First in a series: Cindy Lovell

Not long ago, I started noticing that some of my women friends had dramatically reinvented themselves, some of them undergoing several reinventions. In these difficult economic times, when reinvention is often the key to finding any kind of success, I thought it might be illuminating to tell the stories of some of these women. I’d like to run one of these stories roughly monthly. I have three reinvented women in mind for starters. How about you?
Are you a woman who has reinvented herself? Do you know a reinvented woman? Email me and let me know.

I met Cindy Lovell in a class called “Paris in the 1920s” at Stetson University. As two nontraditional-age students, we struck up a warm acquaintanceship. I learned that Cindy, a teacher-education major, had a number of passions and interests, including the musicians Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. I happened to have some old vinyl LPs of Grappelli and Reinhardt that I passed on to Cindy. Because she was planning to take a nutrition class that I had already taken and Cindy co-owned two video stores, we also came up with a swap deal in which I gave her my nutrition textbook, and she gave me some videos I needed for my senior research. (I got the better end of the deal because the nutrition class required a new edition of the text when Cindy took the course.)

Cindy’s matriculation at Stetson was a milestone in her first reinvention. She had grown up in rural Central Pennsylvania, where in grade school, Cindy began a life-long passionate interest in the man who was arguably America’s greatest storyteller — Mark Twain. Cindy married; had two children, Angela and Adam; and eventually relocated to the East Coast of Florida, where she and her husband opened their video stores.

First reinvention
One day, Cindy saw a poster that changed her life. The poster, directed at children, got the wheels turning in Cindy’s brain. She had long wanted to be a teacher, and the poster made her think of all the lesson plans she could develop based on the poster’s subject matter. But she immediately felt a sadness because she could not be a classroom teacher as she did not have a college degree; in fact, she had dropped out of high school. But something had clicked in Cindy’s mind. Well into her 30s then, Cindy began an arduous process to return to school. She earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education in two years and nine months while working her 60-hour weekly shift in the video business. After graduating from Stetson in 1994, she whipped quickly through attaining her master’s degree, also at Stetson, while teaching elementary school and working nights in the video stores. I asked her if she had any regrets about not implementing her first reinvention sooner.

“Sometimes I think I might have liked taking a traditional path to college,” she replied, “but how could I? I was bored in high school and saw no value in higher education. I wasn’t like the other kids. I had two small businesses while I was still in high school, and I had no interest in college, something I perceived would be just more torturous boredom. We do things when we are ready. We listen to our inner voices, or we should. When I find myself thinking I should have done this or that at some other time I just laugh it off. How could I do something I wasn’t ready for?”

It was at about the point of her master’s degree that I lost track of Cindy for several years. Toward the end of the 1990s, my son took some classes in a program for gifted students based at Stetson but operated out of the University of Iowa. I saw that Stetson’s liaison with the Iowa-based program was Cindy Lovell. I wondered what she was doing in Iowa, to the point of questioning whether she was the same Cindy Lovell I knew.

Second reinvention
The mystery was solved in 2000 when I was teaching at Stetson and also working as a writer in the school’s public-relations office. I had been assigned to write a press release on new faculty and saw that Cindy was now teaching in Stetson’s teacher-education department, having earned her PhD — at the University of Iowa, in just two years.

Cindy’s time as an elementary-school teacher had been relatively brief. One of her Stetson professors felt she had great gifts to offer as a teacher of teachers, and he had encouraged her to earn her PhD so she could teach at the college level. Recently divorced, she had planned to return to the elementary classroom and perhaps teach part-time at a university. But when she was invited to apply for a tenure-track position at her alma mater, Cindy discussed it with her principal and decided to accept the position at Stetson.

So Cindy taught aspiring teachers for eight years at Stetson, and it was at this point that we finally really reconnected 10 years after we’d met. I, too had entered a PhD program, and in fact, Cindy served on my doctoral committee.

Cindy was beloved by her students and enjoyed many aspects of her life on the Stetson faculty. She collaborated with the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa and founded the HATS (High Achieving Talented Students) Program for Florida students in grades 4-9, sponsoring classes around the state. She even established an endowed scholarship at Stetson for these students. Cindy also began writing children’s books and collaborating with the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, MO, on teacher workshops and young-author workshops.

Although she had earned tenure at Stetson, Cindy felt a calling to live in Hannibal, the boyhood hometown of Mark Twain. She landed a new teaching job at Quincy University — just across the Mississippi River from her new home in Hannibal.

Third reinvention
Here’s where Cindy reinvented herself in a way that could not have been more perfect. “I moved to Hannibal so I could be near the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum and volunteer my services there in my spare time,” Cindy explains. “I began serving on the board of directors and also volunteered as the education coordinator. Everyone was very welcoming and seemed to genuinely appreciate my enthusiasm for Mark Twain. The director was always positive regarding any ideas or suggestions I offered, and I was encouraged to proceed with all of my initiatives. QU was also supportive of my volunteer efforts because service in our community is one of the university’s priorities.

“One day I was shocked to learn that the museum director had accepted a position on the East Coast to be closer to family,” Cindy continues. “Shocked because I was thinking, ‘Why would anyone want to leave this place?’ The board asked me to step in as interim director while they conducted a search. I was teaching at Quincy and was very happy with the balance in my life — teaching at QU and volunteering in Twain’s town — now my town, too. When the museum board officially offered me the permanent position of executive director, I immediately met with my QU president, who was extremely supportive. He saw it as a good fit. QU has been very generous and flexible with my schedule, and now I have two full-time jobs that I love very much.

“The two worlds merge often,” she notes. “We offer teacher workshops at the museum, for instance, and graduate credits are earned through QU. I also teach writing workshops at the museum. So, it was pure serendipity, both landing my position at QU and becoming director of the museum. Remember, I gave up tenure at my alma mater, Stetson University, to accept the position at QU and live in Hannibal. A lot of folks thought that was crazy, but I never had any doubt that I belonged in Hannibal, and QU has been a perfect fit as well.” [Cindy is pictured above in her role as director of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum with actor Hal Holbrook, who has portrayed Twain in one-man shows for many years.]

I asked her what she had learned from her reinventions. Naturally, she invoked her idol: “What have I learned? To follow your bliss — Joseph Campbell, right? But Mark Twain said it best in Tom Sawyer:

If he hadn’t run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

“I was never obliged to volunteer at the museum, but I wanted to,” Cindy says. “I was never obliged to become a teacher, but I wanted to. I ‘played’ school as a kid, and I reread Tom Sawyer so many times that I also ‘played’ out Twain’s characters and scenes. I always told my children as they were growing up: Find what you love to do, and then figure out how to do it for a living. You’ll never go to work a day in your lives. I don’t know if I’ve actually reinvented myself, but I have learned to sift through my priorities and get them in the right order. Volunteering in the schools years ago when my children were young certainly kept hope alive that I might someday be a teacher, and for years I volunteered to share my Twain expertise by giving talks in classrooms, etc. I just kept enjoying these forays into my two areas of passion: teaching and Twain. And as I indulged myself, my expertise grew, my confidence grew, and I enjoyed it more and more. None of it feels like work. Not the teaching, nor the Twaining. Both are now second nature to me, and I’m sure it’s because both have always been my hobbies or passions — whatever you want to call it. Some people think I work hard. The truth is, I ‘play’ hard.”

“Am I likely to ‘reinvent’ myself [again]?,” she continues. “Sure. Does that mean I’ll leave the museum or QU? Not at all. It means I’ll continue to indulge my interests in teaching and Mark Twain. I will continue to combine my passions in new ways. For instance, I’m presently collaborating with my childhood friend, Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter/musician/producer Carl Jackson. We are making a Mark Twain legacy CD in spoken word and song. I know Twain; Carl knows music. So far we have Emmylou Harris, Brad Paisely, Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, Rhonda Vincent, and Doyle Lawson on board recording songs — mostly original compositions — to correspond with story segments I’ve written about Twain’s life. Garrison Keillor has agreed to narrate the project. A lot of talent has stepped forward to help. It’s clear I’m not the only fan of Mark Twain!

“This CD is a tribute to Twain’s legacy,” Cindy says. “It will appeal to music fans, literature fans, history fans, and teachers, I’m certain. What a great way to learn about Twain’s life. But it will also be a fundraiser for the museum’s endowment fund, a need we are emphasizing in this rough economy. I’m indulging my creative side in finding untraditional ways to generate revenue, and I’m having fun. What else might it lead to? I have no idea, but my knowledge base has expanded, and I may build on it in new and different ways without ever leaving my passion for teaching and Twain.”

Cindy says the best part of her reinventions is that “I never really changed. I played school as a child, and I began reading Mark Twain when I was 10 years old. He’s been my favorite author ever since. So, ‘teaching and Twaining’ have always been a part of my identity. The best part is getting to officially share these two passions now that I have attached some credentials to my passion. I recently spoke at the National Steinbeck Center about Mark Twain for The Big Read event they were holding. It’s a beautiful part of the country, and I’ve visited many new places getting to share Mark Twain. That’s always a thrill.”

Cindy was recently awarded tenure at Quincy University and is overseeing a milestone year at the the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum, given that 2010 is the 100th anniversary of Twain’s death, the 175th anniversary of his birth, and the publication year of his long-awaited autobiography, for which he left instructions that it not by published until a century after his death. You can read an excerpt here.

Despite her many achievements and her status as a Twain scholar, Cindy says her greatest source of pride is her two children. “At the end of the day, they remain my number one priority, even though both are grown adults. I didn’t always make the best decisions or the right decisions or the timeliest decisions, but I tried to set an example for them to follow their own dreams and indulge their own passions. It has worked for them. My son is a social activist. My daughter is a writer. Both are creative forces, and both acknowledge the inspiration I provided by setting an example to go after my dreams. The three of us generate a lot of enthusiastic dialogue. We are best friends.”

No regrets … and advice to would-be reinventors
Cindy arrived late to her dream jobs of teaching and directing the Twain museum, but she has no regrets. “Every decision I made was somehow instrumental in landing me right here where I am today,” she says, “a high-school dropout with a Ph.D. teaching at a wonderful university and carrying keys to my favorite place on the planet: the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum. Regret has no value. Every incident in my past is a part of who I am today. I learned from every event in my life — every job, every boss, every volunteer gig. Sometimes I learned what not to do!

“No do-overs,” Cindy goes on. “That’s okay with me. But when people say to me, ‘I’m too old…’ or ‘It’s too late…’ I ask them, ‘Won’t the years go by anyway? And wouldn’t you rather be doing what you love?’ The only time that matters is now.”

This follow-your-bliss advice carries over to Cindy’s suggestions for other women who would like to reinvent themselves: “Listen to your heart,” she advises. “You KNOW what you love. Just do it. Obstacles and brick walls and naysayers are ubiquitous. Go around, over, under, through them. Ignore them. Follow your passion. You’ll find that you don’t really have far to go that way — it’s right in front of you. But it will take you to places you never dreamed of.”