Kerry Kennedy Juggles Global Advocacy Work and a Local Legal Tangle Kerry Kennedy, who was charged in a summer traffic accident, says she does not consider herself a public figure: "I think of myself as a human-rights advocate and as a mother." The directions to her secluded home, sitting atop a hill abutting a 640-acre wildlife preserve, were not the kind spit out by Google maps or a GPS device. If not for a "peace" sign, which doubles as a signpost for visitors, the driveway entrance could be easily missed. A tree swing, fashioned out of rope and a white life preserver, dangled just above thick weeds and wildflowers at the base of a wood-shingled, three-car garage. "Walk past the cottage," Kerry Kennedy instructed in an e-mail. Walk into the glass room. And call my name. The greenhouse door had been left ajar, a sign of access granted. During a two-hour interview at her home near Mount Kisco, N.Y., the 53-year-old former wife of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo shed some light onto life as a Kennedy. A life in which a stumble can be magnified into a crash that lands on newspaper pages and television newscasts. Ms. Kennedy has not been immune to such moments. In 2003, her separation from Mr. Cuomo provided ample tabloid fodder until their divorce in 2005. Then, in July, she was arrested on a charge of driving with ability impaired by drugs, after she swerved into a tractor-trailer on Interstate 684 about 10 miles from her Westchester County home. The news media attention baffles her; she says she does not consider herself a public figure. "I think of myself as a human-rights advocate and as a mother," she said. In the interview, conducted last month, a few hours before she was to make a court appearance on the misdemeanor charge, Ms. Kennedy discussed a wide range of topics, including a recent human-rights trip to Western Sahara, a territory in northwestern Africa, that generated false reports of the delegation's being kidnapped by Al Qaeda. Those reports led to the need for an unusual phone call from her teenage daughter, Mariah Kennedy-Cuomo, who came on the trip, to her father to let him know she was safe. And although Ms. Kennedy did not directly address the accident and her arrest, she did talk about the generic form of Ambien that she told police she might have taken the morning of the accident, mistaking it for the thyroid medication she takes each morning. "Ambien is one of the most prescribed pills in America," Ms. Kennedy said. A lot of people take it every night or several times a week or several times a month in order to help them sleep. I'm just not one of those people. That's the perception of me. But that's not the reality. Toxicology tests administered nearly five hours after the accident showed a low dose of zolpidem, the generic form of Ambien, in her blood. Ms. Kennedy and Westchester prosecutors are pressing ahead toward a possible trial, with each court appearance covered closely by the press. Such is life for a Kennedy. Her home had the look and feel of a Provençal farmhouse, both rustic and elegant. Though not quite 1 p.m., fruity and sweet-smelling candles sat lighted around the house. In the kitchen, a teapot-size ceramic rooster stood in the center of a wooden table long enough to fit her family and that of her brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who lives a mile away. Around the living room, evidence of the Kennedy lineage was ever-present. Two clay busts, one depicting her father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the other of her Uncle Jack, President John F. Kennedy, looked out over the room from the fireplace mantel. Her father's 1968 funeral Mass card, sealed inside a block of glass, was displayed on the bookshelf, along with three copies of "Robert Kennedy: In His Own Words." Ms. Kennedy recognizes that the family name comes with ready-made prominence and power, which she said she tried to harness to do global good. "In my human-rights work, perhaps the most important thing is gaining the trust of the victims," she said. "With all of the good that my family has done over so many generations, there is a trust, like: "That's somebody who is on our side. That's somebody who understands our plight." " Ms. Kennedy preferred to talk about her advocacy work. When the conversation turned to whether she needed Ambien to help her sleep, she bristled slightly. "Let's be clear about that in my case," she said.