you go along straight and then a sudden turn. And that's what caregiving is like. Starts out with shock and mobilization and you think, okay, as soon as I get the doctor and I get the hospital and I get the wheelchair and everything will be fine. And then the next thing is the new normal and you think, okay, I've got it now. I know how to handle this. It's a little change but we can do it. And then the third turning is suddenly boomerang. Another health crisis comes out of the blue or a treatment doesn't work. And then it goes on that the fourth one may be, I can't do this anymore. And then next you find yourself playing God thinking you can do it all alone, which you can't. The most important one is for the caregiver coming back. And that's the one that I say when you get to that center of the labyrinth in your mind. And you ask yourself, is it likely that my loved one will come back to the same independent

person he or she once was? The answer is no and you're on a different road. Because if you go down with your loved one, it's going to be very difficult to come back because people do that say, who am I? Now that I no longer have this vital role as a caregiver, what did I love to do? One man told me he got into his car and he was on a Saturday morning. He looked at the garage door. His wife was recently died and he thought, I forgot what I like to do. So you have to reconnect with your transports to joy with old friends, you know, give a party. You have to take a vacation. You have to find a circle of care, other people, family, friends, maybe colleagues, volunteers, community volunteers. You can actually now use websites and put up what are the times and the tasks that need to be done. And you'll find that people in your community may be willing to come just for half an hour to take so that you can get out and do something. We're speaking today with Gail Sheehy, the

iconic author of the book, Passages and the difference between the original passages and the caregiving one. In your original passages, you showed people that there's a growth and you change levels, but there's a progression. But you say the caregiver's journey is a different journey and it's not linear. No, it's more this labyrinthing with these turnings coming back. And oftentimes you feel as if you're going backwards and you are, you may be revisiting the kind of situation that you've had before, but now you know better how to deal with it. And one of the biggest handicaps that we have is Americans is we don't think we can ask for help. And I encourage all the way through this book and I show so many people who found the solutions to not being overcome by the role of caregiver. They ask for help. You mentioned that in this country as many someone serving as an unpaid family caregiver in this many as a

third of the households. A third of the households in America. That's right. And the job usually it's a five year job. Right. It's usually five years. And you know, it's interesting. We're always talking about Medicare. Oh my goodness. It's just too much of a budget. We have to have a cut. The government is always talking about that. The amount of money that is spent on older people and long term care under Medicare is much, much less than the amount of dollars that would go to pay for the job that all the family caregivers do for nothing. And that's like $386 billion. It's just unbelievable. And we are going to have to support family caregivers because we can't keep seeing them leave their work or be fired because they are not giving as much attention as they would like to or moving in with mom thinking it's going to be a short time. But then it's not and they've given up their home oftentimes marriages break up because there's so much attention given

to the family member. And then of course when it's a spouse, you know, it's your whole life that's going to change. So having a circle of care other people who care about you as well as the loved one is really vital. Well, one of the gifts you give us in this book is you go through those turnings, you know, from the playing God to the I can't do this anymore. And you tell anecdotally, you tell stories of people who are in your same situation and this is what they did. And then you have all the resources. You have a phenomenal amount of resources. So whatever say you're at, even like you describe it as getting the call when you the doctor calls and gives you the diagnosis for your loved one and for yourself. And then there's that mobilization. Right. And that you really need to get a second opinion. You absolutely do have to and slow it down. And then before you make the decision with your loved one, go away if you can for a couple of days. And just forget

about it. Try to think about nothing to do with health until your mind is refreshed and relaxed and you can actually make a better decision. Yeah. Yeah. So now we always talk about the sandwich generation. There are so many people who are looking after their kids and they're right. It takes them longer to leave the nest now. And then then you got parents who are in decline, much faster than you thought. And there are a lot of women that falls on women so much, although there are many, many good, good men caregivers to juggle both right. Well, the average age of a caregiver today is a woman 47, 48 years old, who still has young child or children at home, often had her child's children later. And has parents who aren't going, you know, beginning to decline it in their 60s. But aren't you are still, you know, trekking in their mid 70s. But at some point, they're going to be come needful of help. And

if she has to handle both that and a job, which she may not have been able to put all of her energies into until she was older in her 40s. So now she's got just too much to do. And one of the things that I've found more recently in a study done by Gallup and healthways is that the women who are least happy with their lives today are women 45 to 55. And that's totally new. That used to be the age, the stage of life in which women were happiest because of being sprung and getting past menopause. Now they have so much to do. And so many of them are in the sandwich generation situation. And the real key to the women who have the highest well -being in that age group are women who had their last child by the time they were 34. So that they don't have any children left in the house when mom and dad begin to need help. Well, you give such really life -affirming advice. You're saying you cannot, no matter

how big and strong a caregiver thinks there is. They have to realize that they can't do it alone, that they need respite and that there is help available. There is help available. And you can find places to take your loved one for a long weekend so that you can get away and you need to get away. Every couple of months, two or three months, and maybe you just sleep. Maybe you just go to the local hotel and have a sleep break. But it's essential because the sad part is that people who do caregiving for five years, they're now demonstrable proof that it takes years off their own lives. And not infrequently, the caregiver dies before the person they're taking care of. I'm a heart attack or a stroke because just too much, too much, too long without a break. Well, you're chronicled also well. I think everyone who's in the caregiving situation or thinks it might be on the horizon should get your book passages

and caregiving. But we don't have enough time to go into everything you are finally writing your memoir. I am, yes. Taoist. Taoist. Well, it's fascinating to go back and find letters from... I picked up a letter from my husband's first wife writing about how he should be really nice to me because I would be a good wife for him. I mean, things he would never imagine. Interviewing people who worked with us and worked with him and who helped us when he needed to find a new life because he was ill, finding, you know, well, how did I get the idea for passages? And why did I really write new passages? What was it sparking that? I didn't even remember. And these are quite interesting, particularly for people who want to be writers and wonder how do you get ideas and then how do you do research. And it's also the hardest book I've ever written because it's much easier to jump into somebody else's life after you've interviewed them for a long time and say, okay, here's

how I can, you know, parse this life. And this is what it all meant and these were the good defenses that were used and here were some difficulty and here was a great passage that was made successfully. That's it, over and out. I'm not out. Still going. After four years after my husband died, which is a good thing and a good message to put out there. You know, I did come back in time and actually this ties up something. It was the doctor that I had for Clay, a palliative care doctor who, you know, said it's, it's, it's Clay's job to design the treatment for what he wants at this time as in his life and asked him, what are your goals for this time in your life when we knew he wasn't going to live for much more than a year or two? So when it got towards the last month, I was really beaten down and the doctor said, I'm going to give you a prescription, Gail. The Hillary Clinton's campaign is as, Vanity Fair has asked you to go out and cover Hillary

Clinton's presidential campaign. Go. You have forgotten who you are. You're a writer. You have to recover who you are before you lose Clay. And I said, I can't possibly leave him and he would be furious. He said, we're going to have a meeting at his bedside, a family meeting. And we did and Clay said, go. Of course you have to go. Just call me with the gossip. Yeah. Yeah. And because I went as soon as I put my suitcase in the back of that car and said, LaGuardia, that whole fog of depression lifted. And then also he was able to improve his own health on his own. That's right. That feeling obligated. Exactly. Knowing that you were happy because he loved the journalists in you. That was one of your basic connections. Exactly. So he was happy you were on your rightful path. That's right. And it freed him up. And when I came back, he was able to read the story that I wrote and be the editor again. So, you know, it was a real lesson. Well, I mean, just went out.

When is the memoir going to be ready? Well, I hope it will be published next May. Oh, good. Yeah. Good. Well, you have all the internet is full of quotes by you. And some of them I just love. I just like your. This is when I like changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's own unnecessary vegetation. Uh -huh. Uh -huh. Well, that's a little, a little bit of a cautionary tale. Yes. Yes. But when you talk about it's kind of like Dylan's he not busy being born is busy dying to always to look at the at growth and growing. And that with courage, if you face what's what the obstacles are, you will continue through the next passage. I've just spent some time recently with a woman who was diagnosed three years ago with stage four lung cancer. And she's still alive. And her doctor says the reason is totally because of her attitude. Because she gets up and works with herself mentally every morning about what she has to be grateful for. And what she's going to do that during that day and how patient she has to

be with what she's able to still do. Mind over matter is just a huge part of the answer to continuing to enjoy life right to the very last moment. And you provide us a glimpse of all of that through your books. I want to mention this our guest today is the iconic author Gail Sheehy. This was the first one that started the the genre of passage books, passages. And for anyone who is on the brink or the cusp of caregiving or or entrenching caregiving, passages in caregiving is probably the most the best resource you could have. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. Oh, I love being here. Thank you, Lorraine. Well, we'll have you back when you publish your memoir. Wonderful. Yes. So thank you, Gail Sheehy. And I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank you our audience for being with us today on report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Past archival programs of report from Santa Fe are available at

the website report from Santa Fe dot com. If you have questions or comments, please email info at report from Santa Fe dot com. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Tau's New Mexico. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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