2nd Look: Meryl Streep

                                                                                                             Vanity Fair

Meryl Streep won her third Academy Award last night for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady."  She won 33   years ago for  "Kramer vs Kramer" and three years later for  "Sophie's Choice."  Upon accepting her most recent Oscar, Meryl beautifully expressed how much she cherished her husband, her makeup artist (J. Roy Helland won his first Oscar last night) and all her friends.  Her values work for us.

Caryl encounters: The Greta Garbo of Poetry

I only found her after she had died. Then she chased after
me, popping up unexpectedly on Salon, and then again in a recent  issue of the New York Review of Books. She didn’t come to wide attention until age 60 when she won the Nobel Prize for literature, the first female writer from Poland to do so.  Some called the shy, reclusive woman ‘the Greta Garbo of poetry'.  The notoriety paralyzed her from writing for two years; “the Stockholm syndrome", she dubbed it.

But then she began again. In a simple and accessible voice, she took on everyday topics :“chairs and sorrows, scissors, tenderness, transistors,violins, teacups, dams and quips”-- but in a profound way. I will tell you her name--Wislawa Szymborska--but it is hard to remember. Her poems, fewer than 400 in  her 88 years, however will haunt you.  She’s probably best known for "Cat in the Empty Apartment" but this is the poem that hooked me.

Hard Life With Memory 

   by Wislawa Szymborska

I’m a poor audience for my memory.
She wants me to attend her voice nonstop.
but I fidget, fuss,
listen and don’t, step out, come back, then leave again.

She wants all my time and attention.
She’s no problem when I sleep,
The day’s a different matter, which upsets her.
She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,
stirs up events both important and un-, 

turns my eyes to overlooked views,
peoples them with my dead.

In her stories I’m always younger,
Which is nice, but why always the same story.
Every mirror holds different news for me. 

She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders.
And takes revenge by hauling out old errors,
weighty, but easily forgotten.
Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction.
Then comforts me, it could be worse.

She wants me to live only for her and with her.
Ideally in a dark, locked room,
but my plans still feature today’s sun,
clouds in progress, ongoing roads.

At times I get fed up with her. 
I suggest a separation. From now to eternity.
Then she smiles at me with pity,
since she knows it would be the end of me too.

(Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw 

Baranczak.) 

If you want to read more of Szymborska's work, you might like Here (cover shown above), her most recent collection which includes "Hard Life".  She worked (and smoked) to her final days;
she died in Krakow, Poland on February 1.  Her last words will be published in the coming months. I'll let you know if you want me to.  But first tell me: Do you like poetry? Would you like to read it occasionally at Second Lives Club? Will you share a favorite poem or poet with us now?

Maryl organizes: Her Closet and Her Mind

I did something about the clutter in my hallway closet. I took advantage of the January store promotions for container and shelving units and reorganized it. (Why January?....maybe something about stowing holiday decorations that prompts a redo of your whole storage space or about your renewed New Year’s resolutions?) I held out until the end of the month but then tired of stuff falling on me as I pulled out the vacuum cleaner. 

There was wasted space in this closet and after multiple trips back and forth to Target, Ikea and Bed Bath & Beyond (I guess all those promotions worked), I have six more shelves for overstocked groceries, bags and rags in their own receptacles, tools and mops within reach and the vacuum cleaner now slides out with ease. Martha Stewart Living or Real Simple won’t be doing a photo shoot here anytime soon but every time I walked by my closet this week I took a peek inside and smiled.

What is it about feeling organized that makes us better prepared to take on the world or at least our own chaotic agendas. I felt similar when I bought my first filing cabinet and even though my desk overflows with papers and post-it notes, they’re resorted into neat piles each morning before I sign in online. I know there’s a whole psychology behind being organized.   Psychology Today recently published a three-part series on the topic and if you’re the type that likes tips, there's a few here.   Uncluttered space means an uncluttered mind and a more simplified and efficient lifestyle. I suppose all that’s true but doing it just made me smile and for less than $75.

Maryl stayed in; Caryl went out.

What did you do for Valentine's Day?

Maryl made a romantic dinner a deux for her husband and herself inspired by the New York Times dining section. The piece de resistance was dessert: dark-chocolate cherry ganache.

                             

Caryl went to La Traviata at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with friends. Nothing says Valentine's day like an opera about a fallen woman.

Should you want a taste of our evenings, sample the videos below:

Now tell us: did you stay home or go out?

Maryl and Caryl wonder: Why Can't We Get Anything Done?

Is this you too? Bouncing from one task to another until the day is done and very little if anything has been accomplished? You start one project and then another one catches your attention (that might be easier or less tedious), so you move to that one and the whole sequence just keeps repeating itself. This behavior can be even more pronounced if you work at home or by yourself.

Caryl remembers: Charla Krupp

Photo by Kristin Booker

Charla Krupp, popular author, magazine editor and commentator on fashion and beauty whose bestsellers included How Not to Look Old and How To Never Look Fat Again died in Manhattan last month of breast cancer. She was 58 but, according to the New York Times obituary, “looked the perennial 49.” That says something coming from The Old Gray Lady.

For several years, Charla and I worked together at InStyle Magazine. Our offices were on either side of then managing editor Martha Nelson’s, and, because Charla was the magazine’s Today Show contributing editor and because one of my responsibilities was to insure continuity between magazine and television content, we spent a good deal of time together. We were not close friends but we had a lot in common: we were from the Chicago area, we had gone to journalism school, we were magazine addicts, and we followed the advice from long-time Glamour editor Ruth Whitney to never underestimate the intelligence of the reader even if what she was reading was mostly fluff. Because Charla genuinely loved women and wanted to help them, she never would. And, though I preferred covering hard news to celebrity journalism, I never did either.

There was something else we had in common: we were both busty. Growing up I wished I had smaller breasts- a more boyish silhouette- but would never chance surgery. Charla, who didn’t favor cosmetic surgery (quoting fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, “Do you want to look 70? Get a face lift”) had had breast reduction as a young woman. I mention this seemingly obituary-unlikely fact for a reason: it is both revelatory and prophetic. From very early on, Charla believed in taking whatever steps you needed to make yourself attractive. Looking your best not only made you feel better but it was critical to “your personal and financial survival," she said. That philosophy got her in the door of the highly-competitive world of women’s magazines and eventually up the corporate ladder and onto the best seller-lists.

Charla’s colleagues and friends have enumerated her virtues in their remembrances; they said she was kind, generous, funny, fun, hard-working, driven, down-to-earth and “fabulously glam"--to quote current Glamour editor Cindi Leive who recalled Charla as the first person she knew to have highlights. I would add another attribute to the list: Charla was savvy. She was her own brand long before personal branding became a goal. With her trademark high-lighted hair, brightly-colored skirted suits (the rest of us were wearing black pants and jackets), and gold-inked, gold-embellished stationery (she was a master of the thank-you note) she set herself apart. Her savvy went farther than that, however. She could read the cultural winds and reduce them to sound bites, write cover lines and brilliant book titles. HOW NOT TO LOOK OLD: Look 10 Years Younger, 10 Pounds Lighter and 10 Times Better. Who could have said it better?

Charla would never reveal her age, except to say she was over 40. It was her mission, she told Gayle King on Oprah radio in 2008: "I don’t think we should be asking women how old they are. Nothing good can come of it. It just pigeon holes women. I don’t want to contribute to sexism and ageism. We have to look out for ourselves in this youth-obsessed culture." In a job market like this, women over 40 are the first to go, she said. So she filled her books with tips on how to look younger (Have your eyebrows professionally arched. Brows are an instant face lift, she wrote) and truisms (Nothing ages you faster than yellow teeth). She showed readers five ways to "look thinner before dinner": start with a properly-fitted bra. (She wore shape wear every day). She understood the stuff she was suggesting dealt only with the top layer—she acknowledged she wasn’t talking about inner beauty but outer beauty. “I’m not suggesting changing your core—your values, your brains, your wit, the things that makes you different and unique.” Her mantra was looking good makes you feel better. “It gives you the confidence you need to exist in the world-- and to survive.”

Well, at least the first part is true.

Maryl asks: Do you really "like" us?

"You like me.  Right now, you like me!"

Remember those immortal words from Sally Field’s 1985 Academy Award acceptance speech? As much as they’ve been bandied about since then, who would have guessed they’d become the catchphrase for the current social networking craze? Today “you like me” is more than just words though; it’s a button that you click on a Facebook fan or business page and it’s not to be confused with “friends” on one’s personal profile page. The distinction can be fuzzy because big name brand companies have fan pages to ultimately promote their products whereas sites and blogs like SecondLivesClub have them to create a community that is united around a topic or manifesto. So we use Facebook to get followers and to follow others and ultimately to get people to this web site. The more people who “like” you the more people have the opportunity to see what you’re posting on your page. 

As much as I hate to admit it, we’re caught up in the hustle of getting more “likes” on Facebook. But if someone likes me is she really going to follow me? I try to keep up with all the pages we’re following but there’s over 300 now. SecondLivesClub currently has nearly 400 “likes” but some of the pages I go to have thousands. It takes time to build those kinds of numbers although I have a hunch some of them cheat. Well it’s kind of cheating: you can go to web sites like www.coffeeandpower.com or www.fivrr.com and someone will get you 200 “likes” for $20, for example. These small job sites can fulfill a range of work assignments and needs for reasonable prices and have received favorable reviews. The issue with the 200 “likes” is that they will most likely not include your target audience and most likely not follow you.

SecondLivesClub targets Gen X and Boomer women, the fastest growing groups on social networks. A very effective way we’ve increased our “likes” and a following at the same time is with a practice started by a few of my LinkedIn women’s, business and reinvention groups. One person will start a discussion asking for members to leave their Facebook page addresses so others can check them out and “like” them if it’s to their liking, which it typically is since the group is already made up of like-minded people. I was part of a recent group discussion on the legitimacy of using one of these small jobber sites. In the long run it doesn’t pay off but it can be helpful for new business fan pages that need some early momentum.

So we’ll keep working the “like” numbers just because, but real success for us is when our followers comment after our blog posts. That’s how we find out what they think and are interested in and we love the input. Not everyone participates in this way and that’s okay too. I attended a social marketing seminar this week and learned that typically only three to six percent of a community actively comment and 30 percent occasionally. So like us on Facebook if you like but if you really like us, you can make a comment here.

Caryl writes: The End of the Story

The 90-minute ride to the “charming village” followed the Hudson River due north from New York City, where I lived with my daughters in a mid-19th-century loft with fir beams, steel columns, and the original factory floors. You don’t get more industrially charming than that. More interested in the aesthetic arts than home crafts, I was a deeply urban creature. The only thing I had ever built was a fierce career. The only thing I raised was my consciousness—and of course, my daughters.

When I did fantasize about a place outside the city, it was rarely a cottage. I imagined myself in an eco-chic structure—perhaps prefab, even—that was distinguished but indistinguishable from the landscape, welcoming sunlight from every window. Not an inaccurately described cottage (it was nowhere near Nantucket) with a fussy garden in a too-quaint village.

Nevertheless, Mary Lou and I hopped aboard Amtrak’s Empire Service line and headed upriver. In less than two hours, we were lunching on homemade bread and soup at a Main Street café and shopping in the notions department of a five-and-ten, an almost museum-quality replica of another time. Finally, we headed to The House. “If it has a trellis with roses, that will be the tipping point,” I said. “Tipping toward ‘Get me out of here.’“

We approached the corner of Mulberry and Chestnut streets (am I on a movie set here?), and there it was: the world’s cutest cottage. It had lilac French shutters (I could already see them in Farrow & Ball’s Studio Green), a white picket fence, and trellised roses. We were well beyond the tipping point. Inside, the two bedroom, bath-and-a-half house was tastefully decorated and pristinely maintained. (A rigorous inspection turned up a tiny chip in a soap dish.) Did I mention that the garden shed reminded me of Virginia Woolf’s writing shack at Monk’s house in East Sussex? I was certain the seed of a book idea I had been contemplating could florish there.

On the train ride back to the city, we hypothetically considered the house’s merits. It was easily reachable along a glorious train route. (I didn’t have a car.) It was in great condition. (I wasn’t handy.) It was enough for one (I was one) but big enough for my daughters to visit. (Later I would reprise their childhood room, complete with canopied cast-iron beds and their Steiff bear collection.) For the past few months since my mother’s death, I had been debating how to invest a small inheritance that sat restlessly in my bank account. Add some of the severance I received from a job I had loved and lost and the house would be mine. By the time we returned to Penn Station, I was ready to make an offer.

There were two other bidders, it turned out, but my all cash offer sealed the deal. (Thanks, Mom). The owners, a couple in their 80s, didn't attend the closing (which happened to fall on my late mother's birthday) and hadn't wanted to sell (their son insisted they move closer to him). Dottie and Joe were sad to be leaving their cottage, and that afternoon, when I visited my new house for the first time I found a welcome present: tools for the garden (from Dottie, a passionate gardener) and for the house (from Joe, a talented handyman), along with a directory they had compiled of local service people, including a slipcover maker and a septic tank repairman. Sometimes you choose a house--and sometimes a house chooses you. You just have to get on the train.

Thanks to all our commenters for expressing interest in the ending to my previous post, to my daughter Annie who typed in this entry and to Huck Hill who had the house photographed when I couldn't make it up this weekend because of snow.

Caryl asks: Does she or doesn't she buy this house?

Here's an essay I wrote recently that appears on the last page of the February issue of Martha Stewart Living, the one with the cover of a beautiful tissue-paper flower heart that we will never make (and the cover line suggesting 147 ways to show your love.) The story, (which includes this picture-perfect illustration of a house I fell in love with), is called:

THE ACCIDENTAL COTTAGER

The newspaper ad read like a wish list of everything one might want in a second house---if one wanted a second house. "Nantucket cottage in charming village: bluestone patio, wood-burning fireplace, English garden." The listing didn't mention that the house was within walking distance of an independent bookstore, an art cinema, a health-food store, a yoga studio, and two farm-to-table restaurants. But it was.

Let's go see it," I said to my friend Mary Lou (aka Maryl). I wasn't really interested, but the two of us had a habit of taking trains to random destinations. Train trips assured a nice long visit with plenty of talking time, few interruptions, and on occasion, heart-stopping scenery. We were lucky this time. The 90 -minute ride to the 'charming village' followed the Hudson River due north from New York City, where I lived with my daughters in a mid-19th century loft . . . .

Now if you want to know how this little tale ends, whether I buy the house that was not my taste at all or if I just went along for the ride, you will have to read the magazine. Or, if I get five comments begging to know the answer (yes, it's come down to that), I will print the ending which, by the way, involves my dead mother, a kindly old couple and a Steiff bear collection (have to keep you interested). Or maybe you want to know instead how to commission a painting of your own home or a dream house or maybe the portrait is of one in the same. Well, I know a talented artist: the girl with the pearls shown here. But you'll have to leave a comment to find out her contact information. Looking forward to hearing from you on either account. Think of it as the 148th way to show your love.

Maryl eyes: Oscar’s Documentary Shortlist

The Oscar nominations will be out Tuesday, January 24. It’s the documentaries that interest me most. That was the film genre I worked in years ago. I even had one qualify for the documentary shorts category. There were 124 films that qualified for feature length documentary consideration this year and that list has been shortlisted down to fifteen. I’ve had a chance to see and enjoy only four so far.

Buck and Bill Cunningham revealed the rare livelihoods and personalities of two unusual men. Buck is a real live horse whisperer and was the inspiration for the film Robert Redford made famous. As remote as that profession is, it’s his back story that will make you wince. Bill Cunningham is the photographer and octogenarian who chronicles fashion trends on the streets of Manhattan, on his bike, for the New York Times. These boys are still on their first lives and probably permanently but they're having fun. 

Pina, the documentary on the brilliant German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, is one of only two documentaries on the short list about women. (The other one is on Dr. Jane Goodall.) Dance may not be to everyone’s taste but experiencing Pina’s expressive ballets explains why she was so loved and appreciated. Especially since the director, Wim Wenders, shot the film in 3D with his camera moving among the dancers. Unfortunately the film winds up being a tribute to Pina as she died suddenly just before production began. One can only imagine what she would have done second. 

That last somber thought underlies We Were Here, a documentary on the aids crisis in San Francisco. What makes this one especially moving is the five individuals who actually lived through the epidemic right there on Castro Street and tell us what it was like with heavy heart and tears. I remember travelling to SF during that time, looking up an old friend, David deCastro (apropos), and learning he had just died of AIDS the week before. He was a young man who bravely came out while in college and needed the freedom to express himself.  David was my best dance partner ever and a talented artist. Here was a first life that was just getting off the ground.

Over 15,000 people died in San Francisco during that dark period. AIDS drastically affected the death rates in New York City as well. But today better HIV testing and treatments are behind NYC’s recent highest life expectancy statistics. It would be a different world if we hadn’t lost so many to AIDS. We miss those that didn’t make it this far and value our second lives that keep getting longer.

2nd Look: Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda's Workout Book

Jane Fonda first wore this leotard on the cover of her famous 1981 workout book. Now more than 30 years later and at age 74, she put on the red and black striped number to promote her new exercise videos – Jane Fonda Prime Time. The series' title takes its name from her most recent memoir, which mixes tales from her own journey post 60 with scientific breakthroughs and self-help remedies. Unfortunately the videos don't show you how to stretch the life span of your spandex but they do provide Fonda-tested exercises to keep you fit and strong whatever your age.

Today is the first day of your 2nd life!

Second lives are always about fresh starts. Begin again, we wrote in our first blog post on the first day of last year, the opening salvo of Second Lives Club.

Second lives are also about fits. . .as well as starts. And, this holiday season we were catapaulted back into our first lives, filled with super-sized to-do lists and dominated by tasks directed mostly towards others (not bad). The feverish frenzy distracted us from our core values and we forgot that life's about the journey rather than the destination (not good).

Luckily, we knew to push pause --( that’s why you haven’t heard from us for a while): to stay calm and follow along with what we know works. We cooked indulgent meals (oysters and lobsters on New Year's Eve), we read in lazy stretches (The Marriage Plot and Steve Jobs), we saw movies, even a triple feature of our own making (A Dangerous Method, The Artist and Pina in 3D!) The first morning of the new year, we walked the beach—the sun was bright, the weather uncharacteristically warm, our spirits joyfully replenished.

We could see our true selves again . . . in the shadows cast upon the sand. (Our own version of ground hog’s day. A second spring is on its way.) We were moving forward once more, encouraged by every step—even the backwards ones--into a new year.