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Election Day 2016. AM Edition.

election-day-2016 I voted this morning. I didn’t have to endure the hours-long lines some voters faced this season, lucky me. Five minutes total and I was in and out.

Like many of the women I know, I gave some thought to what I’d wear in the voting booth today. I worse as close to all-white as I own, to honor the suffragists. The blouse was my mother’s. I also wore jewelry that belonged to my mother, grandmother, and great-aunt. I wish so much they could have voted today too, but I took them with me into the booth.

I didn’t cry. I walked in with a big smile on my face and smiled as I completed my ballot. I only teared up a little as I walked back home, thinking of Mom. She would have voted for Hillary too, of that I am sure.

Now America waits to see if that highest glass ceiling will shatter tonight.

9/11: Fifteen Years Later

New York City 2016

When something awful happens to you, it can warp your sense of time. It’s as if the intensity of your pain will never end. And although nothing is completely the same again, sooner or later, the pain releases its grip on you, and slowly time begins to move in a more normal manner.

And here we are, fifteen long years after 9/11.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, I obsessively saved images of the event to a folder on my hard drive. I never look at them, though. I still actively avoid 9/11 retrospectives and images. I don’t need to see them now, hear the stories of grief and pain retold. The stabbing pain of the horror and sorrow and shock has been worn smooth over time. Newer griefs have joined 9/11 in the pantheon of my very worst days. Still, if I want to, I can summon that pain.

Usually, I don’t. It’s too easy, and it hurts too much.

For those of us for whom New York City was not a series of iconic images on their TV screen or an occasional travel destination, but rather their home, 9/11 is an intensely personal pain. Those hijackers tore a gaping hole out of my life. My memories of the World Trade Center span not just special events like the dinner with my family at Windows on the World the night of my 18th birthday, or drinks with my friend Diana and the rest of her wedding party on her bachelorette weekend in NY, but also hundreds of morning and evening commutes, lunches, trips to the FedEx drop-off in the lobby on 1 WTC, visits to friends in their Twin Tower offices. Not to mention that for 10 years, the towers were the first thing I’d see coming out the front door of my old Soho apartment. And even though the new Freedom Tower is finally complete, a part of me still yearns for that old skyline.

Terrorists cannot steal my memories, but they destroyed the tangible reminder of those memories. It’s a small loss compared to so much else that was destroyed that day, but it’s real nonetheless.

Cities around the globe share New York’s pain now; the shock and sorrow of their own terrorist attacks in the ensuing years engraved in their own hearts. Time and again, we have seen the best and the worst of human nature. I keep hoping that someday the cycle of violence will break, but it hasn’t yet.

And as always, I let no 9/11 pass without remembering my friend Kath.

She was 40 and only three weeks into a new job when she went to work that brilliant September morning. And she never came home. AA Flight 11 slammed right into her office on the 97th floor of One World Trade. We’ll never know for sure, but I’m told her desk was on the opposite side of the building from the impact point and it’s possible that she never knew what hit her. I pray that that is the truth, because the idea that she might have been standing there at a window, watching the plane heading right for her, is still too painful a thought to bear.

For the first year or so after 9/11, not a day went by that I didn’t think of Kath. With time, of course, that has faded. When I think of her these days, I feel that I’m living for both of us. Or perhaps a better way of saying it is that I feel a responsibility to use this time that I have, which she did not get, in a way that honors her.

We never know what day will be our last. We never know what goodbye will be the final one. And yet, all too often, we waste our precious time. We waste our days at jobs that drain us, we don’t stay in touch with the people who matter to us, we think, ‘There’s always tomorrow’. But sometimes, there isn’t.

Sometimes, there’s only a sunny morning, and an airplane flying low over New York City, and the ending of all our dreams.

5 Things I Learned From My Mother

linda luxemburg During my mother’s final illness, reaching event milestones was a way of marking success. She made it to Passover. To July 4th. And in July, I gave her a stretch goal – to take me to lunch on my birthday (today).

She didn’t make it to that one. In her honor though, and at the request of some family members, I’m sharing the remarks I gave at her funeral.

Remarks originally given September 16 2015:

When mom got her cancer diagnosis, I knew this day would come eventually, but when I sat down to write this, I didn’t know what to say. How do you sum up your mother’s life? Her warmth, her humor, her intelligence, and her care for the people around her – everyone in her life had their own experiences with those aspects of her. You don’t need me to tell you about those things.

Luckily for me I have a sister who is very smart. And she suggested I talk about the experience of being Linda’s daughter.

So I’d like to share today 5 key things I learned from my mother.

1) Travel Often

Our family was blessed to have a lot of happy memories over the years, and many of them (plus some family jokes and stories) came from our travels. Mom (and Dad) took us traveling starting when we were still in diapers. Special trips celebrated our life milestones, like graduations. A little later on, Mom loved to go visit my sister Carolyn during the years she was living in Italy.

Our last family trip was only a little more than a year ago; a cruise through Alaska’s Inland Passage that all of us enjoyed – meeting up at our special breakfast table each morning, splitting up into smaller groups for the day’s activities, then coming together again at the end of the day to share dinner and stories of the day.

Growing up in a multicultural, major tourist attraction like New York, you learn early that there’s a big world out there, but it was Mom’s adventurous spirit and wanderlust that inspired a lifetime habit of leaving the city and going into the wider world.

2) Always Look Forward

In my high school years, like many other kids, I got hooked on “Lord of the Rings” and fell into a habit of reading the book from beginning to end, then going back to the beginning and starting all over again. Over and over. Mom never understood it, asking “Why don’t you read something new?”.

Looking forward was an integral part of who Mom was. Whether it was her endless search for new recipes to try in the kitchen, new books to read with her club, new places around the world to visit, or new additions to the Passover haggadah – Mom was always looking forward. If it was new and interesting to her, Mom was down for it.

Even as her illness progressed, Mom continued to look forward. She didn’t want a pity party or for her life to become about her illness. In the past several months she had a new deck built on the house in Connecticut, got a new laptop, new iPhone, and new eyeglasses. Less than a day before her hospitalization in July, she was researching trips to Asia for next spring. And she and Dad went on a “Foyle’s War” watching spree this summer, getting through the entire series just days before she died.

That was Mom. She always had to look forward. It’s a profound lesson that helped her pack an amazing amount of experiences into her time here on earth, and one to learn from. (Although I honestly cannot regret rereading LOTR).

3) Always Take The High Road

Mom was an outgoing and hospitable woman, rarely argumentative. She loved having friends around her and entertaining. But in her life as in all lives, there were times when she encountered conflicts or differences of opinion. One thing she always told us, though, was no matter what the temptation, you had to take the high road when dealing with conflict. It was the right thing to do so you could live with yourself afterwards.

And she was absolutely right (as she so often was). We would live in a much less challenging world if more people followed her advice.

4) Go To The Bathroom Before You Leave

Mom was assiduous in making sure she didn’t leave things to chance. She ran the household, planned the trips, and for big events like our annual Passover dinner, planned out not just the dinner itself but the entire week of cooking and preparation before it, so that on the day of, everything flowed like clockwork.

A related piece of advice about being prepared that she gave me was: a woman should always be able to support herself. Even long after she retired from her real estate business, she kept up her license, just in case. Mom would never have described herself as a feminist, I think (although she did take me to see Gloria Steinem speak once), but the way she lived her life was in its own way very feminist. She and Dad had a very happy and solid marriage that was a true partnership. As one of our friends put it, he may have been the Captain of the sailboat, but she was always the Admiral. It taught me a lot about what a marriage should be, and one of my life goals has always been to have a marriage as good as my parents’ was.

And finally,

5) Laughter Is The Best Medicine

There was a time and a place for every emotion, but when she had a choice, she preferred to laugh. She preferred funny cards to ones with platitudes. She told me some years ago that she woke up every morning happy. And through that happiness, she had empathy and compassion for others, wanting them to also be happy. Whether through her work as a volunteer librarian at Goddard Riverside or with her friends, she was supportive and encouraging.

So to sum up:
Travel often.
Seek happiness.
Take the high road.
Laugh.
And always look forward.

Mom’s passing has ripped a huge hole in all of our hearts and those wounds will take a very long time before they heal. As I look ahead, though, I know that the things she taught me, and the gift of being her daughter, will make that journey to healing a little easier.

I am so grateful for every day I got to spend with her.
I love you Mom.

Seven Years Later

Today marks my 7-year anniversary as an employee of Adobe. How time flies! When I first joined the company, neither the iPad nor Android phones were out in the market, and CS3 was the latest Adobe release.

Here’s a few stats from my time at Adobe to date:

Laptops: 3
Roles: 4
Attended Adobe MAX: 6
Miles flown for work: Over 100,000
Events: See photo – way too many!

I’ve made friends around the world, gotten to photograph Robert Redford, handed out t-shirts and swag at events from Amsterdam to Portland, and watched products launch and be end of lifed. Through it all, I still feel proud to work for Adobe alongside such an amazing bunch of individuals as my co-workers.

Here’s to the next 7 years!

Working Women Stuck In The Middle – What Would You Do?

I read “Speaking While Female” in the NY Times today, and felt a mixture of recognition, relief, frustration, and depression. Recognition – the stories told were all too familiar. Relief – that it wasn’t just me. Frustration – that nobody else seems to have solved the problem either. And depression – because it doesn’t seem like this is a problem that is going to change within my lifetime.

There’s this example from the article, to start. Something very similar happened to me at a meeting, just within the last week (not for the first time, either):

When a woman speaks in a professional setting … either she’s barely heard or she’s judged as too aggressive. When a man says virtually the same thing, heads nod in appreciation for his fine idea.

It’s pretty frustrating to experience. If it happens too often, it’s easy to become demoralized and think “Why bother?”.

And even more depressing was this:

When male employees contributed ideas that brought in new revenue, they got significantly higher performance evaluations. But female employees who spoke up with equally valuable ideas did not improve their managers’ perception of their performance. Also, the more the men spoke up, the more helpful their managers believed them to be. But when women spoke up more, there was no increase in their perceived helpfulness.

So what is a woman to do? Speak up and be punished for upsetting the established power dynamic, or stay silent and locked in the status quo? Talk about a no-win situation. It’s no wonder that a woman has to work twice as hard to be thought half as good as a man.

Some have suggested the way out is for more women to start their own businesses. When you’re the boss, after all, the power dynamic is in your favor. And that solution may work for some women, but it doesn’t solve the issue for existing organizations.

Some companies (like Google) are starting to implement processes to try to deflect this built-in bias, but it remains to be seen if those tactics will work.

In the meantime, we working women are stuck in the middle.

What would you do?

Online Harassment Is As Old As The Internet: My Story

Cross-posted from Medium

Back in the early days of the Internet era I started a tiny little ISP / web hosting company in New York. As part of that work, I got active in various online mailing lists and other places where technical folks gathered, like IRC. I wasn’t the only woman in the community but I was one of a very small number. Overall, it was great. We were all figuring out something new together in a brand-new and rapidly expanding environment. It wasn’t easy but it was fun.

And then something funny happened. A small group decided I didn’t “belong” on IRC. And the harassment began. I would log into IRC and get barraged with messages calling me all sorts of ugly names. I would join a channel and that channel would get flooded with attacks on me.

I was fortunate that I knew the people who ran the channels I frequented, and that they were supportive of me, so they set up scripts to keep that crap off those channels. Those quickly became my only safe spaces on IRC. Anywhere else, I’d get flooded again.

Eventually I just stopped logging into IRC at all. Problem solved? No. Then it escalated.

First it was sending pornographic pictures to a professional discussion list I belonged to. Again, luckily, the list moderator was a friend of mine (and another woman to boot) so those never made it onto the list.

I was running my own ISP at the time, so they couldn’t go after me at work, but the guys harassing me quickly figured out where my husband worked and started sending email to his employer accusing him of all sorts of things. It impacted his job.

Eventually the harassers found other things to do with their time – maybe gaming? – and I changed career focus. I haven’t been harassed since. As a woman in marketing, I am not the “threat” that a more technical woman is, I suspect.

I consider myself lucky. I was never stalked or threatened the way women like Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and Kathy Sierra are today. Reddit, 4chan, Google, social media – none of those things existed when I was getting harassed online. What happened to me was much more limited. And I have no regrets about changing my career focus. I love what I do.

I hate that being a woman in technology means having to know about and be prepared to deal with harassment. I can’t do much to impact it, but what little I can do is to stand up, share my story, and say what I believe:

Online harassment was wrong then, and it is wrong today.

We all need to do what we can to change the environment so that it cannot continue.