Mary as a baby with Dick and Becky

At seventy, I hope to go on being surprised by life.  If another great calling comes to me, like the compulsion to write An Address in Amsterdam, I want to say yes.  I hope to read and walk more, and drink more tea with my friends at odd hours.  As the children in my life grow up,  I always want to read them a book one more time.  As long as my partner and I are still able, I want to stroll by the Lake with her, nag her to play the piano more often, and take her anywhere she wants to go.  For my friends who are still in the more structured phase of life, I hope to provide respite, little islands of joy and peace.  For those whose lives are less rigid — as I hope mine will be – I want to see art exhibits on weekdays, go to the movies in the afternoon, and cook food that takes too long to prepare in my old pressured life.  In the community where I live, I hope to be someone others can rely on to be fully present when I’m here, using my skills to help everyone make good decisions we can all support.

In the world, I hope to go on being the elder:  transmitting what I’ve learned in my own life, and what my 13 years of research about Nazi occupied Amsterdam taught me.  We must act when we see the danger signs that are rife today.  Everyone can find a way to resist, and that includes not allowing the evildoers to kill our joy in life.

Thus far, I’ve spent most of my time in service to my adult wants and duties and aspirations.  In this decade, I hope to pay more attention to the child in me, to her wonder and openness to whatever is to come.

So many of my dreams have come true:  a great love, circles of friends who became my family, children I helped bring up, a vocation as a consultant, a calling as a writer, extensive travel, and participation in the vast causes of my time.  Along the way, I achieved financial stability even as a single person, which was important to me as someone who grew up scraping by.

In the coming decade of my life, I hope to put my physical and legal affairs in order so that I and my beloveds are ready for my death in that sense.  I also want to pull together my legacy of writing, my understanding of my life and what it has taught me, and portraits of the significant people in my life and how they have influenced me.

Joanna and Mary in orchard Frelighsburg

Even though I hope for many more years in good health with Joanna, in many ways my life feels complete.  I could “rise like a queen from the table, with no further wants.”  My relationship with Joanna is the great accomplishment of my life, as we honor each other’s beauties and endure our irritating habits, as we create new possibilities for each other and our friends in our home and embrace.  I’ve told everyone I love how important they are to me, more than once. I fulfilled my duties to my own elders with love and grace, and brought flowers and stories and auntie indulgence into the lives of “my” children. I look back with pride on my years improving women’s work at the Environmental Protection Agency, bringing mentoring programs to women across government, and helping Vermont nonprofits make a better world right here, right now.  I gave my whole heart to the task that was given to me in Amsterdam – not just writing An Address in Amsterdam to honor a young Jewish woman who joins the resistance, but giving talks far and wide to show how vital the book’s messages are in our own time.  In a few words, “Do not stand idly by.”

I hope always to be as thankful as I am now.