It's been a year. Thanks, truly, for being part of it.

Thanks Facebook, but I'll pass on "It's been a great year. Thanks for being part of it".

This is the year I turned 40.

I'd like to blog about all the lessons I learned. Like this NY Times article people keep posting. (Side note - I disagree with much of it. Especially the part about soul mates).

I would like to write that this is the year I learned to love my wrinkles. To ignore the extra pounds around my middle that won't go away.

I'd like to write that this year, I learned to let go of my bitterness for those who weren't there for me in tough times. That I learned to focus only on my gratitude for those who were.

I'd like to write that this is the year that I learned that the constant nagging attention of a puppy taught me something about the universe, other than that maybe I don't like dogs.

I'd like to write that I was comforted by "God doesn't give us what we can't handle" or "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger". Both may be true, but it wasn't a comfort.

So I tried to write a anti-Facebook blog: "It's been a crappy year. Thanks for being part of it".  It has been a challenging year, and I am truly grateful for everyone who has been there for me.

But it hasn't only been a rotten year. It's a year that started perfectly, surrounded by family. It's a year in which I was astounded by the strength and resilience I saw around me and even surprised by my own once or twice as well. And while it's been a year of parenting moments that make me want to bang my head against the wall, it's also been a year of parenting moments that take my breath away as I watch my children become people in the world.

It's been a year. And I haven't learned anything.

But I'm trying to learn. I'm trying to learn that years aren't either great or terrible, that they are a series of moments. In the worst of times, those moments slow down in order to help us cope. During the darkest days of a family tragedy this year, when we weren't sure what we would do, I would turn to my sister and say - first, we are going to cook breakfast. Then, we are going to eat breakfast. During the bad times, the only way to cope is one moment at a time.

And I'm guessing that the trick is to try to do that during the good times too. And the in-between times. To stop, and realize this is one moment. One amazing moment.  One terrible moment. One mediocre, boring moment.

If that is really the trick and if I can really learn, then maybe, just maybe, I'll get to the point where I decide, "this is one moment, should I spend it looking for grey hairs? Or should I spend it opening a jar of my favorite jam, even though there are already two open jars in the fridge?" This morning, I did both. Scowled at the grey hairs and opened the sour cherry jam.

So that's 40. It's been a year. Thanks, truly, for being part of it.

On composing and deleting

I've developed a habit over the past several months of composing Facebook statuses and deleting them. Or creating them in my head, and not posting.

It began with the conflict in Israel and Gaza this summer. My Facebook feed was quickly full of advocacy from across the political spectrum, "shouting matches", and sharing of gruesome photographs. There didn't seem to be a space for me, for opinions that were more nuanced, for deep sympathy for deaths on all sides, for a real conversation. So I was largely silent.

I understood that my silence came from a place of privilege. It's easy to be silent from across the world. And I understand that my silence could be interpreted as consent - a fact that was deeply troubling as I watched people spread hatred.

My silence wasn't completely a choice. I was simply paralyzed. Many times I wrote something, thought about it, deleted. In person, I spoke about the situation a lot, with my colleagues and family and friends. I was able to express my opinion, to have civil disagreements, even to directly discuss a Facebook status from the other person. But online? Mostly silence.

Then, at the end of the summer, my family experienced a tragic death of a young person - a member, you might say, of the original Facebook generation.  In our times where Facebook has largely replaced the newspaper and no one under the age of fifty reads the obituaries anymore, Facebook has become the the way to share news both good and bad.

I was faced with a question - what, if anything, should I say on social media? I decided to follow the lead of the person closest to the death: when she posted funeral information, so did I. When she shared where donations should go, so did I.

In the process, I realized something. Or rather, JB pointed something out to me. On Facebook, everything is at the same level. There are no categories, no filters, no sections. One minute you are looking at a silly cat video, the next minute you see a death notice. There is no way to differentiate, no way to filter the news from the opinion, the obituaries  from the style section.

In person, in the town square, we can go to the library for information, to the movies for entertainment, to the house of worship for religion, to the grocery store checkout for gossip. We can do the same with sections of the newspaper. On Facebook, it comes at us all at once.

The "all at once" makes it amazing - I never know what I will encounter and daily read an interesting article that I would not have otherwise seen. It makes it challenging. More than once I've seen someone post something deeply private - often about a relationship - and I've learned things that are more intimate than the bounds of our friendship.

And frankly, the "all at once" of Facebook makes it almost impossible to quit. I have several work related groups that live on the platform. It is a platform that has become crucial to professional branding in my field and many others. To leave could affect my career. And to leave would affect my ability to know the news I want to hear. I also don't read the obituaries and I do want to know when someone in my community is experiencing a loss. Or a success. Or a challenge.

But this summer made it clear to me that I personally need to examine my FaceBook habits. I started, almost accidentally, by mostly abstaining during the traditional 30 day Jewish mourning period of shloshim. With the exception of one or two posts, I didn't feel right about sharing fun quips about my day-to-day life while someone I love was in so much pain.

In taking a little time off, I realized that the all day "all at once" onslaught was troubling me personally. Thus while I'm returning to Facebook and will likely once again share all my musings of the day, I've deleted the Facebook app on my phone to create just a little bit of space between me and that overwhelming feed.

I also realized that someone I'm Facebook friends with is always in pain. So I'm trying, especially as I move into the Jewish New Year, to never lose sight of what my posts might look like to others, and to never forget that on the other side of my feed, there are people - people who laugh at silly videos and kvell over cute kid pictures and people who struggle and grief and are lost.  I hope that in 5775, I will be able to remember that those people are my colleagues, acquaintances and friends, and that those people too come to their screens with their whole lives, and leave, once again, to live their lives. Facebook, after all, isn't life. It's just where we talk about it.

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PS: Once again, I almost deleted this post. I'm sharing it, but I want to be very clear that my intentions in doing so are to reflect on and share my own experiences.  My intentions are not to judge yours. And so, with tremendous fear that this is another preachy thing filling up your feed, I share it anyway.  Agree? Disagree? Feel irrelevant or relevant? Please comment. 

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.