Off the Sidelines

by Kirsten Gillibrand

  I’d broken my number-one rule: Wear nothing that distracts.

  Through that whole year, I stayed committed to losing weight, and much to my surprise, reporters started asking to interview me about it. The first was Michael Saul, from the New York Daily News. He called my office and sheepishly asked Glen whether he thought I would consider doing an interview for a diet story.

  Glen’s response? “No way am I going to ask her that. Are you out of your mind?” Clearly he’d heard from my House communications director about the time an Albany newspaper requested to photograph me while pregnant. “I am not Britney Spears,” I snapped. “I’m not showing everyone my baby bump!”

  But then Glen and I thought about what it would mean to discuss my diet and exercise with the public, and realized I should say yes to the request. Eating right and maintaining a healthy weight are nearly universal struggles for Americans. I wanted to connect with people, not hold myself apart. Why not tell my story?

  Opening up that way did not come naturally to me. As a lawyer, I’d been trained to leave the personal aside. (I was used to giving long answers to questions, another habit I needed to change.) But being a public servant is different. People want and deserve to know who represents them, and the more I embraced the conversation about diet, health, and fitness, the more comfortable I became with it. Talking about weight loss, like talking about baseball or parenting, builds a simple bridge. Hey, I have fat jeans, too! People want to know that you share their struggles and goals.

  Still, the first interview I did as a dieting mom made me extremely nervous. I was talking with Dana Bash from CNN while sitting on a park bench in front of Theo’s school, with Henry on my lap. I worried that people would take me less seriously if they knew I kept a food log or had trouble resisting the kids’ mac and cheese. But I was having such a hard time with the press in those early Senate days that I decided all-out honesty couldn’t hurt. My hope that I’d reach more women offset my fears of humiliation and rejection.

  It’s strange how it all worked out: I’d always wanted voters to know that I’m a tenacious person, and what finally convinced them was that I’d possessed the determination to lose fifty pounds. From then on, if a women’s magazine wanted to run a story focusing on my diet strategies, fine with me. A subset of voters seemed to genuinely care that I ate fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meats and fish, aiming for roughly 1,200 calories a day. They wanted to know that I ate carbs in the morning, in the form of whole-wheat toast or oatmeal; grilled chicken and steamed vegetables for lunch; low-fat cheese or nonfat plain Greek yogurt and a piece of fruit in the afternoon; then back to lean protein plus vegetables for dinner. Very boring and trivial, I realize. But losing weight, as many of you probably know, is tedious and dull. I exercised four or five times a week, typically in the mornings before work, lifting weights, running, or, even better, playing tennis or squash, sometimes with Al Franken (who is as charming and funny as a senator from Minnesota as he was on Saturday Night Live). The only time I majorly strayed from my diet was the pizza and beer I consumed with the congressional women’s softball team after we finally won a game. Capital New York ran stories like KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND DIET REVEALED!, showcasing the glory of a new mother fitting into her Levi’s red-tab jeans.

  I’m sure many of my colleagues thought airing this side of my life was preposterous or unprofessional, but I didn’t. Being a public servant is being a connector. I want to meet people where they’re at, which is often at the dinner table. When I argue childhood-nutrition policy in the Senate chambers, the issue for me is not abstract. Besides, the public was right: The same part of me that had the willpower to resist liquids besides water and decaf coffee—not to mention the hard candies and mini chocolate bars hidden in the desk drawer at the corner of the Senate chamber—really did translate into not giving up on our 9/11 first responders. Persistence is persistence, at home and at work.

  After losing that fifty pounds, I was back to the other side of the coin: receiving comments about my appearance for looking better than I had in years. One of my favorite older members of the Senate walked up behind me, squeezed my waist, and said, “Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby!” He meant well, but those words didn’t go over as he planned.

  Women are sometimes concerned that if they are too blond or too curvy, some people may assume they are not substantive. (How many blonde jokes have you heard?) This is a legitimate worry. As Anne Kornblut writes in her excellent 2009 book, Notes from the Cracked Ceiling, Sarah Palin’s “good looks were problematic in their own right, drawing attention that could be superficially seen as positive but was really a liability in political terms.… What did it mean, politically, that men wanted to sleep with Palin? Did that kind of thing draw any votes, or was it a sheer insult? Could Caribou Barbie, as she was called, be taken seriously as a vice presidential candidate?” According to Kornblut, during the 2008 presidential campaign, men Googled “Sarah Palin naked” and “Sarah Palin bikini” in droves.

  Men don’t seem to face the same problem. Male actors, like Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger, segue into politics just fine. Not so for female actors—at least not yet. The one relevant exception to this theorem is Jennifer Granholm. She was a model before she ran for governor of Michigan in 2003, and for her campaign, she shot her ads in ways that obscured her beauty—in safety glasses at a manufacturing facility, in black and white. She wanted to be respected and listened to; she feared her looks would interfere with that.

  At the end of my year of weight loss, I met with Anna Wintour, the formidable editor in chief of Vogue. I knew she was very smart, savvy, and a political heavy-hitter, so I asked for the meeting to hear her thoughts and advice about the fashion industry in New York. Before our breakfast together, I did quite a lot of fretting over what she’d think of my black Elie Tahari dress and jacket. But during our coffee, I came to understand that Anna doesn’t just produce an aspirational magazine with sometimes-bewildering clothes. She marshals a $10-billion fashion industry, a huge economic engine for New York and our country.

  That day, we talked about trade, environmental, and manufacturing issues facing the garment industry and how clothes production and design impacted the state. By halfway through our meeting, I’d developed an enormous respect for Anna. She’s tough and thoughtful behind those sunglasses, and I’m a woman who loves tough and thoughtful women, especially when those women support other women. By the end of our meeting, we’d discussed getting together to play tennis sometime. Anna gave me a list of things she thought I should do. One was to meet with four or five designers and retailers who could help me understand the finer points of the fashion industry. Another was to allow her to run an article and photograph of my family and me in Vogue, to introduce myself and some of the issues I cared about to her readers.

  Given my love of lists, I set about checking off everything Anna had suggested right away. The more industry leaders I got to know, the more my perspective on the fashion business changed. This was not a frivolous community. Many of the women involved were very active politically and making a real difference in many people’s lives. Diane von Furstenberg, Donna Karan, Nanette Lepore, Eileen Fisher, and Tory Burch all focused on issues such as international women’s development, healthcare, earthquake recovery in Haiti, New York City manufacturing, mentoring organizations for at-risk youth, and micro-lending to women-owned businesses. The only time I felt out of my element in Anna’s world was when I entered the Vogue fashion closet. I’d gone to the magazine’s office in Times Square to decide in advance what to wear for the photo shoot. There I found rows and rows of shoes and bags I could never afford and the most beautiful dresses and jackets I’d ever seen. While I was being fitted in various ensembles by Anna’s personal tailor, Glen, Jess, and I all stared at one another. This was very far from my home turf. I felt like I’d walked through the looking glass.

  The Vogue shoot and interviews turned out to be terrific experiences. I
knew that the glossy photos of me in designer attire might distract from my message, but I felt it was a risk worth taking if it allowed me to reach a wider audience, especially young professional women. If I could inspire a few to become more involved politically—to run for their towns’ school boards, or advocate for special-needs children, or organize their neighborhoods for safer streets—the effort would be worth it to me.

  Appearance and how much to think about it is a never-ending question in most women’s minds. I haven’t put it to rest myself, not by a long shot. But I’ve learned that how I look and feel is important to me, for reasons beyond health and vanity. It may sound clichéd, but it’s true: If I look and feel good, I’m more positive and more confident. If I’m confident, people are more likely to listen to me. If more people are listening, I have more power to fight effectively for what I believe in.

  I’ve also learned that most issues about appearance can be resolved by zeroing in on one’s goals. My primary goal is to serve well. I don’t want how I look to detract or distract from my advocacy.

  Perhaps someday this conversation won’t be necessary. I certainly hope so. As Daphne Merkin wrote, “We study our female politicians as closely and obsessively as we do in part because they still remain something of an anomaly.”

  Until that changes—and I hope it’s soon—I’m going to keep it simple. If I have to wear a navy blue suit to work every day to be heard without distraction, so be it.

  Chapter 9

  Be Kind

  Two days after Hurricane Sandy, as I was driving through the wreckage on Staten Island, I came upon a New York Police Department SCUBA team searching for the bodies of two missing boys, Brendan and Connor Moore, ages two and four. During the storm, the power went out in their home. Glenda Moore, the boys’ mother, spoke to her husband, who was working for the city that night, and together they decided it would be safest at a relative’s house in Brooklyn. So Glenda loaded the boys into their Ford Explorer, buckled them in their car seats, and started driving. But the storm was still gathering force, and the rain was falling hard and fast. Within a few blocks, the car flooded and stalled.

  Glenda sat behind the steering wheel for a minute, trying to figure out what to do. Staying in the stalled car and waiting to be swept away seemed like madness. So she unbuckled her boys, grabbed their hands, and began to walk with them to higher ground. As she was walking with her sons, a ten-foot storm-surge wave rose out of the Atlantic, flooding the street and moving with such force that it ripped the boys from Glenda’s arms. In a panic, she climbed a fence and rushed from house to house, frantically looking for Brendan and Connor or anyone who could help find them. Eventually she spent the night on the porch of an empty home.

  Two days later, when I passed through, the Ford Explorer was right were she’d left it. All around were crushed trees, broken boats, and devastated homes. Staten Island was despairing. The two boys had died.

  About twenty minutes after seeing the SCUBA squad, I met up with Senator Chuck Schumer and a half dozen other local elected officials about a mile away from the search area for the boys. We were meeting to assess the damage. None of us was prepared for how bad it was. When I joined Chuck, I could barely focus. Those boys weren’t all that much younger than Henry and Theo. I kept thinking about the mother, trying to find a perspective from which her loss seemed survivable.

  As we walked the streets after our press conference, I was torn from my thoughts by the sound of a woman screaming just behind me, to my right. When I turned around, I saw her walking very quickly, racing to catch our group. She was yelling with such panic that I couldn’t understand what she was saying until she was just six or seven feet away. Then I heard her clearly. “I’m dying! I’m dying here and no one is doing anything!” she screamed.

  I had seen the aftermath of Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, but this was on an entirely different scale, and the fear in this woman’s voice was like nothing I’d heard. She was terrified. She felt doomed, forgotten, and enraged.

  I walked toward her and collected my own emotions as best I could. “Ma’am, what’s happening? What can we do?” I asked. “We can help you.”

  At first my words seemed to bounce off her. I kept repeating them, as I would have to Henry or Theo if one of them had woken from a nightmare, until she calmed down enough to explain: Her home was destroyed. For two nights she’d had no electricity, no running water, no food, and no clean clothes. Given that it was late October, the nights were getting colder. She believed she would not survive.

  Other Staten Island residents joined our conversation. They needed food, water, clean clothes, and adequate shelter. They showed us their ravaged homes. Chuck and I reassured them that the Red Cross and other services were on the way, but that promise felt flimsy. These people needed basics, fast. What if the Red Cross trucks didn’t get here quickly? What if the Red Cross didn’t find these people on this block? The region was filled with suffering families. We had happened to walk down this street; there were many others like it.

  I hugged the woman and told her that I’d make sure she got help. A staffer wrote down her address, called the Red Cross, and the dispatcher reported, again, that the trucks would arrive within a couple of hours. But a phone call? By a staffer? What good did that do? I felt like I was failing on so many levels. As a senator, I was intensely frustrated by our government’s response. As an individual, I felt absurd in my warm fresh clothes, standing there talking, not doing anything concrete. I decided I needed to do something immediate and physical to help this woman. Yes, thousands of my constituents needed services, but this was the person standing in front of me. I could help her.

  I asked one of my staff members, Andrew Borchini, a former attorney who’d just entered public service, to take my credit card and buy her food, clothing, and anything else she might need. So Andrew made his way back to lower Manhattan. The power was still out and almost everything was shut down, but he found an open Kmart on 34th Street and bought everything he imagined might be useful: underwear, socks, T-shirts, jeans, sweaters, jackets, scarves, food, water, and toilet paper.

  The next day, Andrew went back to Staten Island and found the woman, who was then working with neighbors to haul mildewing couches and mattresses out of their homes. When Andrew handed her the bags, she started to cry. She thanked him for the clothes, water, and food, but she clung to the toilet paper. Such an inconsequential item, but at times the smallest gifts can feel like a very big deal.

  We are all here to take care of one another. We all know this. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. It’s better to give than to receive. These phrases are so timeworn they almost lose meaning. And yet they are well used for a reason: They are the cornerstone of life.

  “If you can’t feed a hundred, just feed one,” Mother Teresa is often quoted as saying. I think about this when I’m feeling overwhelmed: far better to take a small action than to avoid a problem because it seems too big. The pot of soup for a sick friend, the visit to check on a widowed neighbor—these gestures make life feel meaningful and manageable. The world may be vast and slow to turn, but we will get where we need to go if we’re kind and caring to one another, one small act at a time.

  George Saunders, one of America’s best contemporary-fiction writers, captured the importance of kindness in a commencement address he gave at Syracuse University in 2013. “What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness,” he said. “Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded … sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.” His advice for the young graduates was “Err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality—your soul, if you will—is as bright and shining as any that has ever been.”

  Hurricane Sandy hit just before Halloween. “Mommy, how will the kids go trick-or-treating?” Theo and Henry asked
me with heartbreaking innocence, focusing on what they could understand. I told them that the storm was so bad that many kids probably wouldn’t go trick-or-treating at all. So Henry and Theo were as kind as they knew how: They asked me to take those children some candy. The families in the homeless shelters throughout New York City were reeling. Chocolate was not the answer. But when I showed up at one in Manhattan with candy, along with books my boys had stopped reading, the adults were thankful to be cared for as individuals, even if in a tiny way, and the children, for a few hours, were giddy.

  At that time, one of the biggest challenges public servants faced was figuring out how to channel all the aid pouring in to those who needed it. New York City was at its generous best, with relief tents and staging areas cropping up in every hard-hit community. Some collection sites were well organized; others, less so. In the Rockaways, in an open space across from the police station, clothing donations poured in so quickly that they began piling up. This would have been fine if the weather forecast was clear, but it called for more rain. We met with the community organizers, who were doing an amazing job but still didn’t have enough manpower to rummage through the heaps, let alone deliver jackets and blankets to those who needed them most. We did not manage to move or tent the clothing before the showers began. Few in the area had working dryers, and nobody needed more wet clothes. I wish we could have done more.