Female Role Model by Lady Kimi

Several names spring to mind when I think of who inspires me. I have had wonderful friends, teachers and bosses. But one in particular helped me define the kind of woman I want to be.  I graduated from college in 1986, and then spent a year abroad, teaching English in a French school.  I felt confident being so far from home, because I had a friend in Paris, an American woman I had known for years,  who brought her children over to the US every summer.   Connie had a summer house behind my childhood home on Martha's Vineyard.

So there I was, invited to spend Thanksgiving with the Borde family in Paris.  Thanksgiving is the one time Americans all over the world seek each other out and sit down to eat.  It is not always turkey, but my friend had written a book on American cooking in France, so dinner was bound to be amazing.

I flew up to Paris and breezed into their apartment to find Connie sitting in a swath of blue taffeta, struggling to make floor to ceiling curtains for her dining room. One whole wall was window.   She was sewing, and sewing.  There was fabric everywhere, and yet the smell of cornbread wafted into the room from the kitchen.

She finished one panel, and started to work it onto the curtain rod, and then she stopped.  She looked at me and threw her hands up in the air and said, "What am I doing with curtains? I am cooking dinner for 30 people! And I have 6 kids coming home from school any minute!"

And what struck me in that moment was what she didn't say.  Connie  was a professor of political science at the Sorbonne.  She was  the head of the US democratic party in Europe, a delegate to the national convention, and had written 2 books.  But she still saw herself as a mom and homemaker.  She was brilliant and no nonsense, but still put family and friends first.  And thankfully she also looked out for me during my year in France.

Needless to say, the curtains did get finished, and it was a Thanksgiving I'll never forget.

Since then Connie has written more books and translated Simone de Beauvoire's "La Deuxième Sexe" into English.  She travels the country and lectures about her work, yet she still has a house full of grandchildren (usually just the children, not their parents) all summer on Martha's Vineyard.  She cooks for 100 people or more every Bastille Day.   She hosts political fund raisers for Democrats Abroad, and still turns up at the dawn yoga class to gossip with her friends at the beach club.

Connie has been an inspiration to me for many years, because she has shown how a woman can balance public and private life. She has maintained strong family and community ties, and still excels as a scholar and political activist. She is a natural leader, does it effortlessly, just because everyone responds to her character, drive and dedication to family.