Announcer : 0:06

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host, psychotherapist, coach, and empowerment expert, Beverley Glazer.

Beverley Glazer: 0:33

What if every challenge life threw at you became the material for your greatest creation? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverley Glazer, a catalyst for women who are ready to raise the bar in their own lives. And you can find me on reInventimpossible.com. Suzi K. Edwards is a former New York clothing designer. She's a public artist, an author, and an illustrator who was born legally blind. She is the creator of The Doggos, a book series for children. The memoir, The Quiet Mind, The Crazy Heart, and her mosaics and public art can be seen in communities all across the United States. Susie has spent her life transforming her challenges into creativity, and she believes that every challenge holds the seeds for growth, resilience, and joy. Welcome, Susie. Welcome. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Susie, your grandfather was a chemist, and he was also a bootlegger. And this was during the prohibition.

Suzi K Edwards: 1:49

And what was life like for you as a child? Well, I wasn't born during prohibition. I was born in the 1940s. So when I came along, he he was just the sweetest man in the world. He always had time for me. I grew up in the Virgin Islands. He built the first luxury hotel on St. Thomas. And I used to sit with him in the lobby. It was a big lobby with high, high ceilings. And the guests would come floating through and you know, greet us. And he was just a wonderful, wonderful guy. He always had time for me, which was special. Yeah, well, you were his granddaughter.

Beverley Glazer: 2:23

Correct. And you were one of six, and the oldest child and legally blind. Um, did that affect your confidence?

Suzi K Edwards: 2:31

Born legally blind. Don't know what happened. They never did figure it out. Yes, but did that affect your confidence as a child? Oh, yes, as a in in school, I was picked on. I remember even in first grade, when I went to first grade, we didn't they kids didn't start like my grandson, you know, started school at like two, and my kids started at three. So we started at you know, six years old. And I remember I just didn't want to go to school anymore because the kids really picked on me. And that went on all through elementary school, middle school. And, you know, high high school, I went to boarding school, and that was very different. It was a small school, and you know, people appreciated you more for your intelligence and your humor, and it wasn't all about how I look because I wore glasses since the time I was two. So I and they're thick ones, they're like coke bottles. Sure. Oh, sure. I have them small because the bigger, because concave and convex lenses, the bigger they get, the the thicker they are. So I keep them little. So and I met as well. I you know, I I still drive, and I'm 81 now, and I I still drive, and I drive a BMW, and I have a pretty heavy foot. I'm always slowing down. Don't want tickets.

Beverley Glazer: 3:40

So um, but Cissy, let's go back there. You were also brought up in that hotel, right? Okay, which is really also unusual. It wasn't just you, it was the entire family was taken from the U.S. and everyone was living on the hotel. What was it like growing up in a hotel? I mean, there was three years.

Suzi K Edwards: 4:00

Yeah, it was yeah, you know it was interesting because when there weren't a lot of guests, I had my own room. So we had a suite. We had a family suite, my parents had a bedroom, my brother and I shared a bedroom. And then when the hotel was quiet, there was a little room, a little single room that was rented to guests. But when the hotel was quiet, I had my own room. And then when the hotel got busy, I shared the room with my brother. And one thing that my father did tell stories about how we would order room service, and we would order all these really fancy dishes from room service. So instead of, you know, having mom cook or a cook cook, we ordered room service. And that's what we came to know. And then when I was around 10 or 11, I moved to the hotel, I was six when we moved to the islands. And then um, when I was 10 or 11, we built our own houses up the hill from the hotel. So my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and our house were all kind of in a row. Um, and I think they had an architect and they all used the same plan, but everybody changed their bit. So we sort of made a little our own little suburb. And that was uh the hotel was more fun, actually. But you know, we would the hotel was just down there, so my brother and my cousin and I would go and we'd still play.

Beverley Glazer: 5:12

But you were also I was with the dogs, of course. But you were also legally blind and you became creative. How did you express that creativity as a child?

Suzi K Edwards: 5:22

Drawing, you know, I had dolls, I love my dolls, and I would make little clothes for them. You know, I I I was always a terrible seamstress. Even when I went to London College of Fashion, I mean I was I was always a good designer. I always had the creative ideas, but I never had the patience to sew properly. So I remember at London College of Fashion, there were these women from Africa that were a bit older than we were. I was around 1819 when I went to school there. And there were women maybe in their 30s, and they came from Africa to learn how to be seamstresses. So I would pay them to do my sewing. If I designed something, I like I remember this yellow plaid wool pant suit that I created, and I would have other people sew them because I mean I had to learn how to sew, but I just was never good at it. And I hate so there you go. But you were also I love to write. I love to create. So I mean that's that's the fun thing for me.

Beverley Glazer: 6:13

But you went back, you went back to New York, and you got a job on Seventh Avenue.

Suzi K Edwards: 6:18

It was a great synchronistic story. Yes, I did. I landed a fantastic job just through a connection. It just happened, and it's in my book. I'm not gonna tell you the story, but it's in my book. And you know, I found that the most amazing things in my life happened through synchronicities.

Beverley Glazer: 6:36

Okay. So now you're in New York. Okay, you're a designer. Were you ever challenged as a designer who's legally blind?

Suzi K Edwards: 6:44

No, because I can see with glasses. I mean, with glasses, with one eye I can't see at all. One eye is uncorrectable. And my good eye, I have 2200 vision in my good eye, but with glasses, I have 2030 vision. That's why I can drive and I can function. And my left eye, I can't see at all, but the right eye compensates. So that's it. The body compensates for what doesn't work. So you know, I manage. But without glasses, I mean, if I take off my glasses in the bedroom and I don't know where I put them and I can't find them, I'm like feeling around like this. I have to go get another pair of glasses and put them on so I can find my glasses. It's it's it's bad, but you know, you manage. You just manage. That's true. That's true. But then what drew you to spirituality? Oh, let's see. Uh, divorce. Divorce. Divorce. So I I got I had my first marriage when I was, I think, 23, and that lasted three or four years. And and um, you know, he was a great guy, and I loved him, but you know, I was paying all the bills, and that's sort of been the way because I always did well. I always made money through some kind of creative pursuit. And I just got tired of paying all the bills, and it just kind of didn't work out. So, but then I was heartbroken because I I loved him. So I I decided to leave being a clothing designer, and I went up to Woodstock, and I lived in a teepee, and I started staring tarot cards, and and it there were there was no yoga then. I mean, it was yoga was just starting, and then I found out about a yoga teacher training course down in the Bahamas on Paradise Island. So I signed up and I in 1973 I did my yoga teacher training, and I've been doing yoga my whole life. So now not so much anymore. I'm a little bit lazy, but I do the meditation a lot. But the the physical yoga, as I say, I'm a little lazy. But you also uh went to India. Yeah, I went to India. I've been there twice. I went there in the 70s as a devotee, you know, with just a little a backpack and a and a and a sleeping bag and wearing saris. And I was there for two months then. And then I went again maybe about 10 years ago and stayed in fancy hotels and you know, I went with Abakrami and Kent, so it was a very different experience. But, you know, I mean I love India, but it's India's rough, you know, there's so much poverty. It's it's depressing. It's hard, it's hard to deal with. You know, coming from America, you see a lot of homeless people here, but nothing like what you see in India.

Beverley Glazer: 9:05

No, no. But after the divorce of your husband, um, he also died and left you.

Suzi K Edwards: 9:13

He didn't know he didn't die for a long time. I mean, he he didn't after I divorced him, he went on and he he he was British and he went back to England. He met an Israeli soldier. He was a soldier. Um, he was in the British Army and then he joined the American Army, and then he went back and he met a woman who, an Israeli woman, and they went and lived in Israel and had two kids. And I know this because maybe about five years ago, I get this email from somebody called Odelia Jean Channing, and she asked if I was married to her father in the Virgin Islands, you know, back in the 70s. And I said, yes. I thought it has to be a scam. How can this be real? But it was real. She had found after he died, she went through letters that she found between his mother and me, and you know, learned about me. And somehow she's very smart. She goes to Oxford getting her master's in in psychology from Oxford, and she figured it out, and she found my email address, and we've been communicating. He had a good life, and then he died, you know, maybe when he was in his 50s.

Beverley Glazer: 10:18

Okay. Yes, but that's so young, and you have boys of your own.

Suzi K Edwards: 10:22

Well, that I had no children with him, but my second husband also died in his 50s. Uh, unfortunately, I have two great sons. Uh, he was he was a drugie, so you know, unfortunately, he when he was in his 50s, he wasn't he was clean. But, you know, the body takes a lot of uh abuse from early drug use, and even when they're older, he still smokes cigarettes. He was smoking and using a nicotine patch to stop smoking at the same time, so that's never a good thing. Anyway, he died at 53. And fortunately, my sons are doing well. One's a lawyer, one's a doctor, uh happily married, and you know, they're great, they're in their 40s, and and we have very good relationships.

Beverley Glazer: 11:01

You say this so casually.

Suzi K Edwards: 11:04

What part about him dying?

Beverley Glazer: 11:06

Oh yeah, exactly.

Suzi K Edwards: 11:08

You just can't well, it's a long time ago now. I mean, you know, he uh uh like he was my same age, so he died, it's almost 30 years ago, so it's not like it was some something that just happened.

Beverley Glazer: 11:19

No, no. But for for people listening, you know, these are ups and downs in your life. It's really quite something. And what I see is Susie Edwards keeps pulling herself up no matter what.

Suzi K Edwards: 11:32

The meditation too, it helps. You know, sitting the meditation, the breathing. It makes a difference.

Beverley Glazer: 11:38

And how did you get into ceramics?

Suzi K Edwards: 11:41

I just started doing them, you know, everything. I just started doing them. And then actually, I I took a mosaic class, and I met this guy in the mosaic class who just happened to be taking the class. He was adorable, and he just happened to be taking the class because the friend of his was teaching it, and he was doing something for her, some kind of computer stuff for her. She says, She said, Oh, well, take my class, you know, in exchange. And um, and he came with his daughter, who was 10, and we were all doing mosaics, and then he and I became friends, and then we became boyfriend and girlfriend, and we we were together for eight years, and we did mosaics together, and then I started making samples and putting them in showrooms and getting jobs, and that's how I got into the public art.

Beverley Glazer: 12:22

Exactly. Public art, though, is really quite something. You have to land those commissions.

Suzi K Edwards: 12:26

How did you do that? Landing the commissions is hard, but doing the work is even harder because they're big. I did four projects for a developer, 30 feet by 10 feet, on the side of seven-story buildings. So, you know, designing them and making them is hard, but then the installations were very hard. And I had a a crew I had a team, a couple that did all the installations, and they worked on a lift, a hydraulic lift, and the lift would sway because they were up so high. And and the wife, it was a husband and wife, and and she had to take dramamine because she was getting notches from the from the lift swaying. So I would just sit at the bottom and say, oh no, do that over there, you know, and tell them what to do. Everything was I'm really organized. So everything was kind of they're on, um, they didn't put the little pieces on the wall. They're all done on mesh. So they had a maybe if a a piece, maybe a foot by two feet of mesh. And they're all numbered and they all have little, like in sewing, you have these little notches that go together. And this, I, you know, I learned from the sewing, I learned the same thing. So nobody taught me how to do the public art. I didn't go to school for it. I just learned basic mosaics and then just kind of figured it out. And, you know, the first job was harder, and then you kind of get good at it. You just learn, you know, you just do it. But I don't think anymore. No, I stopped doing it because you never get paid enough money and it's too hard work. So I started doing the doggos, and that's my favorite thing to do now. So I do the drawings on my iPad and Procreate. I'll just show you a drawing. Oh, that's that's the school principal, and the boys are in the background, they got in trouble, so they're in the principal's office. So anyway, I do them in this program called Procreate on my iPad, and that was another synchronicity. I was my my youngest son is a doctor, and he, I guess he had was going out to do his residency in uh Minneapolis. So I took him out there on the plane. Like we were in New York or Florida, I can't remember. I took him out there on the plane to get them settled, you know, buy him furniture for the place, you know, do all the good mom stuff. And coming back, I was sitting on the plane and the guy was drawing on an iPad next to me. This was like at least 10 years ago. And I said, What are you doing? And he said, It's Procreate. And I said, What's that? And he said, Oh, it's a drawing program for iPad. And I just taught a class in it. And you can download it for $5. So when I got home, I downloaded it, and then I didn't do much for the first few years. And then I found that I could I could import photographs and then I could draw over the photographs, change them around. So that's actually these two boys are my nephew and his husband's sons. They adopted these two Hispanic, Latino boys. They adopted them, they were preemie babies, and then I use them and I I changed their faces. They didn't want them to be noticed as their boys. So I just changed their faces a little bit. So that's what I do for the all the illustrations. So they're all I bring pictures in and then I draw over them, I change them. I, you know, if I have somebody sitting in a chair, I'll put a picture of a chair, then I'll put a picture of the person, then I'll make it my person and my chair. What's the message? Yeah, it's just fun.

Beverley Glazer: 15:32

What's the message behind those books, that series? What are you doing?

Suzi K Edwards: 15:36

The dog series? Well, that you know, dogs are always really important to me, and they still are. And, you know, dogs are children's friends. So each each book in the series is about a child, or in this case, these twin boys, and um, they were not doing really well, they were misbehaving, and they really wanted a dog. They had friends that had dogs, so they ended up they the the dads wanted them to get a little dog like a chihuahua, and they go to the pound and they find this dog um who's a farm dog, Big Nell. And Big Nell had lived on the farm her whole life, except the farmer and his wife got old and they had to go to assisted living. So Nell ended up in the pound. So they got her from the pound and she became she became Matt and Zach's dog. So they all have stories about a particular dog and particular children, and how the dogs changed the children's lives for the better. And of course, the children changed the dogs' lives for the better. Sounds charming. Six books on the market now. There's seven in the work, and they're 15 plans. So terrific and get them on everyone.

Beverley Glazer: 16:40

Yeah. Susie, you have faced loss, you face loneliness, you've raised children on your own. What helped you at during those times where you really thought that life was impossible? What helped you then?

Suzi K Edwards: 16:53

Friends, you know, just calling friends if I feel lonely. You know, I go for a walk or I call somebody on the phone. But I, you know, but I've also come now where I really like being alone quite a lot. And that's only happened maybe in the last five years. I was always looking for something outside of myself. But now, you know, creativity. So I mean, I work on the computer, I draw something, or I and now I just moved into a new house, so I'm decorating. So that's a lot of fun. So I just keep really busy, you know, and I don't feel sorry for myself. I feel grateful for my life. Very grateful.

Beverley Glazer: 17:27

So for women listening who are facing their struggles right now, what is one truth you've learned in your 81 years?

Suzi K Edwards: 17:36

To be grateful for the good things that you do have and to keep keep going because things change every moment. You know, that's the one thing that the Buddha said that everything changes. There's nothing. Even if you're having a particularly good time, you don't know how long that's gonna last. So just be happy, be in the moment, you know, be grateful in the moment, have a good time when the good times are there, and when the bad times are there, know that that too will pass, you know. And learn breathing. If you can learn breathing, that's really helpful. I mean, I've I've been in the hospital a couple of times recently. I was having um a lot of high blood pressure, found out that I have sleep apnea. So now I use a CPAP, even though I didn't like it. Now I'm used to it. It's okay. Um, and I don't have high blood pressure anymore. So that was, you know, I was getting these hypertensive crises where my blood pressure was over 200. So it's like, oh, in the ambulance to the hospital, but they couldn't find anything wrong with my heart. And then we figured out that it's from the sleep apnea, and now it's not happening anymore.

Beverley Glazer: 18:31

Right. Okay, Suzi

Suzi K Edwards: 18:32

So there's always a solution. There's always a solution for everything.

Beverley Glazer: 18:36

And the underlying words really are for all of us, be grateful. Thank you, Suzi. Suzi K Edwards is a former New York clothing designer, a public artist, an author, an illustrator who was born legally blind. She's the creator of The Doggos, a book series for children, the memoir, The Quiet Mind, Crazy Heart, and her mosaics and public art can be seen in communities across the USA. Susie is a mother, a grandmother, and a mentor, and she believes that every challenge holds the seeds of growth and joy. Here are some takeaways from this episode: your inner vision matters more than what you actually see. Confidence grows each time you overcome what felt impossible. And joy is a choice. If it didn't happen as a child, you can learn to create it later in life. If you've been relating to Suzi's story, here's some actions that you can do right now to make you feel lighter. Flip the lens. Instead of asking, why me? Ask what can I do now? And stop being the victim. You become that creator. Change your environment. Even a short walk, a drive, or arranging plants can reset your energy level and replace one negative thought with an encouraging one right now. For similar episodes on finding joy, check out episode 127 and 145 of Aging with Purpose and Passion. And if you like podcasts of older women, the Link Late Bloomer Living Podcast embraces change and insparks joy to play playfully at any age. Meet inspiring guests and share practical real-world tips on that show. And that link is going to be in the show notes below. And so, Suzi, where can people find you, learn more about you, see your installations, and see everything about you? What are your links?

Suzi K Edwards: 20:39

So um Instagram is Suzi K Edwards1, S-U-Z-I-K-E-D-W-A-R-D-S One. My website, www.suzi, s-i-k Edwards. It's all Suzi K Edwards. Suzi K Edwards, also Suzi K. Edwards on Facebook, also Suzi K. Edwards on YouTube. I have a bunch of videos on YouTube about meditation and breathing that I did because I've been teaching meditation on Viking ships. And I thought since I travel by myself, it'd be a good way to meet people. So I contacted Viking and they said, Well, what do you have on YouTube? And I didn't have anything, so I started making videos. So there's a bunch of stuff on YouTube under Suzi K. Edwards. So just remember S-U-Z-I-K-Edwards, go on Amazon. You can see my memoir, Quiet Mind, Crazy Heart, and all the doggos, the six doggo books available on Amazon. And you'll enjoy them. Check it out.

Beverley Glazer: 21:39

And if you missed that, all Suzi's links are in the show notes and also on my site too. That's reInventimpossible.com. And so, my friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you living a life that you truly love? Get my free guide to go from stuck to unstoppable. And where do you think that is, that's in the show notes too. You can connect with me, Beverley Glazer, on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook. That's Women Over50 Rock. And thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please subscribe to let us spread the word and drop a review by sending it to a friend. And remember, you only have one life. So live it with purpose and passion.

Announcer : 22:31

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, reinventimpossible.com. And while you're there, join our newsletter. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion. And celebrate life.