How Does She Do It?

Mary-Ellen Buchanan: Pushing Past Limitations

By Janet Pelz

I met Mary-Ellen Buchanan prepared for an interview with a gifted teacher of children with exceptional needs, but within moments of settling down with our coffees, the conversation took its own path.

For me this became less of a story about her professional calling than a broader story about the webs of support that we create, taking turns both doing the holding and allowing others to hold us. Committing to the idea that no one is beyond, beyond needing help, beyond being worthy of it; beyond the limitations we thought that age or mental or physical development brought with them.

This is how we started.

In a soft voice edged with reminders of Queens, Mary-Ellen tells me, “I’m a power lifter -- I’m a competitive power lifter. I’ve won a world championship and I have Washington State records.”

Mary-Ellen is 66 years old. She stands a mere 5’1”.

“It’s all age and weight,” she explains. In the 61 – 67 year-old division, she’ll compete in the 105 – 114 pound weight class for just one more year. The next division will take her to age 75. “You should see those older athletes -- unbelievable. It’s quite amazing what they do.” After that she’ll compete against every woman older than 75 in her weight class. No more divisions, just lots of opportunities to outdo herself. Again.

In 2008 she bench pressed 132 pounds, eclipsing her previous state records of 110 and 115 pounds. “Now I want a fourth state record. I would like to get the world record, which is now 165 pounds. I used to think it’s out of my range, but now I’m thinking it’s possible.”

She pushes a bar loaded with significantly more than her body weight from her chest while lying, back tightly arched against a bench. Under her wrestling singlet she wears a special shirt so tight it takes her coach several minutes to dress her. Once in it, her arms are almost immobile (she demonstrates for me with a kind of zombie walk, arms straight out ahead).  The only thing they can do is press the weight. Up. The weight her coach Joe Head hands her in the meet. How many pounds Mary-Ellen doesn’t ask. She trusts Joe implicitly to know what she can do.

Mary-Ellen Buchanan competing in the World Championships, 2008, with coach Joe Head spotting

While Mary-Ellen embraces the work that’s required – three work-outs a week of between 2 – 3 hours each in the gym and running the other days – she gives the pace and flow of these work-outs completely to her coach, a former pro football player who now runs his own gym, High Performance HQ Fitness in South Seattle.

“You got a coach, you do what he says. He has the goal in mind; he’s always fine-tuning. As you get close to a meet, you start your shirt, you start working on the weight you’re going to lift. I’m trying not ask how much weight is on the bar, I’m just doing what I’m told -- he handles all the numbers. Whatever the next one is, it’s Joe’s determination.” Where’s the next meet? “I don’t know what Joe’s got in mind for me. But we’ll definitely do the World Championships in Las Vegas in the fall of 2011.”

Mary-Ellen started lifting in 1987 after suffering a running injury. Training with Joe since 2000, she didn’t start competing until 2006. What factored into her decision to go competitive? “Joe said I could do it,” she answered matter-of-factly. “He said I had the ability. I remember Joe saying, you know, the Washington State record in your age group is 75 pounds, and I thought, oh man, I can do that! That was a little tease.

“I never competed in anything, except running. I used to do marathons. But I’m not the fastest runner, by any stretch. I’m steady. And, you know, growing up, we didn’t have Title IX. I didn’t play soccer, I didn’t do any of that stuff.

“But I really love weight lifting -- neurologically, I think it suits me perfectly. It is so centering both physically and mentally. You’re holding that weight -- it’s just all that proprioception,” she exclaims, throwing out a term that requires definition. “It’s how your body feels things in space. I just feel the weight go all through me,” she says, swiping her hands down the opposite arms. “It just feels good.”

Mary-Ellen is tuned into ideas like neurological fit and proprioception. When she’s not power lifting, she works as an early childhood special educator at the Boyer Children’s Clinic, a non-profit therapy and early childhood educational facility serving children who have neuromuscular disorders such as cerebral palsy or delay in development.

The work at Boyer “is very physical, very physical. I’m lifting kids, sometimes I lift kids in their chairs. I don’t have a bad back. At work, you have to get up and down off the floor a lot. I said, Joe, I really gotta do legs, and you know what? Since we added legs, my knees do not hurt at all. It’s great because this is a job you don’t see old people doing. I thank Joe for that,” she adds, laughing. “And I always say, I have no plans for retirement -- not a thought in my mind. I tell him, Joe, you’re my old age insurance!”

Most of the kids she works with have vision impairments. “I work on their cognitive, visual and social skills. I want them to be able to look at what I show them, shift their visual intentions so they can scan their environment, and then I want them to be able to choose between options. Do you want the ball or do you want the baby?”

This is how she met Jonah Israel, whose mother’s life was transformed by Mary-Ellen’s work. Said Joyce when I wrote about her for How Does She Do It? last May:

“I remember, we walked into her classroom and she held up these two objects in front of Jonah and she said brightly, ‘Jonah, which of these do you like, do you like the blue (pointing to one hand) or the green (pointing to the other)?’ And I thought, lady, what, are you on drugs? My kid is a vegetable, what are you doing? And do you know, within six months, Jonah was turning his head, making a decision between the blue and the green? She gave me hope. This woman changed my attitude about my child in a huge way. I came to understand that there was somebody home. And gradually, gradually, I learned how to love him.”

On Tuesday and Thursdays, she does home visits of children, some of whom may be too sick to come to school. Often, these families have come to Seattle from places far away -- Somalia, Viet Nam, Ethiopia. “I love going into any foreigner’s home because it feels like I’m traveling and I love traveling.”

For these and others, Mary-Ellen is often the person who can help an overwhelmed family learn how to decipher and attend to their children’s special needs. “What I really enjoy and I’m good at is working with the families. I mean, it’s very painful. You’re the first teacher, it’s an important time in their lives. I get that and I get the pain. Yes, my job has a sadness to it, but I am also often struck by the resiliency and strength of the families.  It is a privilege when they let me into their lives.”

Mary-Ellen singing the ‘Shout and Whisper” song here and the ‘Umbrella Song’ below.  The songs allow kids to make choices during music/circle time and encourage social interactions.

Advancements for these kids don’t come in a straight line. “They can do something real good one day and the next day they have a seizure and it’s all gone. But it’s still worth it to just keep plugging ahead. Because if you’re plugging ahead, the parent is so glad to have someone plugging ahead for their kid. You’re not saying, well, this child’s not going to make it, so why bother.”

Mary-Ellen and several of her colleagues are trained in Reiki, a Japanese technique for healing and stress reduction. It’s a practice she calls upon daily, at home, at work, at the gym. “There was a boy who would come to my classroom -- he has since died. He was the only one there and we would put a towel on the table, turn the lights down and I would just treat him with Reiki for the hour. It’s just something I could do. It was important not to write off that kid or his family.

“I see a lot of these kids being written off. Some would say, why are you working so hard? I’d say, we know what he can’t do, that’s pretty obvious, let’s find out what he can do.”

In her life, Joe helps Mary-Ellen find out what she can do and he’ll push her to get there. He won’t write her off because of her age, or her size. And Mary-Ellen never gives up on herself.

“I got injured once at a meet. I’ve never been one to say, ok, I got hurt, I gotta stop. I say, what do I need to do to fix it? I rehabbed that shoulder for a year. My shoulder is probably stronger now than it was.”

At this age, Mary-Ellen has already lived longer than both her parents. In addition to her exercise schedule, she eats a low fat diet, and with a husband who is a really good cook, she eats well. “I don’t want to deal with weight. Could you imagine having to compete and THEN having to lose a pound or two in 10 hours? Uh-uh. I was 20 pounds heavier at one point. I took it off and that was it.”

In addition to Boyer and the gym, Mary-Ellen’s life is full with friends, her synagogue community, and her husband Tom, who recently retired from a career with Boeing to become a full-time social activist. “I always say, you know, I have a wonderful husband, I have a coach, a Reiki master and two rabbis -- I am very supported.”

Like Joyce Israel, there are countless parents of special needs kids who would list Mary-Ellen as a critical pillar of support in their worlds.

Taking turns – doing the holding and having others hold her.                                                  Mary-Ellen and husband Tom Buchanan

 

Mary-Ellen Buchanan’s Not-So-Secrets for How Does She Does It:

• “When you get older you really take stock. Is there anything I have to regret? I think the only thing that sucks is that half your life is over. ‘Cause I’m stronger, I’m a much better teacher than I was even 10 years ago.
• “I couldn’t be the person I am now without Tom, without all my friends, the families I work with. I wouldn’t be as happy without Joe. The thing about growing old -- some people’s world gets smaller and smaller. The good news for Tom and me is that our community keeps getting larger and larger, stronger and stronger. The synagogue connects to it, the gym connects to it, and work. At the synagogue right away you can become friends because you have so much in common.
• “I have a good job. It’s very satisfying work. People say, oh, I just want some meaning in my life – well, my work gives me meaning. The only bad thing is you don’t make much money.”
• “You hope your life will have activity. You hope that when you compete, you have the mental toughness to get through. And you know what else? You hope you have that mental toughness throughout your life. You don’t want to grow old and decrepit; you want to grow old and strong. And you can -- I’ve seen it!”

What books has Mary-Ellen read recently?

• The Museum of Innocence, by Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Laureate
• One of my favorite authors was Octavia Butler, who won a MacArthur genius award. I was so sad to learn she had died.

Whom does Mary-Ellen want me to interview next?

• A good public school teacher is worth her weight in salt. And I have two very close friends who are teachers who have given a lot of thought to schools in general.
  • Leslie Sager -- teaches 1st grade at Roxhill Elementary in Southwest Seattle
  • Gladys Fox – a middle school librarian in Tukwila

One Year, 25 Amazing Women and 13,000 Page Hits Later…

 

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It was one year ago that I launched How Does She Do It? promising prospective readers:

“You’ll be inspired by the extraordinary and ordinary life stories of women in the Seattle area.

Each week I’ll interview a single mom, elite athlete, artist, or community volunteer; women who have arrived at their destination or women in transition – about who they are now and what choices they made to get to this point.

I’ll ask these women to tell who has made a fundamental impact on their lives, and what resources they turn to for support. And I’ll ask, whom should I interview next? We’ll start a thread that could weave throughout the region, and we’ll follow it wherever it takes us.”

  With the first story about my mother Kelly Pelz I’ve gone on to write about 24 other women, ranging in age from 13 – 99, women involved in the arts, sports, non profit organizations and business; women making an impact in this country and around the globe.

In the process I’ve also had my eyes opened to the power of the web to connect us. Google provides more information than I can use, but here are some of the more impressive statistics:

• Since I posted my first story, I’ve had more than 13,000 page hits. When I started writing, I was excited to see the number of readers rise by 25 with a new story. Now I regularly get between 30 – 60 hits on the days I don’t even post from people who have Googled something and seen my page on their results page.
• My biggest single day was 328 hits about Lacey Evans, captain of the Rat City Roller Girls. By way of update – you’ll recall she was planning a kickball game at her wedding to determine the couple’s new last name. The groom won, and Lacey is now Lacey Ramon.
• 85% or so of my readers in any month are new to the site. These are people who might be looking to read about a specific person I’ve profiled, or they may be looking for information on a topic like raising children as a single mom, living with ALS, or owning and operating a restaurant.
• Through Google searches I’ve been found by readers on every continent. A reader in Kenya read about Trish Dziko’s efforts to educate children of color. Someone in Venezuela read about Marla Smith-Nilson’s organization Water First and their efforts to bring clean drinking water to the poorest parts of the planet. Readers from European and Asian countries regularly visit my site.
• Without question the story that is most often Googled is the one I wrote in two parts about the young violin virtuoso Simone Porter and her mother. Simone’s high profile as an international performing artist has inspired a lot of interest. (She got a nice acknowledgment for her performance with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the concert she was preparing for when I interviewed her).
• Sometimes another web site directs their readers to me. There was the time when the website Feministe picked up my story about Joanie Warner, who has been living with breast cancer for 17 years and her daughter Abby, who was organizing a rock concert as part of a high school project to raise money to eradicate the disease. I saw a spike in readership from that link, including one woman who was an old friend of Joanie’s from North Carolina. The two friends found each other through my web site and are once again in each other’s lives.
• 70 of you currently subscribe to the site – thank you for your vote of confidence! If you don’t do so yet but like the idea of each new story showing up in your inbox when I post, just fill in the white box in the upper right hand column where it says “enter your email address here” and hit the “subscribe” button. No cost, no obligation even to read, but it’s there if you want to. Likewise, if you prefer not to receive my regular emails notifying you of the new story, please don’t hesitate to ask to be taken off the list. I know how email overload can become an issue.

While most women eventually agree to be interviewed, almost all of them start with the disclaimer that they aren’t interesting enough to merit a story. A few have turned me down, including one woman I greatly wanted to interview who sent me this:

“I do wish I could say I'm enjoying my time as a full-time teacher with the Seattle Public Schools, but that's sadly not the case. Rather, I feel thwarted at every turn. It seems to me that creative people are not wanted in the public schools. I don't believe I can continue as a public school teacher.

“Due to my present lack of inspiration, both for teaching and writing – teaching has taken all the time and energy I had for writing – I'm afraid I'll have to decline Janet's gracious invitation for an interview at this time. I wish I were in a better place to provide inspiration for other women.”

Heartbreaking.

Although I get wonderful kudos about the stories I write featuring other women, I don’t feel as successful in trying to establish the site as a place for readers to connect with each other. My other goal in starting was this:

“So, how do you do it?

Is your secret as basic as a crock pot or as meaningful as the words Aunt Lola whispered to you on your wedding day? What gets you up on a rainy morning and sustains you through one more meeting, rehearsal, breast feeding, burnt casserole, proposal deadline, or arrival of the Great Hormonal Onslaught?

I’ll open up topics and ask you to weigh in.

We’ll learn from each other, share our secrets, and promote the people, organizations, books – even kitchen gadgets -- that add value to our lives.”

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The times I’ve put out a question for your response I’ve been met with deafening, well, silence, which makes me think, either I’m asking the wrong questions or you don’t have an interest talking to each other through the milieu of a web site.  Consequently, I’ve become reluctant to try.

Likewise, the comment function of the site doesn’t get much use. My hope is that the site could grow into something more like a book club than a text message – something that inspires conversation rather than tweets.

All of this represents the growing pains, the adjustment period.  You can help me with your ideas by clicking here to take a survey.

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And finally to the business side of this project. I spend between 10 – 20 hours a week on the site, arranging and attending interviews, writing and posting stories and trying to master the technical aspects of blogging. As compensation, I’ve made about $94 in advertising and referral sales. I thank the person who ordered a camera on Amazon by clicking from my site -- that grossed me a whopping $16! If you want to help support this project, you can do your Amazon (and affiliated sites) shopping by clicking their ad on my site. I’ll get a percentage of your sales as a referral fee at no cost to you. Similarly, if you just click on any site ad, you’ll earn me a few pennies even if you never make a purchase.

Obviously, I don’t have the business model to make this a financial success, but I definitely feel as if I’m building something of value in writing these stories. I’m looking for other ways to share them (a book, perhaps?). If you have any ideas, I hope you’ll send them along.

If you have a few minutes, I’d appreciate your responses to a brief 10-question survey. Click here to take survey. I’d love your ideas for how to make the site a more valuable place for you to spend some of your time each week.

I can’t thank you enough for your support.

- Janet Pelz

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Anne Green Gilbert: Engage Your Brain and Dance!

It’s bustling on Saturday morning at the Haller Lake Social Club, home to the Creative Dance Center for the last 15 years. The 1920’s wood frame structure, with its creaky stairs and broken up spaces is alive with a “Cheaper by the Dozen” kind of feel (I mean the 1948 book, not the cheesy Steve Martin film). There’s a sense of family among the multiple generations coming to dance with their babies or to drop their grandchildren off for class. And there’s Anne Green Gilbert, the nationally and internationally recognized visionary in the field of dance education, unassumingly weaving herself through the crowds to join a group of first graders for class.

This year Anne celebrates the 30^th anniversary of the Creative Dance Center where she has served as Artistic Director, teacher, intellectual and philosophical guru, mother and grandmother to the more than 10,000 dance students who’ve entered her doors.

On this morning, she brings an excited group to gather around her on the floor. Unfazed when an apologetic grandfather interrupts to explain that his granddaughter is reluctant to come in, Anne is quickly on her feet to help locate an extra leotard (though clearly there is no dress code for this class). With a graceful yet businesslike bearing, Anne quickly returns. The purpose in her steps, the ease of her posture, the effortlessness with which she re-seats herself on the floor -- it’s clear that this 63 year-old grandmother of four is a dancer.

Unlike my own daughter’s ballet experience, which lasted approximately four minutes -- the time it took for her to break down in tears when the teacher insisted I leave the room -- Anne’s class is suffused with an aura of acceptance. I’m sitting in the back of the room with my 9 year-old while another mother watches nearby. The door opens periodically when a curious person peers in. Anne’s attention is on the kids and their attention is on her.

“We are very flexible. I don’t know why people can’t have more of that feeling. Many of these traditional dance schools can be so harmful. Dance should be joyful!”

I recognize elements of the Anne’s BrainDance in the warm-up she leads, though rather than using scientific terms such as “core-distal” or “vestibular” she encourages her students to express different emotions like a puppy, wagging its tail or shaking its head. Each of these she does as if for the first time, the emotion in her movement as convincing as it must have been more than 40 years ago when she first started teaching.

(photo credit: John Lok, Seattle TImes)

Every class Anne teaches will be similar to this one and every one unique. They will be based on the 5 - part lesson plan that she developed, “always moving back and forth between technique and improvisation, to really create a whole dancer. It’s a very multiple intelligence, very holistic approach to dance.”

From the parents dancing downstairs with infants in their arms, to the adult and senior classes, the summer institute for teachers and Kaleidoscope Dance Company, Anne’s presence is indelibly evident. The approach to dance is one that Anne developed, in part a reaction to what was wrong with her early dance experience (“I hated my dance studio when I was young. I had a ballet teacher who hit me with a stick, who yelled and screamed”), but developed and constantly refined in response to need, experience, experimentation, science, and movement. Always movement, in a forward direction.

“I’m a Thrust. When you’re a Thrust you don’t look at things as a challenge. Because you just do it, there’s something inside you, a passion, a fire, where you don’t have a choice. And you don’t really think too clearly about what you do,” she says laughing.

“Like my books, I never should have written each book. I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I needed textbooks.” What she needed didn’t exist, so she created. Three of them.

The first in 1977 was Teaching the Three Rs Through Movement Experiences, born from her frustration teaching third grade students who were chained to their desks all day, expected to regurgitate facts rather than solve problems. Photos of children moving joyfully as they gallop their letter P through space and arrange their bodies together to make an asymmetrical shape illustrate the very clear lesson plan suggestions.

Her second book, Creative Dance for All Ages, first printed in 1992, receives only 5-star reviews on Amazon with comments such as: “Her methods are generous and joyful, reflecting her passion for giving children (and adults) the experience of dance without fear or feeling threatened.”

Anne’s third book printed in 2006, Brain Compatible Dance Education, starts with a section for Understanding the Brain and outlining the four stages of brain development from conception to adult. With the basic science explained, she moves on to describe the BrainDance.

“The BrainDance is an exercise I developed in 2000 comprised of eight fundamental movement patterns that we move through in the first year of life,” from touching and squeezing to creeping and crawling. “These movement patterns wire the central nervous system by laying the foundation for appropriate behavior and attention, eye convergence necessary for reading, sensory-motor development and more.”

As Anne taught children over the years, she was seeing an alarming increase in motor learning development problems. The culprit? Hours spent sedentary before a computer screen or strapped into a car seat, families under stress, high-stakes testing in schools. “Movement is the key to learning, but people today spend hours simply sitting. When we watch television, we go into ocular lock, staring with no movement in our brains. In the critical years as their brains develop, children should move, dance, play and interact with peers rather than stare at screens.”

Anne launches in on new negative forces creeping into children’s lives. “I read this awful article about toddlers on the iPhone -- it’s like a drug. They have these special apps. They can just do this,” she says swiping her hand through the air, “and wild animals come on, and these kids are hooked. But they don’t know what the thought process is, so we’re just creating more stupid people. They just see flashing lights, but there’s no tactile, no three dimensionality -- their brains are not really wiring the way ours were. And some of the research says, so what? This is evolution. These people don’t need the hunter gatherer brain anymore.

“And I say, ok but the kids I’m seeing are obese, they’re nervous if they sweat, they can’t relate to people, they can’t read, they can’t write. And what really kills me is the whole social relationship -- when we lose that, the violence is right here. If we don’t have a moral compass, if we don’t know empathy, than we’re just going to keep killing. To me, that’s not evolution, world peace is evolution,” she sighs.

BrainDance was born from the need she saw to prepare her students for learning, “I just started trying it out in the schools, it made kids focus, and over the long term it made children behave better and in certain cases, it made them learn better.”

Not just BrainDance, but all aspects of Anne’s methodology and philosophy come from perceiving then addressing a need, starting with her first days teaching at the University of Washington in the early 1970’s. “I was asked to teach dance for children and I knew nothing about that. But I said yeah, I can teach dance for children, I can teach dance for the P.E. majors, I can teach folk dance, I can teach ballroom. I had never done any of these things, so that’s when I became an autodidact.  

 “I just started to read. I read every book on creative dance there was. I got Arthur Murray dance records and I would teach myself the tango at night and go teach it to the students the next day. And the next night I’d learn the fox trot. And then I thought, here I am teaching these college kids how to teach children, I better teach some children dance. So, it was like a laboratory. I started organizing classes for preschoolers while I was teaching at the University and dancing in a dance company. I would see what worked and then I would tell my students the next day. I began to just make up my own ideas and own philosophy and own methodology. See, most of the time I don’t know what I’m doing,” she says laughing at herself.

Anne’s assiduous study of the brain introduced her to another concept that guides not just her teaching but the way she manages the Center and even how she understands her husband. It came from Betsy Wetzig, Coordination Pattern theorist (explaining the impact of movement on learning, communication and creativity by making movement a window to the mind’s work) who developed terminology that resonated with Anne.

By this theory, Anne is a self-described “Thrust/Swing -- I get things done and I love to play. I’m not so much a Shape, which is about what’s correct.” She goes on to explain.

Swing: “This person is always giggling, bouncing, one leg on one side, shifting legs,” says Anne, demonstrating all of those movements from her dining room chair. “They are the networkers, they love social groups, they love talk, they’re the playful people, they love to add color, they’re good nurturers, hostesses.”

Shape : “Is about being correct. Their movement is sitting still, they’re much more about what is correct, and usually it’s their own point of view. They like to edit; they put things in a box, they make lists, they’re analytical. My husband is very analytical but rarely gets things done because he’s afraid that it might be the wrong thing.”

Hang: “Falls off the chair,” says Anne, sliding from one edge of hers to the other. “They have meandering pathways, they are the ones that have the big ideas, constantly conceptualizing, big idea, big idea, they can’t edit, can’t get it done, They kind of take on other people’s personalities, they get pulled in, so, they’re kind of messy. Sometimes you can’t be quite sure what they’re saying because they’ll start in the middle of a thought that they’ve been thinking so hard.”

Thrust: “Is a doer; often sits forward, they move in a forward, diagonal direction,” says Anne, while gesturing with her right then left hands. “They get things done, they’re activators, they like to reorganize data, they don’t have the big ideas themselves. That’s basically what my books are -- I’ve taken all these things I’ve read, reorganized it, made it very accessible. I’m really a translator.

“I’m so attuned to movement I can see someone come through the door and think, Hang, and I can be prepared for a certain communication style. And you really need every single type in a committee.” Anne attributes the success and longevity of her non-profit’s Board of Directors to carrying a balance of the four types. “You want to encourage the Swing person to be the hostess at your auction, encourage the Shape to do your budget and encourage your Thrust to get things done. If you have all Shapers, or all Swingers on a committee, you’re in trouble.”

In case you haven’t yet caught on, I’m not writing about a ballerina here with an equal amount of sawdust in her head as in her toe shoes. This woman, so generously sharing her time and her dining room with me is mindful, purposeful, bursting with energy, inspiration, and evangelism for movement.

Anne and Dionne Kamara, teaching partners at CDC's Summer Dance Institute for Teachers

Anne shares the BrainDance widely. You can read about it in her book, on her web site, or purchase a dvd or video to watch it in action. She shares it with classroom teachers and through her Summer Dance Institute for Teachers (“designed for educators, dance teachers, arts specialists, and therapists who wish to understand the vital link between movement and cognition”). But she has no desire to trademark or register it. “People say I should own BrainDance, but I don’t want to, I don’t own these patterns. Whoever created us created these patterns. I just translated it and made it accessible.” That’s the Thrust talking.

And she sees the application of the BrainDance reach far wider than young children. “Because BrainDance goes through these patterns it really does rewire the brain. It reboots the computer. It’s not just random movement. It’s specific neuro-developmental movements that created our central nervous system. And if you do it everyday, you really do change. Your memory is better.

“As I get older, I’m moving into older populations and doing a lot of workshops on BrainDance for adults and seniors. It’s exercise, but it’s also expression -- much more interesting than going to 24-Hour fitness and looking at a screen because it’s about emotion, and feeling and community and connections. We do these improvisations and I say, ok, this is going to delay Alzheimer’s; this is better than crosswords because we’re using our whole body, we’re thinking of solutions.”

And what would she to say to somebody who hasn’t danced at all or hasn’t danced in a really long time? “Come, come! We see people who haven’t danced for 30 years and are re-finding that voice, and we have people who have never danced. It’s very open, very flexible. That’s what this method is.” The age range of her weekly adult class is 39 – 69 years. “I wish there were more opportunities for creative dance for adults. There is wonderful contra dancing, and senior dancing, but it doesn’t have the community. In my class, we’re always touching, weight sharing, talking, observing. It’s much more in-depth than just exercising – it has that emotional, expressive component.”

Anne is all about movement – movement of ideas, movement of bodies, of spirit, moving on to new projects, to the next class, the next workshop, the next performance. She suggests that really she is quite shy, that she would prefer to be reading her classic English novels in a quiet corner of the living room, but within moments she betrays herself yet other new ideas. “I want to write an alphabet book, do more dvd’s,” her expressive hands in movement to illustrate a point as if the energy can’t be contained.

“Everyday is a lab -- I’ve been teaching 40 years but I’m still trying new things and trying to be better. I’m, excited about planning the next lesson, I like thinking of new ideas, I like creating so much. And this gives me such an opportunity to be using my brain, solving problems, and playing! That’s what it is, it’s not work, it’s play.”

To re-energize, every summer Anne retreats to the old 1916 stone schoolhouse in the grazing land of rural Colorado. It’s the place where her father, a true cowboy reluctantly turned lawyer, went as a boy each summer to work as a ranch hand. Reachable only in the warm months, the schoolhouse is now shared by Anne and her three sisters, each of whom an artist in her respective discipline. But it is Anne, the dancer of the four, who finds a special history there. “This is where Agnes De Mille went to her first cowboy dances and got the ideas for the choreography for Rodeo and ultimately, for the Broadway musical Oklahoma. These were all-night dances with fiddlers and she danced on the same floor! Whenever I go to this schoolhouse, I always dance on this floor – it’s very romantic. Agnes De Mille is one of my total heroines because she never had a dancer’s body and I never did either.”

Anne with grandchildren Pryor, Emerson and Finn and daughter-in-law Tindley dancing on the old schoolhouse floor

Over the years Anne has brought her three children, all dancers themselves, and now her four grandchildren to join her, handing down the ritual and joy of dance through the generations. And soon, she’ll see her daughter Bronwen back at the Creative Dance Center, this time to dance with Anne’s new granddaughter Kaija Isadora (named for Isadora Duncan, the mother of modern dance). 

There are a lot more people to move. “I see changes in these kids everyday and it’s not me that’s changing them, it’s the dance. I’m just allowing that to happen.”

Happy Birthday Anne.

- Janet Pelz

 Anne Green Gilbert’s not-so secrets for how she does it:

• “I’m doing what I love to do -- it’s this passion I’ve had since I was little. And it doesn’t mean that everyday is great. It’s difficult sometimes, difficult parents to deal with, difficult grant issues, fundraising, costumes. But I think a lot of it is that Thrust personality.
• “My husband is very supportive of what I do. He has always worked long hours – he’s an excellent physician very dedicated to his patients just as I am dedicated to my dance students.
• “I didn’t have the time to stop. I had 3 kids in 5 years, I was teaching, traveling, organizing, creating. I took the kids to class when they were sick; I’d teach my class and then come home. Now I’m sitting back a little and wondering, how did I do that? It all went so fast. I can’t even remember it.
• “I just kept going.”

What books has Anne read recently?

•  Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope, an 1894 classic of swashbuckling romance she read with her book group;
• The Barsetshire Novels, by Angela Thirkell published in the 1940’s, Anne is re-reading these well-written classics. “I’m a person who rereads novels that I love because I don’t want to waste time on a bad novel.”
• Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John J. Ratey . “I read a bunch of neuroscience books.”

Whom does Anne want me to interview next?

• My neighbor works for the Seattle Police as a Community outreach officer. She’s so passionate about what she does, and I think her job is so needed, and she just got a pink slip. She’s the most empathetic, sympathetic, loving person, and she has to work with these old boys. She’s living in a world that I can’t fathom and trying to change that world like I’m trying to change mine.

Following the women of How Does She Do It?

I knew what it was before I unwrapped it. It came from Esther Instebo with this note:

Dear Janet:

I have had this special card for a long time, and it has always been a card that is too good to use. But for a hard working Mom and an excellent writer, at last there is the occasion that warrants its use.

How you managed to write a piece that made good sense out of that garbled interview I gave you will never cease to impress and astound me. Then to think that you could go into the internet and find that piece that must have been written about back in 1997 or 1998 really overwhelmed me as anything related to the computer world always will. Thank you for that effort on my behalf using time out of your very busy life.

- Esther

When my mother handed it to me I said, “It’s Half the Sky: Turning Oppression of Women into Opportunity Worldwide“, the one Esther recommended at the end of my interview with her.

I was engrossed in the volume immediately, knowing why it moved Esther and understanding how she knew it would move me. In my head I was writing the thank you letter I planned to send her, along with copies of the stories of other women I had included in this blog. (Esther doesn’t own a computer, so sending the web link would have been pointless).

And then my mother, the one who had urged me to interview Esther and to get around to it quickly, called to tell me that Esther had passed away the day before. Not too surprising for a woman about to celebrate her centennial birthday, but full of poignancy nonetheless.

You see, according to my mother Kelly Pelz, Esther availed herself of the Death with Dignity services now legal in our state. The date and the setting of the event had been planned out long in advance.

And in that list of things to do before her date, she had included the wrapping of that book and the careful typing of that note. She had other things on her to-do list. According to Kelly, Esther wheeled her mobile walker from her apartment through Freeway Park to the Convention Center whenever she could to collect signatures for Initiative 1098, the measure that would restore funding for critical government services through an income tax on the state’s highest wage earners.

Esther Instebo. Filling her days with the good fight and leaving it on her own terms. Look for her obituary – I contacted the Seattle Times and encouraged them to write a story about her and they’ve indicated that they will.

Here are some other updates which don’t require a handkerchief but could require good eating and drinking:

Back in January I wrote about Donna Moodie and her restaurant, Marjorie. Thankfully, she has reopened this wonderful refuge, this time in the Central District. She has been getting great reviews. Stop by for a meal and tell her you read about her on How Does She Do It?

You don’t get many chances to support a good cause while drinking at a string of local bars, so you should put this one on your calendar. Melissa Erickson’s friends and supporters have once again organized a Ring Around the Needle Pub Crawl: Back for Mo! on August 28. To learn more and to sign up, visit Melissa’s redesigned blog. If you join the action, let Melissa know you heard about her through How Does She Do It?

Melissa’s new site is looking great and has some inspiring updates on how she brings passion and commitment to each day she lives with ALS. You’ll also get connected to this youtube video Melissa helped do for the Evergreen ALS Chapter. Watch and listen to Melissa and others describe their journey with ALS and where you could go to lend a hand.

As for me? I just spent a wonderful week on Kauai with my family, snorkeling, paddling, hiking and zip-lining. It is a magical place, well worth returning to. I’m currently doing some work that will help pay the expenses of this web site – I’ll have the money to buy a laptop, which should make the whole writing thing more efficient, but the pace of new stories will be slowed as a result.

If you want to help add some pennies to support the site, you know what to do – click the ads on the site and do your on-line shopping through them.

Thanks.

- Janet Pelz

Esther Instebo: A Century of Giving

Esther Instebo rises slowly as my mother and I walk through the apartment door she has kept ajar for our benefit. She invites us into her tidy, compact living room, offering the two comfortable chairs while she settles onto the seat of her wheeled walker. Looking around the room I have a sense that everything here has a purpose and a place. The bookcase is the first piece that catches my eye, likely because soon upon getting settled Esther points out a particular volume there.

It’s Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. With a hint of the first grade teacher that she was for 41 years Esther tells me, “I think everybody should read that book. She’s definitely a brilliant woman. She’s also Canadian. I think Canadians are particularly good critiquing us – they can see our follies.”

And this is how we start our two hour conversation, which journeys far back into the past and farther into the future than many people half her age have gone.

Along the way it becomes clear to me that Esther Instebo has quite a head for numbers.

She would demure on this point, insisting that it was her late husband Al, retired from Puget Power as an accountant, who wore those stripes in their family.

But I would have to differ. Consider the evidence.

This year Mrs. Instebo will claim the big round number, turning one more tumbler on the date clock -- to reach 100 years old.

(Kelly Pelz, left, with friend Esther Instebo)

And how about these numbers? She was born in 1910 on a farm in northern Minnesota and got her first teaching job at age 19 through a program to encourage high school graduates to teach in rural schools. Hers was a one-room schoolhouse with 11 students spanning eight grades. She had a three mile walk to and from school each day, many of those battling the snow of Minnesota winter. For this she was paid $85 a month.

Esther’s body may not be moving quickly these days, but her mind has an agile grasp on the importance of numbers and not just those from her distant past. She can cite the cost benefit analysis of family planning ($1.00 spent saves $4.39 on pregnancy care) or the amount of money Senator Patty Murray has amassed for her re-election campaign ($5 million), or the level of taxes happily paid by Norwegians, for which they are provided universal health care, among other benefits (50%).

These days, Esther applies her numbers savvy to her ardent support of Senators Murray and Maria Cantwell, Planned Parenthood, and other charities important to her. Her reputation for filling tables at their fundraising events is legion, often paying for others to attend. “I just feel it’s our obligation to participate. There are so many people who could buy those tickets without even missing the money. I don’t have that much, but we all need to make sure that these people stay elected.”

Her career as a political fundraiser started when a friend invited her to a luncheon for Patty Murray back in 1998, and Esther decided it would be fun to take her sister as a birthday present. She had a wonderful time, sitting next to a social worker who knew a High Point housing project family that Esther had helped while she was teaching at the elementary school nearby. Esther was hooked. Since then she has become a mainstay at such events, often bringing with her dozens of her aging neighbors.

She is particularly loyal to women leaders and supported Hillary Clinton’s Presidential bid with passion. It was then that her fundraising prowess was caught by Erik Lacitis, who wrote in his feature story about her in the  Seattle Times:

It's doubtful that there is an older active fundraiser in Seattle. She sits in her studio apartment, and, on her 30-year-old IBM Selectric typewriter that she bought for $25 at a flea market, types out notes to her fellow residents at Horizon House.

    The Selectric just keeps running, like its owner.

    Instebo walks down the halls, attaching her fundraising messages to clips on the doors of each residence.

    "If you can support our senators in this way, you will find it an enjoyable experience," she typed out on a leaflet for $100 and $150 seats for the annual Patty Murray Golden Tennis Shoe Awards.

Esther Instebo promoting her Presidential favorite, Hillary Clinton photo credit Seattle Times, Steve Ringman photographer

Women in positions of leadership equate with economic and democratic prosperity in Esther’s mind. “That’s why China is where it is. It was Mao Zedong -- he would say China had to include women in their economy and educate women because they hold up half the sky.” As she says this she points out the volume on the table next to me, Half the Sky, Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Another must-read, according to Mrs. Instebo.

Given her forward-thinking politics, it may seem surprising to know just where Esther came from. Back there on the northern Minnesota farm, she was coming into her 20’s about the same time the Depression was hitting this country.

At the end of her first year teaching, “I went to Duluth and got a job as a maid for the summer for $30 month. Every girl should have that opportunity. I learned that I could keep a big house. And I still have a recipe from those days – pork chops and rice.”

Fortunately when she returned to teaching in the fall, she got assigned a school much closer to her parents’ farm. Living at home, she was able to save all of the $90 a month she was now earning. But this was the Depression, and the following year’s pay promised to go down, not up.

“But my father was far-seeing enough to know that there was a new teacher’s college opening in Bemidji, and there they could make a teacher out of you so you could teach in a graded school.”

After three years of one-room school houses she enrolled. “They had a nice dormitory that cost $20 a month for room and board but that was a figure I couldn’t possibly afford. I think my tuition was about $30 and the books were free. And for $5 a month you could rent a room and share a bed with somebody. There was a kerosene stove in the room and I brought most of my food over from the farm.”

Right about this time, Esther Carlson met Al Instebo, a Norwegian immigrant who had come to Tacoma, Washington to earn a living as a logger. But when the Depression hit there, Al thought, “why stand in government soup lines in Tacoma when he could work on a farm in Minnesota for room and board.

“He and his friend were working at my neighbor’s place. And one night that neighbor set the boys (my future husband) to churning ice cream for the evening (it took forever to freeze the ice cream because they were using snow and salt). He got very tired of cranking and grumbled quite a bit about it, but the neighbor said, ooh, the Carlson girls are going to be worth it! But the Carlson girls weren’t exactly enamored with the Norwegians. It’s a wonder I ever married him, but he was so good looking, and so smart!” she says laughing. “But he had such an accent!”

When the lumber business picked up Al went back to Washington. “I thought that would be the end of Al, but he didn’t forget me. At Christmastime he came back and stayed around for Christmas break, and there’s where I discovered his talent. I was knee deep in chemistry, and Al helped me with such aplomb that I got all my homework done. And that’s when I came to really appreciate how smart he was.

“That summer, he came again to solidify the relationship. He had a beautiful new wardrobe – I remember that gray flannel suit,” says Esther, keeping up a steady chuckle. “He really got to me that time, he was so good looking.” Esther gets up slowly from her chair and crosses to the bedroom to fetch a photo of her Al. Indeed, he was a looker.

She insisted he go to college. “I’m not sure another woman would have pushed him so hard, but being a teacher, I couldn’t see myself married to someone who didn’t have a college degree.”

Esther throws in a few more chuckles and draws a deep breath. “I know you’re not getting much from me, but you’re giving me an audience, which is very nice of you. I guess that’s what old people like most of all, to reminisce. And most people don’t want to take the time to hear our stories.”

For much of their marriage, Al and Esther had her brother or mother living with them, despite the fact that her brother George was very difficult. “He told this story of seeing a fortune teller when he was a young man. The fortune teller looked at his palm and said, I see here that until you’re 40 years old you’re going to be lonely and depressed. And George asked what would happen after that and she said, you’ll be used to it. It was the saddest thing. And then I began to understand why he had been so difficult and mean – because if you’re lonely and depressed, you’re going to be difficult and mean to your loved ones.”

Years past his death, Esther has pondered the cause of George’s loneliness. “I think he had been a Gay man all his life and not known it. It makes me sad every time I think of him, living out in the country alone and wondering why he wasn’t like the other farm boys. He lived to be 90, and what a frustrated life it must have been.

“And that’s why I’m hooting and hollering for the rights of Gays and Lesbians.”

Walking home from Plymouth Church in 1995, Al had a cardiac arrest, his fourth. “The doctor realized the seriousness of his heart condition but first, he had to prove to Medicare that Al was worth a pacemaker. They finally put one in, but 17 days later Al died, pacemaker and all.”

For the first time in our interview Esther has stopped chuckling. “The first year I had to live without him. Which…. is the hardest thing I think we all have to do eventually.”

But hard doesn’t stop Esther. My mother, who was the one who encouraged me to interview Mrs. Instebo (see her story in the November archives), tells the story of seeing Esther in the copy room shortly after she returned from a hospital stay during which she was seriously ill. “I asked her what she was doing and she told me that the lovely nurses who cared for her didn’t understand what was in the health care bill. So she was planning to take this information back to them.”

It will be difficult to keep Esther Instebo down, as long as she can be standing up -- for a good cause.

- Janet Pelz

Esther with Vice President Joe Biden at a recent Patty Murray fundraiser

Esther Instebo’s not-so secrets for how she does it:

• She continues to make a difference for the issues she cares about.
• “I’m not quite ready to die, but I don’t want to be a centenarian for long.”
• She’s up at 4:00 am to take her medications and then goes back to bed to let them settle and wakes up again at about 11:00.
• In her community at Horizon House she finds many other seniors who share her passion for civic activism and keep her company at events
• She continues to expand her mind and her attitudes through reading, conversation, and introspection
• She has a great filing system that allows her to put her finger on any piece of information when she wants it.
• About the scholarship endowment she made to Bemidji Teachers College she said, ““One’s halo really shines when we realize it allows us to live on in the lives of the young people who receive the scholarships long after we have gone.”

Mrs. Instebo’s must-read book list includes:

• Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein
• Half the Sky, Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Whom does Esther Instebo want me to interview next?

• Someone connected with the Death with Dignity movement

Kelly Pelz: Building a New Community at Age 85

“It’s time.”

My father had heard these words from his wife of more than 50 years five times before, but was pretty sure that this time they didn’t portend the arrival of a new bundle of love.

“For what?”

“To go.”

Two words delivered over the kitchen table, not as a death threat or a prison sentence, just a statement of fact. Just a recognition that the house and yard that had raised five energetic children and hosted more than its share of slumber parties, snow ball fights and college kids crashing for anti-war marches, was too big for just two.

That was my mother, Kelly Pelz, who uttered those words, and my father Dick who nodded in agreement.

As if the deconstruction of 54 years was as easy.

Saying goodbye to the hundreds (thousands?) of friends they had brought into their community, to move 3,000 miles away to a place they hadn’t lived in for more than a lifetime. At the spry age of about 80 the two of them packed up their belongings, sold their house and moved from the D.C. suburbs to a Wallingford apartment rental. By themselves.

The physical displacement was just the first step.

My mother unknotted the ties that bound her to the home she loved. Through her never-ending neighborhood potlucks, Democratic Party political organizing, and board terms with the local low-income housing authority, word on the street was “everyone knows Kelly Pelz.”

But Kelly found out that creating community is a transferable skill. It starts with taking up conversation with just about anyone. Pressing a little bit, she’ll learn what’s needed, and what she can do, to help.

“I think it was easier for me to move here from across the country than it has been for many of my neighbors to move here from across town. Their old connections keep pulling them back.”

Kelly Pelz standing in front of a portrait of her grandmother, painted by her uncle Fred 

Here to Kelly and Dick is Horizon House, http://www.horizonhouse.org/a senior community of about 500 on First Hill in Seattle. “It’s close to everything. I don’t have to drive or to rely on anyone to get me anywhere. I walk to my wonderful doctor. We go frequently to Town Hall for lectures and concerts. And we can take the #2 bus for just a quarter to get to the Symphony, Seattle Center, everything!”

So, from knowing almost no one when she arrived a bit over three years ago, she can’t walk more than a few steps through the lobby without someone stopping to thank her for the cookies she baked, or confirm she’s coming to the Halloween Party planners’ reception, or to the Peace Action meeting that night.

And she’s busy far beyond the walls of her retirement community. She organizes fellow residents to prepare hot lunches and socialize with the residents of Plymouth Housing’s Langdon and Anne Simons House, a place where formerly homeless, drug addicted, and mentally ill seniors call home. You see, to Kelly, community isn’t just building a network of friends to play bridge with (though she does that). It’s spreading the connection to those who, after many years surviving on the streets, have lost the basic skill of social conversation.

“Sometimes the residents don’t even talk. Or sometimes one will go on about people who keep stealing his things and how he’s going to shoot them. We just listen. It’s important that they have someone who will listen.”

On other days, Kelly is delivering a home-baked casserole and toiletries to the women at the Church of Mary Magdalene, a day shelter for homeless women and their children in downtown Seattle. “I collect socks – these women are on their feet all day long. We wash their feet, we feed them a warm meal. The need is so great.”

Kelly spoke to the homeless woman in front of Bartells the other day to make sure she knew of Mary Magdalene. She never misses the opportunity to include one more person in her widening community.

Kelly’s (not-so) secrets – how does she do it?:

• Stay active: fill your days with meaningful work, art, culture and politics, and all sorts of people, especially those who inspire and teach you
• Always recognize and appreciate your blessings and share them with others

Kelly’s recommendations for local organizations serving the homeless:

• Plymouth Housing: http://www.plymouthhousing.org
• Church of Mary Magdalene: http://www.churchofmarymagdalene.org/faqs.htm

What’s on Kelly’s bookshelf these days?

• The Agony and the Ecstasy (a biographical novel of Michelangelo) by Irving Stone
• The Life of Pi, by Yan Martel