by Lisa Congdon
Lisa: Tell us about how your training and competing in your 40s was physically different than it was in your 20s and 30s.
Dara: When I first decided to come back, I was really just training for exercise because I was pregnant. I was getting sick, but I wanted to exercise. And I didn’t want this to be an excuse, like, Oh, I don’t want to work out because I’m pregnant, and so I realized, Oh wait, I could go to a pool—there’s a gutter there. If I get sick, I can just throw up in the gutter and keep going. That’s just what my mentality was—no inclination of ever competing-competing. I ended up swimming the day that I had my daughter.
One of my coaches asked me if I wanted to swim in a meet that was three weeks after I delivered, and I said, “Just let me find out from my doctor.” My doctor said, “Okay, you can do it.” So I swam it and that was it. Then I went to the Masters Championships because my boyfriend at the time and father of my daughter got back into swimming after a number of years off and wanted to go. So we went, and somehow I qualified for the Olympic Trials. I didn’t mean to, but then people kept coming up to me at this Masters meet, saying, “We need a 40-year-old in the Olympics!” I was like, “Great! Who’s going? Let’s cheer them on.” And they said, “You!”
Lisa: So you went for it.
Dara: Yes, and I was expecting to do what I did when I was training at 32 or 33 years old, which was to do everything the kids were doing, and I learned really fast that I couldn’t do double workouts. There was no way my body could recover from that, and I couldn’t do the stuff they were doing. I couldn’t do the yardage, and so mentally it wreaked havoc on my brain. I said to myself, If I’m not doing as much as they’re doing, or more than they’re doing, then how am I going to compete at their level? That was what my mentality used to be—that I should be doing more than what they were doing to be better.
Eventually, I had to accept that it wasn’t about doing what they were doing. It was about doing what was best for me and my body. So that’s where I had to change my thinking after many years of always doing “extra” to be the best. There were many times I was on my coach’s couch crying, because I was exhausted and I couldn’t move. I had to make sure that I had really good communication with my coach—that he understood if I was trying to get out of practice it was because I was really hurting.
Lisa: You wrote a bestseller, Age Is Just a Number, so you’re sort of an expert on this. What advice would you give to women who are interested in tackling an athletic endeavor or wanting to go back to something that they used to be really good at?
Dara: I think the biggest thing is not to compare yourself to your younger self. You can’t say, for example, When I was 15, I could swim this time, and why can’t I swim that time again? And I think you just really have to listen to your body and not feel like you have to do what you did when you were younger. You have to set new goals for yourself.
Lisa: Since you retired in 2012, how has swimming remained part of your life? What does your swimming life look like now?
Dara: I go a couple of days a week just to stay in shape. I swim on the Harvard Masters team, and I remember the first day I swam, they were taking the stopwatch out, and I said, “Look, I’m done being timed. I’m done going fast.” I just kind of go at my own speed. I’m doing this for exercise. And I think there’s always someone who comes in the pool who just wants to race me, and I just put my fins on and go kind of easy. I am enjoying the calmness and the quietness of the water and not feeling like I always have to compete. I mean, every once in a while I have some guy next to me and I’m like, All right, you want to race? I’ll race you.
had a passion for mathematics and an unflinching curiosity that led her doggedly through the racism and sexism of the mid-twentieth century to find her place later in life among the pioneers of American space exploration.
Katherine was born in 1918 in West Virginia. Her love for numbers and mathematics was evident from early childhood. She was anxious to attend school like her older siblings and soon surpassed them, moving on to high school at age 10 and college at age 15. At a time when most African Americans did not receive schooling past eighth grade, her achievements were astounding.
In college, she took every mathematics course available and went on to be the first African American woman at her graduate school. Job opportunities in mathematics for women were near nonexistent, so Katherine embarked on a teaching career and later married and became a stay-at-home mother to three girls. When her husband became ill with a brain tumor, she wanted to return to the workforce. A family member let her know that the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor to NASA, was specifically looking for African American females to work as “human computers” (the women would complete the engineers’ calculations) at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, now Langley Research Center.
Within weeks of her hiring at Langley, Katherine’s abilities and assertiveness led her out of the computer pool and into briefings with the engineers. Five years later, at age 40, she became the only nonwhite, non-male member of the Space Task Group, a committee focused on manned space missions. Between the ages of 40 to nearly 70, Katherine was an essential and integral part of NASA. Among her contributing calculations were the trajectory of the first American in space, the launch window for the Mercury mission, and the trajectory for the Apollo 11 flight to the moon. She continues to be a role model for women and people of color in science, and in 2015, at age 97, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.
ARE YOU WITH ME?
by
There are some things I honestly never thought I’d still be doing at this point in my life. For one, dating—or wearing a bikini; eating burritos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (or wanting to); and going to rock shows. Of course, there are also things I imagine I should’ve done a helluva long time ago, but never quite got around to. I’m thinking taking LSD, writing that next great American novel, finding true love, procreation, and a three-way in a hotel room in Paris. (Actually, I’m not really the three-way sort of gal, but wouldn’t that be funny?)
Truth be told, if I look back on my expectations versus the reality, my life has turned into this strange inversion. I got married in my 20s and a good deal of my time was spent viewing life from the sidelines . . . or at least the side of a stage, considering my husband at the time was in a band. But in college I had big dreams—all I wanted to do was be a writer, a performer, or a something. I wanted to see and do everything. Though when life played itself out, I played it safe. I found myself both literally and figuratively in the backseat with no real desire, or ability, to control where I was going. And though I don’t see myself taking up recreational hallucinogens anytime soon, the older I get, the more risks I find myself taking.
When I think of how this change took place, I can’t help but mark time—and my hurdles—with the many rock shows I’ve experienced. It’s been a series of tiny clubs, wayward openers, drink tickets, and bottomless beers that finally hit this mad pinnacle. Though there was Casey Kasem and an early dominance over the car radio, my real love for music started when I was 12 years old. That’s when I saw my first show at the California State Fair, where I accidently stumbled on Romeo Void with my born-again Christian bestie. I could hear Debora Iyall’s growl, “Never—never say never!” and it lured us past the Tilt-A-Whirl, a game of corn toss, and cotton candy stands lit in neon to find ourselves experiencing a legitimate live performance without the parents.
At 14, I saw the Thompson Twins at UC Davis. A year later, garbed in a velvet tuxedo, China flats, and white geisha makeup, I stood in front of Freeborn Hall reading a well-worn paperback version of Edie: An American Biography while waiting to see the Cure perform during their Head on the Door tour. Backstage, somewhere between kissing Robert Smith on the cheek and chugging a bottle of Freixenet cava I’d “borrowed” from my parents, I unofficially met the teenage boy who would later become my husband—though we wouldn’t officially meet for another
five years.
At 16, I saw the Smiths on their Queen Is Dead tour, and then Camper Van Beethoven during their Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart era, and REM on their Green tour. I mention these shows not so much to brag about my arguably discerning taste so much as to say that I thought I knew who the hell I was then, or at least what I liked. I thought the Smiths were the greatest band in the world, and someday I would actually pay back that Freixenet loan.
While studying English and American literature at Berkeley, and still dewy with possibility, I saw Buffalo Tom at Berkeley Square and looked around the room long enough to say to myself, I will not hang out at this particular party too long. Someday I’ll get rid of my record collection, my array of beer-stained band T-shirts, and I won’t give a shit about keeping up with new music anymore. I’ll do what generations before me have done—I’ll stay home and listen to the oldies.
But then senior year in college, I officially met my now ex-husband at a dive bar in Sacramento. He was studying urban planning while playing in a “band” he called Pavement. I was an English major and imagined I would graduate to become an artist, writer, or actor—okay, maybe even a mime—and I’d travel the world madly, visiting places like India, Indonesia, Ireland . . . and Indiana.
We listened to Echo and the Bunnymen and the Sun City Girls on repeat, drank gin and tonics, and ate Blondie’s pizza. I didn’t know it at the time, but I can now unequivocally say that this was one of those chance experiences that changed the course of my life. That urban planner became my first boyfriend. And though I did complete a Eurail stint and wrote my fair share of (really) bad poetry at Café Intermezzo on Telegraph Avenue, a year after graduation I found myself selling ugly turquoise T-shirts at Pavement’s first West Coast show in San Francisco. At that moment, even though I was standing on a chair at the back of the room, I felt like I was watching history in the making. I was cheering my boyfriend on, and I felt like I could support him and help hold it all together with pure will. And it came together. There was palpable electricity in the air. Something was actually happening. They sang, “Everything’s ending here,” and it felt like something was just beginning.
I didn’t apply to grad school or teach English in Japan or take a job at the alt weekly or even become a mime—at least for the moment. Instead, I spent the next ten years managing my boyfriend’s band’s finances and answering fan mail. When they played Lollapalooza, I’d fly out to places like Atlanta to pick up merch money, stuffing it in a FedEx envelope for the flight back to San Francisco, where we lived.
I wrote letters to the World Wide Web to reserve a website under the name “Pavement” and miraculously got a manila envelope in response. I also did a few things for myself—like taking the occasional film class or making lattes at a local café. But overall, I willingly traded my own dreams for the chance to ride along on someone else’s.
It took too long to see I needed my own gig, but I did see this. And the summer before I went to grad school in Seattle, I found myself in another room, watching my then-husband in a different band. This time I was tour manager, driving a white van through the Midwest while my ex’s post-Pavement solo act opened for Wilco. It was a tough period, and, in retrospect, I can see I had started to figure out who I was right as my ex was mourning the loss of his own identity.
The band played a show in Evanston, Illinois, where I was one of only two people in attendance. It was the kind of show that can break you, even if you’re just watching. I wanted to hold up the band and hide behind the merch table. But this was something I couldn’t hold together—not the band or my imaginary future. I had thought once Pavement was over, my “real” life could begin. But it became clear that there wasn’t any such thing as a real life, only this.
A few months before we got divorced, around the same time I was graduating, two things happened. It came over me that I wanted my maiden name back. I’d never been particularly tied to my name, but I suddenly missed it.
Around the same time, my ex stopped listening to new music. “Everything sounds the same,” he said. “I hate all the new bands.” He started buying boxed sets of Springsteen and Petty and incessantly alphabetized his vast record collection. By turns, I started really listening to music. I read music reviews, took recommendations, and went to shows on my own.
After grad school, newly single and living on my own for the first time in my life, I taught creative writing at the University of Washington and wrote restaurant reviews for the Stranger. I eventually moved back to San Francisco and continued to discover my own interests. I realized I had my own inner compass that led me in directions I didn’t even know existed.
Over the years, I’ve thrown crazy dinner parties like it was a sport and traveled to Vietnam, India, Cuba, and Africa. And regardless of whether anyone is actually paying attention, I’ve written articles and short stories and—more recently—made short films with friends.
Now, I’m 47 years old, and I still go to live shows. I say fuck it—why would I ever give this up? Maybe I’ll grow gray and decrepit, but the truth is, I know now that there are no age limits when it comes to appreciating and creating art and music. There are no points in life when we need to give up the things we love.
I recently saw Dungen in the redwoods while surrounded by tree houses and wild Swedes with dancing babies. I saw Savages at the Fillmore, Black Mountain at the Independent, and, based on a friend’s recommendation, I’ve been listening to A Giant Dog on repeat. Even if I’m an old fart, I still like to dance.
The other night, I saw Cate Le Bon at the Chapel. I ran into friends I hadn’t seen for a while, and the room was full. I stooped behind an impossibly tall guy, straining to see, and then there was this lovely surprise of her noodly guitar and that crazy magic was in the air. Something was happening—I knew! And my heart clinched and I felt the sting of tears welling up inside me. The music made me feel all my heartbreak, and the rise and fall of life’s happiness and despair. I fell into her effervescent vocals, and they rang through me as she sang, “Are you with me now? AhAhAhAh!” I felt as much with her, and everything, as I ever have—maybe more.
Chrissy Loader is a lapsed academic, a freelance writer, a fledgling filmmaker, and the managing editor at the Presidio, an innovative national park near the Golden Gate Bridge. She lives in San Francisco and is at work on a full-length screenplay—a comedy about a ramshackle band touring the United States circa 1991.
was 70 years old when she published her first bestseller, The Lover, and won the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary honor. A survivor of a troubled childhood and a lifetime of alcoholism, she called on her own memories to create the novel for which she would be most well known.
Marguerite was born in Saigon, in what was then French Indochina, now Vietnam, in 1914, to French schoolteacher parents. Her father died just a few years later, leaving Marguerite, her two brothers, and her mother destitute. Her mother eventually cobbled together enough money to purchase a small farm, but Marguerite’s childhood was marked by hardship, poverty, and family violence. As a young teen, she had a sexual relationship with an older wealthy Chinese man, an experience later fictionalized in The Lover. “Very early in my life it was too late,” she wrote.
Marguerite left to attend the Sorbonne in France and eventually married and had a son. After studying political science and law, she became involved with the Communist Party and the French Resistance during World War II. She started writing novels, essays, and screenplays with intense focus in her late 30s. Her screenplay for Hiroshima, Mon Amour was nominated for an Oscar in 1959 when she was 45 years old.
Marguerite suffered from alcoholism throughout her adult life. “Every hour a glass of wine,” she later shared. At age 68, she was forced to dry out when she was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. It was immediately after this challenging period of recovery that Marguerite began to write The Lover. Despite a five-day coma, a tracheostomy, and other medical challenges, Marguerite continued to actively work
and published several more novels before her death in 1996 at the age of 81.
is the oldest national park ranger in the United States. At 95 years old, she is stationed at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, where she has worked for more than a decade. A California Bay Area resident since the age of 6, Betty first worked as a clerk for a Jim Crow boilermakers union during World War II. She then opened Reid’s Records in Berkeley in the mid-1940s, endured racism and death threats as a young African American housewife in an all-white suburb, became a political activist in the 1960s, was a well-known songwriter in the civil rights movement, and served as a field representative for the California State Assembly—all of this prior to employment with the National Park Service. Betty is a respected voice for the historical preservation of the African American wartime experience. In 2010, California College of the Arts awarded her an honorary doctorate. In 2015, she accepted a commemorative presidential coin from President Obama, and, in 2016, she received the Silver Service Medallion from the National World War II Museum.
Lisa: You began your career as a national park ranger about ten years ago, when you were 85. How did you learn about the position and what was it that made you want to take the job?