Mary Lou Mazzara

What to do if your job has been the organizing principle of your life for 33 years? You escape to South America to keep your sense of wonder alive. Beyond becoming a mother, the biggest change in my life happened when I retired from a 33-year career in cutting-edge technology, the last 24 of them with IBM. Back then, the earliest age you could retire with full benefits from ever-shrinking Big Blue was 55. I was in no hurry; thought I’d wait until I was 58. Then I decided to wait until I looked 58.

Mary Lou Mazzara finds that Colombia is experiencing a renaissance, especially with its art and the way women express their power. Art? Or strong, accomplished women? I have been trying to decide what made the biggest impression on me during my nine-day trip to Colombia in June. Art was all around us, in many forms. From the curvaceous Botero statues in downtown Medellín to the flower farm in the highlands above the city to the vibrant murals on the approach to the farmer’s market in Cartagena.

Thinking back, I realize I had many early signs that I was a feminist, which continued as a constant thread through my life with growing awareness and frustration at the social inequities. The world just didn’t seem fair. At first, I wondered why. Then, in succession, I grumbled, got angry, and eventually depressed. And, if you can believe it, my aha! moment—what I consider the birth of my feminism—came with the issue of a very mainstream magazine.