The Knight fellowship is a great opportunity to reinvent not only your career, but also your life. Whether we fellows admit it or not, there is a lot of soul searching that goes along with all the amazing classes we take at Stanford during this unforgettable year of exploration. Whether at the Graduate School of Business, the famous d.school (Institute of Design) or any other department, we are looking for change.
We come to Stanford open and eager to expand the frontiers of journalism. But, almost unconsciously, we are also hoping to become the instruments for that transformation. We come here to gain skills we lack, to broaden our perspectives about the world, to explore and collaborate with each other in ways never imagined in a competitive newsroom. We look at the Silicon Valley start-up culture trying to see what disruptive elements we can take back to our own ecosystem. What I hadn’t realized was how much this process would impact me on a personal level.
Ready for all of work’s challenges
Raised by a “Type A,” workaholic-baby-boomer-immigrant mother in Brazil, I grew up prepared to face all the challenges in the work environment. I had a successful journalism career, having worked as a reporter, editor and editorial manager in respected outlets. I interviewed presidents, covered prison riots, elections, natural disasters, immigration, diplomacy and many other topics as a correspondent in Sao Paulo and Washington D.C. I taught classes at university. I earned a master’s degree. I was a woman and young manager in a male-oriented culture, and I had to be as tough as them to gain respect and my own space.
I also had to stay on the game to inspire younger women. For many years, that was my mission. Or so I thought. At Stanford, where my husband and four-year-old daughter and I settled in for the duration of the fellowship, I began to discover that my passion for journalism had pushed my “domestic diva,” if there was one, deep inside of me. All things related to a prosaic life did not interest me. I was always eager for adventures, to go out in the world and learn new things. This is my core, and it will always be. But as the months passed by, I started to see more of myself. A fig tree showed me.
A kind of work I took for granted
It is in the bucolic garden behind our little house near campus. It made me think of my Spanish grandma Francisca Gonzalez, or “Paca.” To me, Paca represented that “other” type of feminine, more related to daily chores and routines, nurturing and nature. Her backyard was a mystical place for me. It had fruit trees. She canned for the winter. Her love poured especially into the fig jams she prepared at the end of every summer. I remember fondly taking them home and being sure I was tasting a piece of paradise. Her emotional structure was so cohesive and her world so solid, I took it for granted, as if there wasn’t any hard work involved in taking care of the garden, her family, feeding the dog or preparing egg omelets.
Escaping poverty and war in her hometown in Northern Spain, she moved to Uruguay in the 1950s with her husband and two daughters. She never had the opportunity to finish school, something she regretted, so she devoted herself to becoming the perfect housewife. She cooked delicious meals. She designed and made beautiful dresses. She was always there to listen to and give advice. She was the owner of her domestic world, one in which she ruled with majesty. She told us to study and pursue our dreams. She never encouraged us to be the way she was. Cut to 30 years later and I arrive at Stanford for a great fellowship that I gained in part by following my mother’s example of hard work and dedication. I enter this house in Palo Alto and notice the big, beautiful fig tree. My only thought then was, “What a coincidence.”
Connecting to nature and nurture
By the end of August, the tree was full of ripe, delicious figs. I had to do something with them. So I called Paca, who gave me precise instructions. In the middle of meetups, prototyping and brainstormings at Stanford, I learned how to make fig jam. It was delicious. I felt proud of myself in a new, different way. I started to pay attention to my daily routines, trying to connect them more with my family life. I started baking with my daughter Martina more often. I devoted myself to trying new recipes. It was a difficult exercise for me, as I always find I have more “urgent” and “important” things to do out in the world. But as I became conscious of this other world, a world with a slower pace, more connected to nurturing and nature, I realized things can never be as they were before.
During this time, my grandma became very ill. Her health deteriorated quickly. I called every week, and noticed a tiredness in her voice and repetition in her speech. She was not the same. By spring, she was in a terminal stage of cancer. I had to go see her, to pay homage to everything she gave me in this life, because I finally understood how precious her world was to me.
By coincidence, a business meeting came up in Uruguay. I put my working blazer in my suitcase, took a 17-hour flight, met the people I had to meet and spent the rest of the week by grandma’s bed. We laughed, we hugged. I kissed her hand and told her how much I loved her, and how nobody had ever loved me the way she did. By then, the summer in the southern cone of Uruguay had come to an end. I found her last pot of fig jam. I ate it crying. She died three days after I left.
