00:00:11:14 - 00:00:31:24 Unknown Hi, I'm Catherine, an angel, and welcome to women over 70. Aging reimagined, our award winning weekly podcast. Visit women over 70.com and learn how you may become engaged with our community through Aging Reimagined Circle. We hope to see you at our next online monthly program. 00:00:31:24 - 00:00:56:09 Unknown We want to thank our sponsors. Intensive. You know, as skin agents, it becomes more fragile and bruises easily. Especially in the back of your hands or forearms. I'm loving skin tensor Bruce Cream, developed by Harvard trained dermatologist specifically for mature skin. It gently moisturizes and helps process date faster. Find it at skin intensive.com for 25% off. 00:00:56:10 - 00:01:02:07 Unknown Use the code capital W capital 070. That stands for women over 70. 00:01:02:07 - 00:01:15:16 Unknown And today we're delighted to be in conversation with Doctor Phyllis Rubin, age 81. Phyllis found her activist voice about ten years ago while working part time as a psychologist in private practice. 00:01:15:16 - 00:01:27:02 Unknown After caregiving for her husband and following his death, Phyllis became more intentional about practicing a Jewish concept to come along, which means preparing the world's. 00:01:27:05 - 00:01:52:18 Unknown She volunteers with groups such as indivisible, Interfaith, Green Network, Go Plastic Free, and End of Life Options Coalition with Compassion and Choices. She is also in Arbor West Neighbors, a grassroots seniors group totally led by volunteers. She's serving her third and last term as president of the board. Phyllis is professional path started 20 years ago as a 00:01:52:18 - 00:02:24:06 Unknown Speech and language pathologist. And in her 40s, Phyllis started her side, finished it on the installment plan at age 50, became a licensed psychologist and focused to practice and children with autism and attachment issues. At age 80, she retired from her therapy practice and continues to be engaged in social action and new learning, such as taking legacy writing courses, voice lessons, and has plans to travel to Ireland and Poland. 00:02:24:08 - 00:02:55:06 Unknown Welcome Phyllis to Women over 70 aging reimagined. Well, so tell us what the. Let's start with what the Jewish concept means. And why did you wait until your early 70s to practice it intentionally, though? This is tikkun olam. And, if anyone watched the Mister Rogers, documentary, he talks about it at the end of his documentary as something that's really, a value that we should all be practicing. 00:02:55:08 - 00:03:26:24 Unknown Take our olam is is repairing the world. And, I think it's based on the idea, that that God made the world, but didn't finish it and left it. Broken and in certain places, unfinished. And we're here to improve it. There's another while I'm saying this one can never get to the end of improving it, because there's no end to the things one has to improve, and like whole. 00:03:27:01 - 00:03:53:17 Unknown But but we also have a, A dictate, in the Jewish religion that you, you, are not required to complete the task, but that doesn't let you off the hook for working on it. So I those two things I keep in mind and, because if we give up on something, there's no tension in ever getting better. 00:03:53:17 - 00:04:25:15 Unknown And so we may as well work on it to make it better. So you ask, why did I wait till 70? Because, I was not strong enough to do it before 70. I, well, 70 is when also Trump was about to come into, the, the white House. My husband had died. 00:04:25:15 - 00:04:48:20 Unknown He, he was. Well, this was my early 70s, so he was. He went when he died was when I got active. Because he died in the end of 2016. And we know that Trump got in office in 2017. And that's when a friend of mine started in the visible group. And, and I 00:04:48:20 - 00:04:51:21 Unknown joined right away. 00:04:51:23 - 00:05:21:09 Unknown We had protests out on the streets and we wrote postcards, and we called our congresspeople, and we did all sorts of things. But before that, I, I, I'd grown up sort of under the thumb of my mother, and then under the thumb of my husband. Pretty much. It took me. I, I had come out of that, but not enough to leave the house and say, I'm going to protest, do things like that, do the real feet on the ground activism. 00:05:21:11 - 00:05:29:11 Unknown He really he cared about all these things. We sent money, but he always Pooh poohed real, 00:05:29:11 - 00:05:43:06 Unknown Joseph, expending your energy to go and do something. He sort of thought I was not going to make any difference. So I didn't challenge that. Until he died. And then I went out. 00:05:43:06 - 00:06:06:17 Unknown Tell us a bit about the some of these, causes, these efforts that you're involved in the the Interfaith Green Network or plastic free, compassionate choices everywhere I go and beyond. And you're beyond where I go. I see you, right. Well, the first thing I did was doing the indivisible group. And, yeah, we worked for quite a while and then. 00:06:06:17 - 00:06:35:11 Unknown Right. I think it was summer of 2019. A the there's a group called the Interfaith Free Network. I'll tell you about them, but they sponsored a film called your Our Plastic Oceans of My Plastic Oceans, something like that. And I took a friend and we watched this film and after we said, oh my goodness, we have to stop using as much plastic as possible. 00:06:35:13 - 00:06:55:15 Unknown And then on a table outside of the film, they had alternatives to plastic. So we immediately said we were going to buy some of them, which we did, and we said we wanted to have that group keep going that went to see the film and hung around afterwards and talk about it. So it became a group. It became go plastic Free. 00:06:55:17 - 00:07:25:24 Unknown It's very local. It's just here in Oak Park, River forest, forest Park. But we have been. Yeah. I often lined up by default being the head of groups by default. I wound up being the head of this group to, and, we so so we have we started out educating ourselves about alternatives to plastic and what's so bad about it, and learned all the things you can buy to substitute for plastic. 00:07:25:24 - 00:07:49:19 Unknown But even you so we, you know, we have handouts, we have examples, we go to farmers markets, we go if we're invited someplace to, to ecological fairs. And we have our box of all these materials that we can, they're on the table so people can see what they can get. Phyllis, tell us a little bit about what those materials are. 00:07:49:19 - 00:08:20:19 Unknown What? Oh, my goodness. Oh my goodness. Let me see. Well, first of all, to avoid taking plastic, utensils, like if you go to a, I go to carry out, you buy a bamboo or a metal set of utensils with a straw so you don't have to use this. You keep getting straws. And you can carry it with you. 00:08:20:21 - 00:08:53:12 Unknown Of course, bags. Tote bags that are not plastic. What else? I mean, we have a table full of stuff. Oh. Also, whether or not the material, the item is plastic, it might be packaged in plastic. So there's options to toothpaste. There's something called bite and I get something from they buy humble their little tablets and you choose them and it turns into toothpaste. 00:08:53:13 - 00:09:31:24 Unknown But it comes in either, a glass little jar or a compostable, or glass. Glass is recyclable. Or a, cardboard little tube. So there's toothpaste. There's, there's dental floss that's, either not packaged in plastic or there's some dental floss. We have tried out all these things, so dental floss breaks easily so that we don't recommend, there's, there's, I think you probably all know about it because it's advertised on TV. 00:09:31:24 - 00:09:58:10 Unknown There are laundry sheets that not, I, you know, that the the disintegrate, the the turn in the on the turn into soap in your washing machine. So you're not paying for water. I thought we told them about a local store and very often, good communities or large communities have these kinds of stores that sell things in bulk. 00:09:58:12 - 00:10:27:02 Unknown So we have sugar beet here that sells laundry detergent in bulk. And so I take my container and I fill it up with their longitudes or their dish detergent or whatever it is. Oh, and, there's, I shampoo bars, there's conditioner, hair conditioner, bars. I also usually tell them about my, my answer. I compost with a little thing a little. 00:10:27:02 - 00:10:49:19 Unknown It's plastic, but it will last forever because it's hard. It's it's, you know, sits on my roof, on my counter, on my kitchen counter. I also have a hard plastic compost, no recycling bin that I keep in my kitchen. It looks fine. It looks nice. It's got you. This one's got a cover on it. So instead of, and I don't. 00:10:49:19 - 00:11:24:08 Unknown Oh, and I also don't line my since I compost, I don't put anything messy in my garbage can. My garbage pail. So I don't have to line it in plastic and take it. I just take my pail downstairs. I'm in a condo downstairs to my comparable condo, recycling bin, and I dump or my trash bin, and I dump it out into the trash and bring the pen back so I don't use extra plastic. 00:11:24:10 - 00:11:58:18 Unknown Don't use extra plastic. Good ideas. And that's just a few, yeah. But and, and and what does, interfaith green network. What what is what's your mission there? So it's funny because there are groups upon groups. So the interfaith Network, as you might imagine, is a group made up of representatives of the faith communities in this area that got together. 00:11:58:18 - 00:12:31:24 Unknown I think it's a a group that's at least ten years old now. And they, both share what their, their congregations are doing in terms of sustainability stuff and also take back, you know, they've also done things, the Interfaith Green Network. So it's another group that sort of amplifies all the things that the faith communities are doing. And it's based on the fact that we're caring for a world, which is based in most of our faiths, teach us to do that. 00:12:32:01 - 00:12:44:22 Unknown So, so the intersecting network has three arms, three groups, one works on energy, another one works on food for all species, and another works on recycling and composting. 00:12:44:22 - 00:12:46:20 Unknown try to get our congregations to do better, 00:12:46:20 - 00:12:50:09 Unknown tell us about Arbor West and what's what's special about it. 00:12:50:09 - 00:12:56:09 Unknown So I call Arbor West a group that is for the people, by the people. And those people, 00:12:56:09 - 00:13:08:00 Unknown it yes, it's based on the village movement that was started in Boston, where, older adults got together and said, what does our community need and how can we provide it? 00:13:08:02 - 00:13:35:14 Unknown And they created their own village organization, just like Arbor West is a village organization. I think they called it. People wonder why they called it Arbor West. I wasn't there at the beginning, but it's because our communities are Oak Park, River forest, Forest Park, and we're west of Chicago. So 00:13:35:14 - 00:13:40:01 Unknown decided it would be called Arbor West Neighbors. 00:13:40:03 - 00:13:56:04 Unknown And I, I do remember when the founding people came around to different organizations and did like focus groups and talked about what do we need to age in place and not the stays in place. That vitally age in place? 00:13:56:04 - 00:14:03:05 Unknown And they determined that we needed communication among each other and among the groups that also support us. 00:14:03:07 - 00:14:10:09 Unknown And we need advocacy, for sure. And we need community and socialization. And so that's what we do. 00:14:10:09 - 00:14:37:17 Unknown we have meetups once a month just that's a social thing. We just had one yesterday and we have an advocacy two advocacy teams now, one more locally focused and the other one a green team. And we, also have and we are working to, to, digitize our communication ability and get things out quicker to people. 00:14:37:19 - 00:14:45:16 Unknown So it's what is it about you? What qualities do you have for us that you end up being head of groups? Darn if I know. 00:14:45:16 - 00:15:03:06 Unknown I didn't used to be good at it at all. I, was the head of, I had a group at my temple year when I was young, actually, a young mom, and, it was terrible. 00:15:03:08 - 00:15:32:02 Unknown I was also the head of the Fair Play Institute for a while. The ward. It was terrible. And so, the first group that SPW head of it was Arbor West Neighbors, and I adamantly said I wouldn't do it. I would be terrible. And it turns out I'm not, I, I'm not a, I'm not a dominating head or anything. 00:15:32:04 - 00:15:35:17 Unknown I make it a gender. 00:15:35:19 - 00:16:01:14 Unknown I mean, they made us a good thing. But also, I feel like sometimes other, other heads that I've watched, I feel guide a group because they have some ideas of where it should go. And I don't think I, I usually don't have ideas of where it should go, but then the board has ideas about where it should go. 00:16:01:16 - 00:16:37:14 Unknown And if you have a good board it's terrific. It works. So you know once in a while I do have an idea, but generally I really don't. It comes from everybody else and I, and I guess it works. I guess I let them give their ideas. Yeah that's great. So you, you mentioned I said the in the introduction that you were, a therapist for many, many years. 00:16:37:14 - 00:17:17:10 Unknown And you, you, focused on therapy, play as a, a method, a technique. Can you tell us about that? And then you said you were also on the board as therapy, so fair play. Was started a long time ago now in the 70s, I believe 1970s. Might have been going back before that, by by a woman and injured bird and her, colleague who really, they both developed it, Phyllis Booth, in Chicago. 00:17:17:15 - 00:17:56:03 Unknown In Chicago. It started in Chicago. It is based on if you picture a parent playing with a child. A baby, really a baby. Like, say, two and under. That's what their play looks like. It's it's a it's a play therapy. Unlike most other play therapies. Other play therapies often use materials to get the child to and act or show what's going on with them, what their, you know, worries are, what they're thinking about. 00:17:56:05 - 00:18:31:16 Unknown Play therapy is is very different. It really, focuses on the relationship. It's an attachment based therapy. That's an important thing to say. It's based on attachment. And attachment comes from parent child interacting. That's the only way it can happen. And so we help we determine in therapy, we determine what's missing in the relationship. A fair play sort of breaks, breaks the needs of children down into four, which is structure, engagement, nurture and challenge. 00:18:31:18 - 00:18:59:00 Unknown And we're doing evaluation. And we can see what the child is missing, what the child needs and may not be getting. And so in the play that we do with the child, which again looks like what parents do with children anyway, like peekaboo and pancake and picking the child up on your knees, and, and and saying how high can you jump. 00:18:59:02 - 00:19:37:06 Unknown Oh you can jump that high. Oh my goodness, you're so strong or or getting letting the child push you over and saying what muscles you have. So, so these and and also we see this we part of it is feeding children. So we help the parent feed the child because children need structure, engagement, nurture and challenge. And when we help the parent give the child the experiences in the relationship that they need it, it strengthens the relationship. 00:19:37:08 - 00:20:00:12 Unknown It strengthens the attachment. It sounds like what we need, what we need as adults as well. Well, so therapy has taken this on the road because people have used it with adults. They've used it with Cobb. Really. They use it. The there's also an adaption of therapy which is called therapy groups. And then there's adoption of that, which is sunshine circles. 00:20:00:14 - 00:20:21:08 Unknown And people are just they're finding your right and they're finding a use for it in so many places in, in schools and in, like treatment centers for people with Alzheimer's to get them to connect with each other and, and, these two, it's it's amazing what people have done with this 00:20:21:08 - 00:20:30:01 Unknown group. Isolating. Yeah. And so how did you get into that area of practice? 00:20:30:03 - 00:21:05:05 Unknown Well, I was a speech and language pathologist, and, back in the, I think this was in the 70s and in I think I'm trying to remember now, we moved here from from Baltimore, from Washington area, Washington, D.C., in the 70s, and we were living, a little bit of a convoluted story. We were living near Michael Reese Hospital, which is where the precursor to fair Play was developing. 00:21:05:07 - 00:21:35:13 Unknown Simultaneously, there was a therapy institute developing, and my speech and language friends who were working with kids on the spectrum were using therapy to work with them, because it helps kids relate better. And they did a workshop, and I went to the workshop and I learned about therapy, like as a speech and language for them. This is what got me to go back to school. 00:21:35:15 - 00:22:09:15 Unknown So because I was using therapy as a speech and language pathologist, and the social workers around me were saying, you shouldn't be doing this. So I had to go back to school. And you got, as I said, and but with the installment plan, because you had a practice and a family and. Oh, yes. Yes. And I, I had a I didn't have practice, I wasn't I was working full time as a speech language pathologist, but I had a family. 00:22:09:15 - 00:22:19:05 Unknown Yes, I did, and I went back to school very part time. Started at 40 and did a 50. 00:22:19:07 - 00:22:43:24 Unknown But I ended it. And and you went on to work for 30 more years in that field. So yes, it surprises me. Yeah. That's what happens when you live long. And when I first met you, I remember you saying you were that you were contemplating retiring, and then you you made that decision. And what is what is that? 00:22:43:24 - 00:23:16:06 Unknown And that we know that your life is full. Very full with all of your cores, social action work. What else? What are what are your other passions that you are pursuing? And so I also I used to play the piano. I loved playing the piano. And, I was again, I don't think I've ever done anything to perfection, but, but, except for maybe two things that I cook, 00:23:16:06 - 00:23:30:12 Unknown so I play the piano, but when I moved to a two bedroom condo and felt like I didn't have a place to put a piano, I gave the piano to my daughter, who's also in River forest. I don't go over there and play it. 00:23:30:12 - 00:23:36:19 Unknown but what I did was to, start again. When my husband died. 00:23:36:21 - 00:24:05:04 Unknown I started singing in the choir to one of the. And one of the, congregations that I am a member of. And, as I'm singing and I'm just enjoying it, I always sang in the choir. I, I used to sing in a junior high choir at my high school choir and a little bit of a college choir, and then a community chorus in Oak Park when they had one, I, I thought, you know what? 00:24:05:04 - 00:24:28:17 Unknown As long as I'm singing, maybe I should really take voice lessons and make my voice as good as it could possibly be. And so I said that to somebody and they said, oh, maybe you want to take with this person. And I thought, oh, maybe I do. So I called her up and she had a spot. And when it was after Covid, we did it online for a long time. 00:24:28:19 - 00:24:50:15 Unknown So I take voice lessons and I really love it. I don't sing every day. Don't tell my voice teacher. I think she knows, but but I love the pieces she's giving me. I love them and, I if, if I, I'm going to search around for somebody else who sings, I love to I would love to do duets actually. 00:24:50:17 - 00:25:24:23 Unknown Because I like to harmonize. So I like that. I also I don't there's enough either. But as part of Arbor West Neighbors, I again at the beginning of Covid, right before Covid started, someone offered a legacy writing class and I took it and started writing these little memoirs and loved that. And, and have gone on to again, I don't do it regularly, but I get back to it. 00:25:24:23 - 00:25:54:12 Unknown I wrote a memoir of a my Lord, I call it. I call her my oldest friend. I met her in sixth grade. We stayed friends till she died, which was right before Covid. And, and I came away from her, and she, her husband had already died. She didn't have any children. It's a long story, but I came away from her funeral thinking I need to write up her story. 00:25:54:14 - 00:26:22:02 Unknown So I did, and that was a bigger project, which I have yet to really finish because they want to put pictures into it. And poems. She was a poet, so I want to put her poems in there. And then I went from that to write a story about my husband fraternity brother, group that started having reunions when they all turned 50, and they had reunions. 00:26:22:04 - 00:26:46:01 Unknown I'm going to say, up until last year, that's the last one we did. So and they are now 86, and it's not just them, but it's the wives too. It's the husbands and the wives. And we are quite a. Quite a group. Quite a group. We've been to so many places together. So I wrote their story. 00:26:46:03 - 00:26:48:07 Unknown I'm writing everybody else's story. 00:26:48:07 - 00:27:05:22 Unknown Time as a way of going. But before we leave, we want really want to ask you. Well, how do you think about your own aging? I mean, here you are doing all of these wonderful things as you age and how, how, how do you think about your own particular aging? 00:27:06:01 - 00:27:26:17 Unknown It is interesting that I'm now 81 because I didn't used to. I mean, I thought about it enough that I have my funeral plans. I got my husband to do that. We did that quite a while ago. We did that quite a while ago. So that was set. That was not easy for him to agree to do two, two. 00:27:26:17 - 00:27:54:15 Unknown But we did it. And then in my 70s, I mean, I knew that was set. I wasn't really thinking about it that much, but I went, I turned 80, man. Did that make a difference? In what way? Well, realizing that the end is closer than the really closer. My mother lived to 93, so it's quite possible I'll go into my 90s. 00:27:54:17 - 00:28:28:22 Unknown But you don't know. You don't know. And. And my body feels different. So tying this into therapy, I always say this, I, I can still get down on the floor, but getting up is not pretty. To the good news. So I can get them on the floor. And and I, you know, at 80, I started again a twinge here, a little tickle here, or a pain here. 00:28:28:24 - 00:28:51:09 Unknown That don't last. But you feel almost like, okay, what the heck is that? Vivid death or something. My finger. It's like, the heck is that? You know, I think I, I, I was at my daughter's outside with a bathing suit on the other day and I looked down at my knee and there's this vein sticking out, but I said, what the heck's that? 00:28:51:11 - 00:29:19:07 Unknown Oh, occurred to me. So I think that's a very good thing. Oh my God. It's like, oh, geez. So, so my body is telling me and I can't always come up with a word and I can't, I can't, I always come up with a name. I mean, I'm not alone. I know, but still, it's, And I think about I think about how things will end. 00:29:19:07 - 00:29:52:08 Unknown I don't know, I'd like to be as prepared as possible for, you know, it's like from that, though, I, I'm. I feel really lucky my mom. If I'm, if I'm going to go in her footsteps. She died at 93. And only after having a stroke about four months before that. So that's not a long time of being ill and helpless. 00:29:52:10 - 00:30:04:20 Unknown And, I think we would all want to avoid being ill and helpless for a long time, you know, over a long stretch. And, I hope that for myself. 00:30:04:20 - 00:30:10:17 Unknown anything else you like to say in the last? You know, they say 20s before we have to close. 00:30:10:17 - 00:30:13:12 Unknown I'm glad that I can do what I can do. 00:30:13:14 - 00:30:27:18 Unknown I'm. I feel alive doing what I'm doing. Working in the garden at my temple. I just did that this morning, doing things with Arbor West, writing, 00:30:27:18 - 00:30:31:21 Unknown I think I'm in all these things because it's really hard for me to say no. 00:30:31:21 - 00:30:34:00 Unknown But I like it, too. 00:30:34:00 - 00:30:36:06 Unknown Thank you. Phyllis, thank you so much. 00:30:36:08 - 00:31:07:09 Unknown It's just wonderful. You're welcome. And listeners, make your voice heard as together we change the conversation about women aging. Explore women over 70. Come and join us at Aging Reimagined circle. And if you enjoyed this podcast, we recommend Wendy Battle's host of Reinvention Rebels, a podcast that celebrates bold women 50 to 90 plus who are rewriting the aging narrative and designing lives they want to live. 00:31:07:11 - 00:31:14:17 Unknown Visit her at home, dash reinvention rambles and we hope to see you again next time.