Tale of Two States

We spent last weekend at the State chess tournament. The ten year old and his team were playing.  This was A's second year.  Last year, he had an incredible run: won all of his games; came in second place in his section only after losing a "blitz" tie-breaker; took home an enormous trophy and a team trophy as well.  This year? Won one game, tied one game, lost the rest.  Most of the kids on his team in his section were "playing up" against higher rated teams, and it was a challenging weekend for them all.

Last year, he spent the whole weekend focused on chess.  He didn't swim in the hotel pool. He went to bed early.  He was, as he told me this year, "trying to win."  This year, he swam twice. He stayed up late and played bug house with his friends. (Bug house is four person two board chess and super fun for the chess kids).  He told me it was because he knew he couldn't win, so he could have fun.

Also, this year? He learned some chess. A challenger used an opening against him that he didn't know how to defend and that he plans to ask his coach about.  He lost well. He was upset when he made a mistake and lost because of it.  But when he played for a long time against a high rated player and lost? He felt okay about it.

I've been reflecting on both weekends. I've been wondering - which is more important for him? Which experience will have more impact on his life? Is it better for kids to experience winning or to experience losing and know that they will survive?  I've told him that I think he will learn more from this year. Mistakes are how we learn, and he will be a better chess player. But do I believe that truly? Would I want him to continue to play, tournament after tournament, and lose?

This was all on my mind this week when I was reminded (in another context) of a piece of Jewish teaching which says that each person should carry two slips of paper in his/her pockets. On one it should be written, "the whole world was created for me."  On the other, "I am but a speck of dust."

That, I think, is what we need to teach our children.  That yes, the whole world was created for them. They are the center of our universe in many ways. But also? They are but a speck of dust, another being out of billions of beings in our universe.

Lean one way - too many weekends of winning it all - they become entitled and haughty and unable to deal with the challenges of the world.  They are scared to take risks and fail.  Lean the other way - failure after failure - they lose faith in themselves and don't understand their enormous power to create change. And while they aren't scared to fail, they don't know that they can succeed.

So another weekend of chess is behind us.  He's played for three years and I still haven't learned any chess past the knight goes one, two, turn.  It's not clear how long he will be interested in the chess moving forward. In the meantime, though. there will be at least a few more weekends of winning, and a few more of losing, and along the way, I'll stand by, wring my hands, and watch him learn.

Come back?

My birthday is New Year's Eve.  My grandparents were interrupted at a party by my birth. My across the street neighbor's were eating Chinese food with their friends - a tradition that continued for years into my childhood. My uncle had the first car accident of the New Year on the way home from visiting me.  Or something like that....

New Year's Eve 2012-13, I turned 39. I made a New Year's resolution to have more fun. (Later narrowed to wear more color). I spoke with my Dad in the morning; he told me to take the kids ice skating. I love to ice skate; it was my birthday; I had resolved to have more fun; we went.  At the rink I got a call that my father was in the ER. Before midnight I was with my mother and my sisters (well one was there virtually with every minute phone calls) at his side in the ICU. 

New Year's Eve 2013-14. I turned 40. Again, at my parents' side, but this time at my parent's house. With all my sisters. With JB and my kiddos. With all my bros-in-law. And all my nephews.  

Not sure what happened to 2013. My kids got bigger. My Dad got well. We made the crazy decision to get a puppy. My mom got a new hip. We sold an apartment, bought a house. I had a whole lot of blessings and a whole lot of first world problems. I ran a half marathon.  I blogged once.  

39 was a blur.  So far, 40 isn't. So far, in fact, 40 is great. 

My dad Facebook messaged me today. (That's another thing that happened in 2013 - my dad joined FaceBook). Time for another blog, he said.

So here it is.  I'm trying to make a come back. Hold me to it?

Fine, I'm a Runner

A friend of mine recently asked me whether I feel like a grown up. He confessed that he does not. He's in his forties, has a spouse, a career, children. Not things that define "grown up" by any means but certainly the traditional trappings. Yet, as both his parents and his children get older, he feels that he is often play-acting, faking it.

It's not unusual to have a different conception of a label that might be used to describe you. Ask many progressive Jews to describe an authentic Jew and they will describe an ultra-orthodox man. Not themselves, or their family, or even their Rabbi, but someone who lives a different existence but still represents their concept of the label.

In fact, I do feel like a grownup (and have the gray hairs to prove it). It's not a label I have a very hard time with. However - I don't feel like a runner. Truly, if you asked, I would tell you I'm not a runner. 

Here are the facts: I run between 3 and 5 times a week. I own running shoes, and clothes, and hats, and socks, and headbands, and one ridiculous visor. I buy energy gels - a kind of weird processed sugar to fuel long runs. Oh yeah, I now have "long runs" because I am ... training for a half marathon (eek). I have used the word split in a sentence that didn't include bananas. 

 

And yet, I don't think of myself as a runner. Runners are things I am not. They are lean; I'm curvy. They've been running their whole lives; I've been doing it for a year or so. They were athletic kids; I had my head in a book. I have an image of a runner in my head, and it isn't me. 

That's what I think is going on with my friend. He has an image of a grown up, and it isn't him. Like many Gen X'ers (including me), he is uncomfortable with labels to begin with.  And, also like many Gen X'ers, his life looks different from the generation before him. He has more balance, probably. He generally loves his career. He's ambitious, but not to the point of interfering with the value he places on his family and his personal sanity. His parents are aging, but they aren't settling down and acting like old people. His children are growing up, and he's facing the realization that our children are not us (that's another blog). 

The truth? He's a grown up. I'm a runner. Labels can define us, or we can define them. If the box doesn't feel big enough, or the right shape, we can embrace the label and change the box. We have done that in this country with "family". I am hopeful we are about to do that with "marriage". Who says that being a "grown up" means you hate your job? That being a "senior citizen" means that you have to move to a retirement community? That being a "runner" means that you have to be fast?  There are times in life we have to create new labels, but there are also times we can change what the labels mean.

This week is Passover, a time when Jews move beyond narrow places to freedom. This strikes me as a time to embrace some of the labels and move on. I'm going to try to release myself from the narrowness of my self-imposed concepts.  So next time you see me, on-line or in the real world, ask if I'm a runner. And I'll try to say yes.

Two Abrahams

"Oh no," my Abraham yelped, looking at some colorful president cards we have, "Abraham Lincoln was... a Republican?"

I'm a child of New Hampshire. For those of you who aren't, here's what that means: it means that all politics was truly local to me growing up. It means we always had signs in the yard. It means that my first "job" was stuffing envelopes and answering phones when I was 13 or so for some candidate in a Portsmouth office. It means that my mom and I met Elizabeth Dole at our neighbor's house and she was so nice that we both might still switch parties to vote for her if given the chance.

Growing up, every Fisher was expected to have a political opinion. Politics were regular dinner table conversation. My father called me a pinko more than once during my adolescence. To this day, I don't watch a debate or a State of the Union address without texting my sisters throughout.

Growing up in NH also means I have a libertarian streak. I have strong party leanings but I don't vote just for party lines. It means I don't like dirty politics. When politics are that local, you realize that the candidates are actually people.  I don't agree with Sarah Palin but I was disgusted by the gender stuff that was thrown at her. I can't stand Rush Limbaugh but I was sympathetic to his challenges of recovery.

My kids, though, are New Yorkers. They are New Yorkers with a giant Obama hope poster in their hallway. (A poster that to me symbolizes both how far this country has come and how far it has to go.)

Their father is passionate about politics. Passionate in a very educated and fairly partisan way. Our Abraham was born during the GW administration. Right after we "won" the war and right before we went back to war. He spent hours of his infancy in the baby carrier held by his father while he read the paper and ranted about the administration.  JB's a guy with strong political leanings, and the kids know it.

Our Abraham is also a fairly literal kind of guy (as noted last week). There are good guys and bad guys in his world. You root for a team. His baseball team is the Mets. His political team, the Democrats. So Abraham Lincoln, same name as him and hero, a Republican? It didn't make sense. (I've left it to his father, much more knowledgeable about history, to explain the evolution of our 2 party system).

But I'm a NH girl, so I'm trying a little to shake him out of the good guy/ bad guy thinking. I'm trying to explain where my values fit in. That I believe that the government should help people. That I believe that people should be able to love who they want to love, and marry who they want to marry. That I believe that those of us who are lucky enough to have good jobs are obligated to help others. That we live in a world where a mayor from another party might be a better choice for our city.

Lots of my friends don't understand undecided voters. I do. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely decided. But undecided voters aren't dumb. They are thinking. They have values. Maybe some conflict with each other. Maybe they truly believe that life begins at conception and they truly believe the government should feed the hungry. Maybe they are just tired of in-fighting and money. They see their neighbors who need jobs, and possibility, and aren't totally sure which candidate has a better chance of providing that, or whether it even matters.

I hope my kids will grow up to understand that politics really is local. That our decisions affect us and those around us. That we should have an opinion and that it is ok if that opinion changes. These days, it's my youngest sister who my dad is calling a pinko. And my dad who has taken a conservative turn that has made us all furious. But that's ok. Cause he's a NH boy. And NH boys, well they may like their tractors and their Dunkin' Donuts and their Red Sox but they love their politics.

One, two, turn

My 9 year old has started playing on his school chess team, affectionately known as the Chess Ninjas.  I know nothing about chess.  Well, I know how the pieces move.  The knight - one, two, turn.  I now know there is a thing called "castling".  And a thing called "en passant".  Although I just had to google that one to be sure.

I went to my first chess tournament this week.  For those of you who have never been, let me assure you that an elementary school chess tournament is not an exciting way to spend the day.  Even if you love chess, you can't watch the matches - the kids are alone for those.  So you spend most of your day sitting in a classroom at a school.  Waiting.  Not eating, because if you get caught eating in the classroom, your team can get kicked out of the tournament. It's kind of like not watching the world's slowest cricket match.

My kid goes to a school full of families who are fairly normal (in a good way) and truly diverse.  I had a nice time chatting with the chess parents, and we had one very interesting conversation about the history of Columbus day and the way Columbus is perceived in countries throughout the western world. I had one nice walk through Harlem to Starbucks.  I got a little bit of work done, but not as much as I should have.

Through it all, I quietly observed the coach of the Chess Ninjas.  And I took home a number of interesting lessons.

Before I share them, let me brag a little.  This is no ordinary coach, and no ordinary chess team.  This is a team that took home a national championship last year.  This is a feeder team for the famous Brooklyn middle school team that won the high school championships last year, that star in this movie.  So, this is a coach who knows what he is doing.  And here's what he does:

Every player, win or lose, goes over his/her game with the coach after it's over.  And the feedback is on the play, not the win or loss.  Don't get me wrong, the coach likes to win.  But the kids sit down and go through their games move by move. When they won 'cause they got lucky, he tells them. When they play great but lose, he tells them that.

Think about it - we've gotten pretty good in the nonprofit world about learning from our mistakes, "failing fast", and pivoting.  But we still always take credit for our successes.  What if we are succeeding despite ourselves?  A popular rabbi who has significantly grown a congregation once said to me, "yes, we were growing.  We are in a community where people keep having kids and they want those kids to have a bar or bat mitzvah.  That doesn't mean that we are successful.  That's demographics, not outreach".  How many of the rest of us analyze our wins as critically as our losses? 

And the losses? After one loss, the coach told my son that the difference between the higher ranked players and the lower ranked ones is the number of possibilities they see at any given time.  It's an important lesson for my kid who is so literal that he sometimes calls himself "Mr. Literal." And an important lesson for all of us.  Think about it - winning it isn't knowing the right thing to do. Losing isn't doing the wrong thing.  It's not fully understanding all of the options. Winning is making decisions based on fully understanding all of the options for all of the players in the game.

I'm not going start playing chess.  Just isn't my game.  (Games aren't really my game, actually).  And I'm not going to volunteer to sit in that room for every tournament.  But while I'm there, I'll listen to the coach. Because maybe there is a life lesson in the castle after all.

Wanna come over?

It's become a tradition in our family to have an open house on the second afternoon of Rosh Hashana. It's the way I like to entertain - casual, everyone brings something.  A few days before the holiday this year, I was speaking to some colleagues and mentioned that I thought we would have "a lot" of people.  "A lot like 20? Or a lot like 40?" my colleague asked.  I didn't know.  Because I was scared to count.

I like to invite people.  I'm not always sure why, because guests can be a pain.  They are messy.  They are loud.  They often overstay their welcome.  The Rosh Hashana open house is often chaotic and exhausting. Yet I keep inviting people.  Sometimes more than I have room for.  Sometimes people I don't even know that well. Or people whose kids drive my kids nuts. 

One explanation is DNA.  Inviting people is a tradition that I get from my parents.  One year, at synagogue, the rabbi announced, "if you need someplace to go for Passover, call Margie." My mom hadn't volunteered, and she wasn't chair of some committee whose job it was to find people places to go.  It was just that the rabbi knew she would take people in.  Another time, the doorbell rang and it was the Domino's pizza delivery guy.  Somehow, someone in my family had figured out that he had some connection to Judaism, and there he was at Seder with us.

It wasn't just holidays. There were extra people year-round at my house when I was a kid. My dad would return from his early morning ramblings with someone in tow. (A habit I have recreated with inviting my running buddies over for coffee). Several of our cousins moved in with us at one time or another - for a month, or for several years.  Our friends ran away to our house, or crashed there while in between places.  One time, both my grandmother and our good friend V were staying in the house. She was in her eighties; he in his twenties.  They used to pass in the early mornings - she on her way out, he on his way in.

Inviting guests is also in my Jewish DNA.  The holiday of the week, Sukkot, commands us to invite guests into our sukkahs.  These are both mythical guests from the bible, and real live guests.   We are commanded to invite in the needy.  Needy is traditionally thought of as those who are hungry and in need of a meal.  And there is no question that there remains too much hunger, both in our very own communities, and throughout the world.

Yet inviting also addresses my hunger - for community, for people around me.  For laughter, for company, to toast and break bread.  To have people who feel comfortable rooting around in my fridge.  So, despite the fact that every year I say we aren't going to do it again, next year I will start the inviting again. If you didn't get an invite to Rosh Hashana this year, sorry about that.  Probably just didn't run into you.  Come next year anyway.  But be prepared for a million kids running around, too many plates to fit on the table, and not enough chairs. Because it's in my genes.  And I just can't help it.

How do I do what?

I sat down at a work lunch recently with another professional woman.  At the chitchat part of the lunch, the subject of kids came up.  "Do you have kids?" she asked.  "I do. A 9 year old and a 5 year old."  She gave a sort of half bow across the table.  "How do you do it?"

My first response was, "how do I do what?"  And yet, I knew what she meant.  Balance. Prioritize. Climb the (nonprofit in our cases) ladder.  Sleep.

I've been avoiding writing about this.  Avoiding responding to this much talked about article.  Or its many responses.  Because, honestly, how does anyone do anything?  I know a couple with twins, one of whom has significant medical and developmental issues.  How do they do it? I know a recently married woman whose husband is in the hospital fighting for his life.  How does she do it? I know people in their 30s and 40s who are single and put themselves out there several times a week on first dates.  People who work several jobs to make ends meet.  People who take care of aging parents.  People in recovery.  How do any of us do anything?  And yet, we do.  To paraphrase Louie CK, "Your life doesn't suck.  Life sucks."  And yet, all of us, all these people and people all over the world with much more serious stuff than balancing life and family, still manage to not only live but enjoy life.  To laugh, to eat with friends, to go for a walk on a cool evening.  So, on some level, I just do it.  And really, of all the things I worry and stress about, work/life balance isn't on the top of the list.

Which is why I didn't want to write about balance or rather, the term I prefer: work/life fit.  But it has become clear to me that many young women, including some I know personally, are hearing the message that it isn't possible.  And are opting out of working outside the home.  And in my opinion, without igniting the mommy wars, that is a shame.  Because working can be fun, and stimulating, and, for many of us, the mission of our work is to do our part to fix what is wrong in the world. Or create what is right.  Let me be clear: I strongly support people who choose to stay home because they are personally compelled by parenting.  But I'm concerned by the trend I see for bright women to opt out because they don't see another way.

With all that said, below is an expanded version of my actual response at lunch that day.  A few of the ways I do what I do.  I know that not all of them are options for everyone.  And I recognize that I am very lucky.

1. I don't do it alone.  I have a spouse who is a musician, whose hours are largely night where mine are largely day and who is a terrific father.  Having one parent home part of the time is key to my personal situation, but it isn't the only tenable solution.  I know couples where both people work part or 3/4 time and other families where the parents work full time and have a full time caregiver for the kids.  We also have grandparents and siblings who help when they can, although none of them are right in town with us.
2. I ask for help.  We've created a community of friends with kids and when one of us needs help, we ask.  It isn't a babysitting coop.  There aren't any rules.  We kind of self-monitor.  But I have learned: when you need help, ask.  People will ask back.  And soon you will all have a little more support.  
3. I don't do it all.  This is the one piece of "balance" everyone cops to.  My apartment hasn't been dusted since the Bush administration.  My kids wear mismatched socks and call it style.  I can't remember the last movie I saw.
4. I do make a point to do the things I care about.  I get up and run with my friends.  I read books.  I sneak out for a mani/pedi every now and again.  I bake challah.  I cook Shabbat dinner on Fridays.  I, like Sheryl Sandberg, leave the office in time for dinner with my kids. 
5. I have supportive supervisors.  But I learned to ask for that support.  And to prove that I worked hard, accomplished my goals, and deserved that support.
6. I embrace technology.  Since my first PDA, technology has enabled me to work where I am, when I can.  I can leave the office at 5 and be back on line at night. I can take a conference call while waiting for my kid at an appointment. 
7. But I'm not a slave to technology.  My team knows that I'm usually in bed early and won't respond until the morning.  I take an entire day a week off email entirely. I go on vacation occasionally and unplug. 

That's 7 things I do.  For me, it's not just possible, it's fun.  It's stimulating.  I enjoy working.  I enjoy parenting.  I don't want to choose one or the other. It's hard, but back to Louie CK: Life's hard.

I'm curious what you do.  How do you "do it"?  Anyone interested in joining with me to bust the myth that it is impossible to find the fit that works?