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.