Fond Memories and My Father

Perhaps as a result of my participation in these little meetings, my father decided to start a new tradition. When I was four or so, my father started to write math problems on post-it notes and put them on my bedroom door. Then in the morning when I came downstairs, he would ask me what the answer was. If I had been able to figure it out, he would say, “very good,” and we would enjoy breakfast together. But if I could not answer the problem, we would sit down and do it together before eating. I had no concept then of what he was trying to accomplish with these exercises, but I enjoyed the puzzles and leaps in logic for their own sake, and he enjoyed that I wanted to participate.

When I was six or seven, we started playing chess together. He taught me about the movements of the pieces and the special rule of castling, and showed me firsthand how to perform the four-move checkmate, and also how to defend against it. This became our new tradition over several years, until finally I beat him. Then I started winning more often until, eventually, I won most of our games. I do not love competitive games in general, but I love chess because it is more about the puzzle than about overpowering someone else. My father was never an ungracious winner or a sore loser, and I credit him for my love of the game.

When I was thirteen, my father brought me to New York. Unlike math, chess, or table manners, the lessons in New York were more subtle. They had to do with being aware and making observations and knowing yourself. Who am I? Who do I want to be? What is my place in the world? I learned that these are not questions we may ever necessarily answer, but in asking them we move forward and grow.