Isa Infante - Of Course I Can! | S7 E05

Prepare to be utterly astounded as you listen to our conversation with Isa Infante! This self-described “life force,” follows her heart and her values, wherever they take her. That means challenging good ole boys in Tennessee by running for mayor of Knoxville and as the Green Party candidate for governor. It means passing by a bar, hearing bluegrass music, and deciding to start a women’s bluegrass band, even though she could only play three chords. It means deciding, at 63, to go to law school. At 79, she is considering her next move. Three years ago, after decades in Tennessee, she decided that living in the mountains felt claustrophobic, googled “low-income senior housing on the beach” and re-located to the North Shore of Massachusetts, now waking up every morning to see a vast ocean that moves constantly. We can only imagine how the shifting sand and surf will inspire Isa’s next adventure.

Music credits:

Melody Walker/Front Country, Mixtapes

Rebecca Frazier, 40 Blues

Sierra Hull, Black River

+ TRANSCRIPT

Introduction

Joanne and Idelisse: Welcome to Two Old Bitches. I'm Idelisse Malavé and I'm Joanne Sandler. And we're Two Old Bitches! We're interviewing our women friends and women who could be our friends. Listen, as they share stories about how they reinvent themselves.

Isa: I never say no to things. If someone says, can you do something? I will say, of course I can.

Joanne: Here we are sunsetting. Just so our listeners know we're sitting in your apartment and there's a beautiful sunset in New York City tonight.

Idelisse: And we're overlooking over Central Park and down Fifth Avenue, but we're seeing the sunset in New Jersey...your hometown.

Joanne: And speaking of views, we are talking today to Isa Infante, who moved to a retirement or a place to live, an apartment, because of the view.

That's why...that's part of the story we're going to hear today. That's right. I'd heard about Isa for years and I'd never met her. And she told me in the very short period of time that we were together that she'd been living in Tennessee and decided, and she's going to talk about this, she wanted to see something different, not mountains, but sea, and went on the internet and found a new place to live and at 76 years old, relocates herself.

Idelisse: And that was as so intriguing, right. That we wanted to talk with her. And then we actually talk with her and we find that this, this, you know, another possible title for this episode is Isa's Odyssey because her life is a series of adventures.

Joanne: Incredible adventures, almost like magical realism because you just see Isa moving from one unbelievable situation to another.

Idelisse: From the, you know, getting her PhD in record time, you know, college PhD, everything in like seven years at the age of 28 as a single mother...Done.

Onto moving to, you know, becoming a bluegrass musician

Joanne: And she's an actor. And then she gets a law degree at 63. She starts at 16 years old and she runs for political office. Really amazing. She is an extraordinary human being. It was such a joy to spend time with her.

Idelisse: So the girl couldn't say, no.

Joanne: She really is. And so let's hear from Isa, but before we do, let us not forget to tell our listeners two things.

Idelisse: First, please, wherever you're listening to this podcast, and we're so happy, you're listening, please make sure that you follow us on that platform. It really helps us for you to do that and,

Joanne: And please send us your questions, your comments, your feedback. We love to hear from you. If you're not getting enough of Two Old Bitches, and we're sure that you're not, we also started a blog on Medium. So please follow us on, on Medium.

Idelisse: And you can also follow us obviously on social media and you can put comments and ask questions there as well. Instagram, Facebook, wherever. We'd love to hear from you. It'd make us very happy.

Bitch Vs. Old

And back to Isa, we started our conversation with Isa getting an earful from her about how she feels about the word bitch.

Isa: Okay. I think if you keep saying the word. enough so that it becomes, uh, familiar to people and, and, and the negative aspects of kind of, you know, dissipated and people will accept it as a word, meaning what a woman, women, I don't think that's happened ever. And I don't think it's going to happen. Not like happen.

Like I exempt the example I gave you about the worst socialist and my group down in Tennessee. I think rather than the word becoming an accepted word, you know, it, it becomes. Uh, the demeaning part becomes accepted. You know what I mean?

Joanne and Idelisse: Yeah, absolutely.

Isa: So, so I, I really, I cringe every time someone used the word, especially when a woman uses it. I go, I just cringe. You know, you didn't hear that.

Joanne: And how do you feel about the word old?

Isa: Old, old? I don't feel the same way about the word "old". I don't even feel the same way about some of the other words that are used out there.

Idelisse: But tell them how you do feel about old. Do you like being called old? Do you think of yourself as old?

Isa: No, I don't, I don't, I don't. 79. I'm 79. I don't, I don't consider myself old. I don't consider anybody old. I, this is very interesting because I have friends in their nineties and early hundreds and, and they talk about being old. And I say, what are you kidding?

I think you're young until you die. I mean, I'm a little bit off here on this, I'm sure. But not young, but useful. You know, you have a life force until you die, you know, and the life force, I don't think can be divided into segments like young, old, middle age, all of that. Just, I, I don't use any of those terms in anything I do.

Idelisse: You're either alive or you're not.

Isa: You're alive or you're dead and that's it.

Who is Isa Infante?

Joanne: We usually start our conversations with people by asking a very simple question, which I would like to ask you right now. Who are you?

Isa: Who am I? Oh, my goodness. That is a huge question.

Idelisse: It's a simple, but huge question.

Isa: It's funny because I think I just use, I just said it a few minutes ago, unintentionally, uh, a life force, because I can't say I'm a woman, Um categories are very restrictive, you know, because I'm a little bit of everything. I'm not a woman. I'm not a man. I have hormones from both sexes, of course, but, and I'm not a Hispanic, I'm not, African-American, I'm not African Latin American. I'm not young. I'm not old. I'm not, you know, it's like, I'm all of that.

So I guess I'm just the life force as existing on this planet right now.

Isa's Odyssey

Idelisse: And having heard Isa's very heartfelt opinions about bitch, as well as old, now we're actually going to start and hear about one of the early legs of Isa's Odyssey, which has to do with getting a PhD in record time as a single mom. And then after that, becoming a bluegrass musician. When all she knew was three chords.

Isa: When I was 28, I decided to go to college. I was 28. A single parent. I had a nine-year-old daughter and I went to college and I got my PhD at 35. So in seven years I did two full majors and got my PhD. Then I went on to teach political science at several institutions, and I became a Dean at SUNY, State University of New York.

Then I left SUNY and started roaming around, ended up in Jersey City, uh, Jersey City State University. I had a political science position and Director of Latin American Studies. At one point I won an award of summer, the National Endowment for the Humanities...awarded me a, a summer study award. 10 of us were selected nationally to spend the summer in Southern California studying under, uh, at that time, a famous Marxist political economist.

Uh, so I, I was driving across country in my little Volkswagen on my way between semesters there after the summer for the, for the summer, driving across the country. And I drove through Nashville, Tennessee. And since it was getting dark, I said, I guess I'll spend the night here. And I passed up a little shack and it said outside, "Bluegrass Inn".

And I had never heard of bluegrass. So I said, oh, I could use a drink. Let me stop in here and see what this is. I'll tell you, I stepped into that place. And when I heard that music, I said to myself, this is it. I want to do this for a living, just like that. So, but I continued on, I did my summer session in California and came back to Jersey City and handed in my resignation for the following academic year.

At the end of the next year, I packed my stuff and moved to Nashville to become a bluegrass musician.

Joanne and Idelisse: Wow. And what instrument did you play?

Isa: Now that's the funny part, I knew three chords on the guitar--A, D, and E.

And people say, well, you know, Elvis Presley only knew three chords when he started too, so what I did is, I noticed that Nashville was very sophisticated. They would look down on bluegrass musicians. To them, it's country and rock and jazz and blues. And I can't stay here. I can't, you know, what does bluegrass []

I don't know anything. So I saw an ad in the paper that said, um, abandoned hunter's shack, uh, for rent. So I drove 75 miles west and found an abandoned shack. And I rented it. I rented it and it had no doors and no windows, nothing. So I moved in, it was the summer, I moved in and, and, and, uh, I went to the local town, which was 30 miles away.

You may have heard of it because that Camden Tennessee is where Patsy Cline's plane killed her. You know, so I went to the....and I asked the city to help me since I was now unemployed and didn't have any income. So they came out, the city came out and they put up windows and doors and screens, and they helped me out with this shack and I said, now, what do I do? I don't know anyone.

I've never, I don't know anything about bluegrass. I can't play anything worthwhile. So it occurred to me. I got a map and I drew a circle and I said, I am going to every newspaper within a hundred miles of where I am. I was in an unincorporated territory, not even a town.

So I went to the local papers. And at that time you were able to say women only, you want women only. And I put ads in all the local papers saying, looking for female bluegrass musicians, contact me.

Within a couple of weeks I had six musicians. And yeah, and they were all, you know, Tennessee natives, multitalented, played several instruments.

So they said to me, you know, all of us play guitar, including lead guitar, some played banjo and dulcimer and all kinds of things. And they said, but you, you, maybe none of us play the standup bass.

Would you be willing to learn? I said, sure. So they drove me into town to a old timer that had played bluegrass bass for years.

And I took two lessons from him. He just showed me the basic chords. So I told the group now I'm the band leader. I named the band after the area I lived in, Sugar Tree Bluegrass. It was Sugar Tree, Tenneesee. And I said to them, you know what, I'm going to Nashville and get us a job. I got us a job. Our first job was at the Sugar Tree Inn, the place I had seen on my way to California.

I have pictures of us playing and I looked like a deer in headlights. I was scared out of my mind.

We rehearsed. And I played my three chords. They covered for me very well.

My bluegrass music is a festival kind of music. You have to travel. There are only two bluegrass, uh, nightclubs. One is The Bluegrass Inn and the other one was The Station Inn in Nashville. Everything else is festivals. So for two years, we, one of the, the banjo picker had a van and we traveled in her van for two years throughout the south playing festivals.

And we ended up playing at The Station Inn also. Yes. And then at that point, I said, well, you know, I think I'll move on. And I, and I just moved on. I moved on.

Made me feel very, very positive about myself, that I was able to accomplish something that I thought I could not do. But then I remembered that that's who I was, that in the past, and since, that I never say no to things. If someone says, "can you do something?" I will say, "of course I can". And then I go to the library and I study on it.

I study about it and I study about it and I investigate it and research it. And then I go and do it. And I said, you know, I guess that's who I am after all. It's not such a bad thing to be. And I did learn that bluegrass music was intimately connected to music from around the world. I have lots of old LPs folk music from South Africa, from Vietnam, from Cuba, from all kinds from, uh, Hungary, from Ireland.

And I said, there is a connection in music that doesn't seem to exist in words and other actions. You know, I said, um, folk music, people living their daily lives and, and playing on their front porches or under the trees or wherever. I was saying the same things. They, they suffer the same human condition. They, they look for love.

They look for something to eat, the shelter, raising their kids. It's the same condition everywhere in the world, no matter what language or culture or color they are.

Joanne and Idelisse: So Idelisse? Oh, yes. Isa, having, done the bluegrass scene--which is quite an adventure. I mean, it's amazing, right then moves decides to become, to study macrobiotics--In California.

Joanne: In California, somewhere along the way becomes a licensed scuba diver. And most surprisingly starts to become involved in the theater as an actor, and is so successful that she travels to Budapest.

Well as an actor and then writes her one woman show. Exactly the adventure continues.

Isa: Then I decided I would study macrobiotics, the nutritional life, you know, yeah. So then I studied that and did an apprenticeship. I studied for five years and opened up a macrobiotic counseling center in California, helping people through their health issues. Then throughout, however, I was doing theater work, I did over 20 productions, regional theater and...the same thing.

Idelisse: As an actor?

Isa: As an actor. Let me tell you, I have to very briefly give you this anecdote because it follows what I said about bluegrass. I was going, I was swimming every day because I'm a licensed scuba diver. I was swimming every day at the YWCA and I had a coach and it was her wedding anniversary. And I went to her home for the party.

And on the way home in the rain, I went by the theater from the University of Tennessee theater who hosts regional theater, the New York regional theater, you know, group. I saw a long line outside the theater and I thought to myself, I wonder what these people are doing here. Let me stand on the line and find out, turns out they were auditioning for a Shakespeare play.

So I said, oh, and they have headshots. And I said, I wonder what that is, headshots? But I went in, I auditioned, I got a speaking part. Yes. And that the actors were really upset with me. I just walked up off the street... So from there on, I just continued doing theater, work, community work, community theater, uh, regional theater.

Then I wrote a play a one woman play. I played the part of eight characters. So I had the, uh, the University of Tennessee drama department students with, for credit, uh, devise this costume for me, where I could change into eight characters on stage. And so I did, uh, five shows at the university of Tennessee.

I did two shows in California. I did two shows at a retreat in North Carolina and then a director from Budapest, Hungary saw it and liked it. So she invited me to do it in her theater and Budapest. Yeah. So I went to Budapest. I did two shows there.

Idelisse: In the next leg of Isa's Odyssey, she enters politics and it's purpose-driven entry into politics, because Joanne...

Joanne: Because interestingly, Isa who, as listeners will hear, ran for mayor, ran for governor, and took huge risks.

Idelisse: Can I say, can I just add...this is a Puerto Rican Dominican woman running for mayor and governor in Tennessee. There aren't many of us there. Trust me.

Joanne: Exactly. And so we asked her if she thought of herself as a politician. And she said, really what she thought of herself as was an educator. And it just makes me think, you know, imagine if more politicians could think of themselves as playing that role. And so let's listen to Isa about why she started to run for office.

Isa's Run for Office

Isa: I thought that if I get in the limelight somewhere, that people will start to listen and read and discuss and it will bring other ideas out into the fall, out to the...you know, uh, and away from the hidden shadows, you know, where we currently exist, have always existed that maybe if, if people pay attention, there'll be more people interested and in well exploring, exploring some of the ideas I have.

You know, so I think, and they won't listen unless you have a degree or you have a, a book out or you have a public exposure, unless you have something people do not really respect your ideas unless you have the...unless your society...you're authenticated.

Back in the sixties when they were forming the California Peace and Freedom Party in California, I ran for the state steering committee. That's kind of like the parliament of the party. And I, I won a seat on that. So I was on there and then in Tennessee, um, I ran for mayor of the city of Knoxville, Tennessee against an incumbent...that was 2007 and

Idelisse: Why did you want to be mayor?

Isa: Well, basically for the same reason. I ran against an incumbent billionaire Republican, who, basically his family owns the state. And I said, you know, things have to change in this state. I had learned that a woman ran for governor of Tennessee back in the thirties, 1930s.

And she was a socialist and no one I met in Tennessee had ever heard of her. I said, so I'm going to run, he cannot be the only...he was the only one on the ballot. I said, we have no choices in this state. I'm going to run for educational purposes just to get a message out, just to say, there's another way of thinking.

So I ran against him and of course lost. And then he became governor and I did the same thing. I said he can't be the only one running for governor, I'm running for governor too. So I ran for governor of the state of Tennessee in 2014. And then of course I lost too, but I did get to meet a lot of people in the state who were covert uh, progressives. They lived in little towns and they would contact me and say, you know, we like your platform and we think the same way, but we can't say it out loud because our town would ostracize us. We lose our jobs, our families, we can't do it. We just support you quietly, we'll send you $25 for this campaign, you know?

So I ran for the city of Knoxville, Tennessee for mayor lost to Bill Haslam. And then in 2014, I ran for governor of the state of Tennessee, lost again to Bill Haslam. Then I ran for, um, I was, uh, let's see, um, uh, coordinator of the green parties, uh, east Tennessee, uh, uh, section the parties, uh, east Tennessee. Um, and then, uh, after that I ran for treasurer of the Green Party of Tennessee, the state party. So I became treasurer and that was the last time I came before I came to Massachusetts two and a half, three years ago.

Joanne: So do you consider yourself a politician?

Isa: No. No, I don't. I don't.

Joanne: But you've run political office.

Isa: I would, I don't, I wouldn't put that down on an application. I wouldn't say politician. No.

Joanne: So then how do you, how do you describe or explain your engagement in politics? What were you were in politics as a what?

Isa: As an educator.

Joanne: You consider yourself an educator.

Isa: Yes. Yes. Educating people, right?

Educating, meaning past passing information forward. Passing information that I think it would be useful and important and relevant to us human beings, particularly women, passing it forward to up to the next, the next group, the next generation, the next people, you know.

It was difficult and it was fun at the same time because I, I so enjoyed being around activities and I would get invited to the barbecues and all the things, you know, all the activities, but it was grueling because you have to depend on other people like your campaign committee to accomplish certain goals, you know, functional stuff, and people come and go, you know?

So ultimately I was the one that had to do the work, the one from the campaign for mayor I think was the most fun because I had a terrific committee since it was a nonpartisan position, the mayor, I was able to recruit for my committee, people, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, even ...Buddhists, um, uh, people from all the, all the political area --Libertarian, even right left center, however, they, they call themselves. Everybody worked with my goals in mind, the goals that I had set. So they all wanted to get rid of the Haslam family who ruled the state. So I got to meet a lot of people from a lot of areas. Some of them are still friends, even if I don't believe in their politics, they really did help me, you know, the police department helped me, the newspaper helped me, but they couldn't endorse me because the Haslams control them.

And they would tell me that privately in the endorsement meetings I went to, they would have meetings, you know, the organizations. So I really got to know, I found out that when you like people, when you believe in what they're doing and, and, and they seem sincere and they're really helping, they think, that they they'll put aside their politics and, and work for that person or that idea or that goal.

Isa's Latest Adventure

Joanne: So Ide we kind of come full circle now where Isa is going to tell us about her choice of her current place to live in Revere, Massachusetts...

Idelisse: ...which is an adventure the way she got there.

Joanne: I think it's impossible for Isa not to be involved in adventure. I mean, when I, when I met her, she did say that she's in that moment of thinking right now. She's thinking about what her next adventure is.

Idelisse: She has, and we'll get to hear some of what she's thinking about and how she is going to pursue her bliss in this next stage of her, hopefully very, very long life.

Isa: I lived in the mountains of Tennessee and, and it was very nice, but the mountains felt restrictive, kind of claustrophobic because they don't move. Like they tower above you. You can't see far away, you can't see far away and you kind of locked into mountains. So I said, you know, I need to be where there's a wide open spaces and I don't want the Midwest because that's too flat.

Nothing moves there, the brain feels it. So I said, I want the ocean. I have to live on the ocean. So I Googled, um, I said I was looking for something and I Google low-income, senior housing on the beach, anywhere.

And a lot of them came up, east coast and west coast. And they would say things like, the people who responded would say things well, our complex is near the beach, close to the beach, walking distance from the beach five minute walk to the beach. I said, no, the first one that says it's on, the word on, O-N , on the beach, that's where I'm going. And this place said on the beach, and I said, I'm headed to Massachusetts, that's it.

So I packed up the U-Haul and I drove here, you know, here I am on the beach. I love it, because I'm looking at the Atlantic Ocean right now through my window. I said, every moment, this change now I'm not changing much anymore. I used to move three, four times a year, move just totally move. Now I'm not moving as much. But I see movement and I love the movement of the ocean, the waves, every, every moment is a different, whole different shape, a different rhythm.

Idelisse: Big sky, also moving.

Isa: Big sky, wide open space. I feel like I can breathe. You know, it's really big...

I've started writing memoir. I have several short stories, several essays, several children's stories, some of my photography I've I'm doing, I'd like it to be comprehensive, to reflect who I am, not just essays and not just stories. So I'm writing, I want to eventually publish this. And I've been to, before the lockdown, I had been to a couple of the local political meetings in Tennessee.

I was president of the Yale alumni association. So I went to one meeting here before the lockdown, and I haven't been able to establish contact at any level here so far. Revere is a pretty closed community. The same people run every time for election. The same, it's the same families, you know, for a hundred years.

So I haven't broken in. I said, no, just hibernate for another year until all of this is over. And we, you know, feel better just collectively from the pandemic and do the writing and then come out and do something else. The something else is still unknown. I'm still open to uh, working with other people, uh, possibly moving again.

I mean, nothing is stationary for me.

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Idelisse: So Joanne, Isa will never be stationary. She's right. She knows. And I find this episode very inspiring and inspiring not because I aspire to say yes to as many things as Isa has said yes to, but because I think for many us, you know, our tendency is more to hesitate to say no. So I see this as, uh, a push to lean into yes more. Why not? You know, we, we often talk about why the fuck not on Two Old Bitches we can at this age. So ask yourself that before you say no. Why the fuck not?

Joanne: That's it. Listening to Isa actually gives me courage. It's although Isa didn't necessarily say that it's about kind of both trusting yourself and trusting the universe, trusting that things are going to happen. And she does. And they do.

Idelisse: All of these different places where she's lived and all of the different people that she has depended on. And Tennessee, you know, that small community, um, I it's just, and then running for office and depending on that campaign team that she had, um, the theater in Budapest, I mean, that is a very trusting view of a benign world, you know, at the very least benign, if not, you know...

Joanne: ...loving and welcoming. An amazing life. And so thank you to our listeners for listening. Just one other reminder, to follow us, subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to us on. Send us feedback, your suggestions, your comments, your inspirations. We love to hear from you.

Idelisse: And check out our blog on Medium. I think we now, we're up to as of today three I'm sure, by the time you listen to this, there'll be four or more different posts and we're having so much fun doing it. We hope that you'll enjoy reading them too.

Joanne: And comment if you care to and last but never least thank you to a wonderful team that helps us get Two Old Bitches out every time.

So we want to thank Loubna Bouajaj who's coming to us from Casablanca and Katharine Heller in famous Brooklyn and our newest team member, Melissa Tobias. Who's sitting in North Carolina. Thank you all. Thank you for listening and be back with you soon.

Idelisse: ...next time.