A heartwarming exploration of how a simple dice game created by Jon and Jocelyn fosters community, inclusivity, and cooperation among lifelong friends, challenging society's competitive nature and demonstrating the power of collective success over individual achievement.
Her Story
About Rachel
Rachel Zirkin Duda is an author, poet, and photographer whose work explores the terrain of parenting, intergenerational trauma, and human connection. She began writing about eight years ago, and that path has since grown into a body of work that blends memoir, poetry, and practical guidance for families navigating difficult histories. In addition to her writing, Rachel has spent years behind the camera as a freelance and event photographer, capturing everything from high school sports to nonprofit galas. Her memoir, Mending Together, Building Together, chronicles the experience of raising her son through trauma and intergenerational cycles. The book has won two awards, and Rachel was named a finalist for Author of the Year. She has since published a poetry collection under the pen name Hannah Blue and is now co-writing a book with her son called Bridging the Gap, which focuses on communication and boundaries, and is drawn directly from their own relationship and growth together. Bridging the Gap will be the first in a new book series called "Learning Each Other's Language." Rachel's work is rooted in the belief that people find their footing not by conforming to expectations, but by understanding who they truly are — and, for parents, by extending that same understanding to their children. With two more books in progress and a growing interest in speaking and community-building for parents from traumatic backgrounds, she continues to expand how she reaches and supports others through storytelling.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rachel
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to a genuine hunger for helping people who have felt unimportant or overlooked because of trauma or neurodivergence. That drive has been paired with intuition — an ability to sense what a person or situation actually needs — and a willingness to learn from what doesn't work. Watching unhealthy parenting dynamics play out, and understanding why they fail, has taught me as much as any success has.
02What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Inclusion is central to everything I do. I believe everyone deserves the support and understanding they need to become the best version of themselves, and that starts with self-acceptance — truly knowing who you are before trying to become anything else. I carry that same value into my personal life, especially in how I approach parenting and relationships: getting to know people as individuals, rather than expecting them to fit a predetermined mold.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Rachel
The Long Game
A dice game teaches us that true winning means lifting others up.
I first met Jon in 1987, when we were both students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I remember that day well.
It was my first day of college. My parents were dropping me off in front of Susquehanna Hall to help me move into my dorm room. Our car had barely pulled up to the curb when a tall young man who introduced himself as “Kirk” suddenly appeared. He opened my car door and asked, “How can I help?” He later told me, winking, “Hey, you were a pretty brunette with a nice rack. Of course I was going to offer my help!” As he carried the first load of my belongings inside, I learned that he lived in a room down the hall from me. I thought to myself, “A coed floor. Nice!”
As I followed Kirk back outside to get more stuff, I passed Jon’s room. Jon was a vertically challenged guy with a long, dirty-blond mullet and blue eyes. He saw me and immediately asked if he could hypnotize me. I paused for a moment—in shock—and then quickly took off, freaking out internally.
Little did I know, this short, hippie-ish, would-be hypnotist would eventually become one of my very best friends.
Nearly forty years later, many of us still hang out together at regular game nights hosted by Jon and his wife, Jocelyn. Kirk, Adam, my sister Erica, and I have been there since the beginning. Dave, the older brother of one of my dorm mates, joined our little group in the early ’90s. We met Brian while we were all shadow-casting for the midnight cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Then the wives and husbands arrived—and then the kids. Adam’s daughter, Raina—now an adult—is a regular at game nights. My son, Seth, loves to join us whenever he can. Jocelyn’s sons, Jared and Cameron, drop in every once in a while, too.
Others have come and gone over the years, but somehow the core group has held together, and a lot of that is because of Jon. He has always been the glue.
Long before Jocelyn came along, Jon was a natural host, inviting a variety of people to his dorm room, apartment, or house to eat, drink, and play games—just about every weekend. Wherever he lived inevitably became “Jon’s Home for Wayward School Friends,” a nickname we all laughed about, but one that carried deeper meaning.
Jon is the kind of guy who would take you in if you needed a place to stay—regardless of how much or how little room he had to spare. Erica was literally barefoot and pregnant when Jon invited her to move in. After my nephew, Alec, was born, Jon gave Erica breaks by babysitting and singing Alec Beatles tunes until one—or both—of them finally fell asleep.
Years later, Jon met his match. Jocelyn is a crocheting wizard. In her spare time, she fills dozens of Ziploc bags with whimsical creatures she has created from generously donated yarn—along with sweet notes she writes to help people feel seen. She randomly leaves these care packages in the grocery store, on people’s doorsteps, or in the hands of befuddled parents desperately trying to tame a crying child. She does this just to help brighten their day. She expects nothing in return. Even when money is scarce, Jocelyn keeps her needles busy, building new creations. She has never made a penny from them and refuses to sell them under any circumstances. (She will, however, work for yarn and googly eyes!)
Jon and Jocelyn are the type of people who might only have a small amount of food, but if you’re hungry, they’ll share it with you.
That’s just who they are.
Somewhere along the way, they created a game called 20,000.
20,000 is loosely based on Farkle. It is played with six dice. Certain combinations are worth specific amounts. As long as you keep rolling scoring dice, you can keep building points—until you (or the dice) decide it’s the end of your turn. But there’s a twist.
In this game, one person’s good fortune can literally become the next player’s opportunity.
Let me explain. One night, my boyfriend, Lloyd, had an incredible run and still had five dice left over. Dave was sitting beside him. Dave, unfortunately, had a stroke several years ago that left his hands mostly paralyzed. On top of the difficulty of rolling the dice, Dave hadn’t been having much luck that night. Lloyd ended his turn and passed his leftover dice to Dave. To score, Dave just had to roll a five or a one with any of those dice. He rolled a one, which added 100 to the 5,000-odd points Lloyd had already built up. Then Dave passed the remaining dice to the next person, who also scored.
Another night, everyone kept scoring. One person would roll, pass the remaining dice, then the next person would add to the score, and the whole thing kept growing. We were rooting for the dice—and for each other.
Nobody was sitting there hoping the next person would fail. When winning dice are being passed around, rooting against the next player is like shooting yourself in the foot.
When someone is having a terrible night, we want them to do better. When somebody gets a great roll, everyone gets excited. Nobody resents the first person to reach the goal. We’re happy for them. 20,000 is a point-building game that’s a lot more fun when we help each other win.
The more I think about that, the less surprised I am that Jon and Jocelyn came up with it.
Jon has spent much of his life creating that kind of environment. He and Jocelyn both invite people in. They cheer people on. They gather everybody together. And they make room for new people to join our circle.
This became especially clear to me one night when Jon invited a coworker to play games with us. Olu was from Nigeria and had only lived in this country for about ten years.
Most of us around the table had known each other for decades. We had history, recollections of past hijinks, inside jokes, and all the little pieces of shorthand that accumulate when people have been in one another’s lives for that long.
This man had never met any of us (except Jon, of course) and had obviously never played 20,000. So we taught him. We explained the rules. We helped him calculate his score. We made sure he got the maximum points possible. We suggested what he could do for his next move. Nobody expected him to figure it out on his own. Nobody took advantage of his newness.
We wanted him to have as good a time as we were having. We were just being our usual goofball selves—and we invited him to come along for the ride.
Somewhere in the middle of everything, Olu started opening up about himself. He talked about what life had been like in his hometown. He talked about the difficulties of getting a job, how much depended on knowing somebody who could help you get in, and how hard people had to work while barely making a living. Many went hungry. He told us how grateful he was for the life he had been able to build here.
Then he patted his stomach and quipped that, on the other hand, our processed food had done him in. We all laughed together.
This beautiful, gentle-souled man came from a completely different background, but there we were, all of us—around the same table, rolling dice, passing around snacks, and talking about our lives. Playing the game gave us a reason to sit together long enough for the rest of it to happen.
And that’s what I find so beautiful. 20,000 may be a competitive dice game, but as Lloyd points out, “The points are pointless.”
Don’t get me wrong, winning is still fun. Nobody is pretending otherwise. But the biggest reason 20,000 is so special is the way it brings people together—to play a wholesome game, joke around, share stories, and eat lots of chips and ice cream with a chosen family we have built together—one that keeps on growing.
I keep going back to what Olu said. Where he came from, you needed to know somebody to get in. At Jon and Jocelyn’s table, all anyone has to do is pull back a chair and join in.
What if more of the world were that inclusive and community-oriented?
There is so much pressure in this society for each of us to be the best and brightest—to come out ahead of everybody else. But the truth is, we can’t all be “the best.” Is coming in second really that much less valuable? Even if we do manage to become “the best” in any particular area, does that guarantee happiness and fulfillment for the rest of our lives? I really don’t think so. As they say, “It’s lonely at the top.”
I wonder what would happen if we approached our communities the way we play 20,000.
20,000 allows for misfortune in a way life often doesn’t. You can roll and get nothing. We call that a “pity 50.” Nobody acts as though you’ve revealed some terrible flaw in your character. We offer condolences, gift you 50 points, cheer you on, and move to the next roll.
You can rack up an enormous score and lose it all. I once lost a 6,500-point run and was still excited that it had gotten that far. But then my turn came around again—and I started to rebuild.
Real life is not always so forgiving.
In the world of 20,000, you don’t just get one roll and disappear. You watch other people take their turns. You root for them. In this game, you can even show up late and still get to 20,000 first. The score can build up at any time, after all, and eventually, the dice do come back around.
I think 20,000 reflects something Jon and Jocelyn have understood for a long time: We do not have to diminish one another to succeed. Someone else’s good fortune does not have to threaten our own. Sometimes we can pass it along—and watch it grow.
Maybe that lesson can extend beyond Jon and Jocelyn’s game table.
And if it can, I have to ask: Why not work together to make everyone’s lives better—instead of always trying to best each other?
A couple navigates conflict through trauma-informed communication, discovering that pausing conversations isn't failure—it's the foundation for deeper understanding and genuine resolution built on trust.
“Not yet” does not mean “never.”
How a couple navigates conflict by learning when to pause and when to reconnect.
Learning Each Other’s Language
My boyfriend, Lloyd, and I have been together for nearly five years, although our story actually began decades earlier. We first met as children, lost touch, and found each other again in our 50s—through Facebook.
Neither of us came into this relationship untouched.
We both have significant trauma histories. We both know what it feels like when the present suddenly collides with something much older. And because of that, a disagreement between us isn't always just about whatever we're disagreeing about.
Sometimes one of us gets overwhelmed.
Sometimes one of us gets triggered.
Sometimes both of us become overwhelmed and triggered.
Sometimes two people who genuinely love each other suddenly find themselves trying to communicate through layers of fear, shame, hurt, or defensiveness that were there long before they ever met.
So, one of the things we've had to learn is that resolving a conflict doesn't always mean finishing the conversation while we're still in it.
Sometimes one of us reaches a point where there simply isn't enough bandwidth left.
For a long time, I think I unconsciously equated stopping with not resolving the problem. If something was still unsettled, I wanted to keep talking until we reached the other side.
But continuing to talk when one person is already overwhelmed rarely gets you to the other side. It usually just leaves both people more overwhelmed.
We were talking about this recently when I said something that has become increasingly important in our relationship:
De-escalating is not the same as not resolving the issue. It means creating the space to resolve it in a much calmer way.
Lloyd put it even more simply: “It doesn't have to be right now.”
That may sound obvious. It wasn't obvious to me.
Because the key is trust.
If Lloyd says, “I need to stop,” I need to know he isn't saying, “Your feelings don't matter.” He's saying, “I don't have the capacity to do this well right now.”
And when I need to stop, he needs to know I'm not saying, “I refuse to deal with this.”
I'm saying, “Not yet.”
Those are very different messages.
We've also learned that when one person says they've had enough for the moment, the other person has to respect it.
I've pointed out to Lloyd that sometimes I'll say, “Okay,” and he'll keep explaining. And I'm thinking, “I've already said, ‘Okay.’”
He's recognized that tendency, too, and he's been doing it less.
Sometimes part of learning each other's language is learning when enough has already been said.
That's part of this process. Neither one of us gets it right every time. As Lloyd says, “Each time we figure out a little bit more of the language that we need to use to listen to each other.” We're learning as we go.
In fact, during this same conversation, Lloyd described our relationship as a “work in progress.”
So are we.
And we've noticed something encouraging: we're beginning to repair earlier in the cycle. The difficult moments still happen—sometimes they're extraordinarily difficult—but we're getting better at recognizing what's happening, stopping before things escalate further, and finding our way back to each other.
Sometimes love sounds like talking things all the way through.
And sometimes it sounds like:
“I hear you.”
“We can come back to this.”
“Not yet is okay.”
Because “not yet” doesn't have to mean abandonment.
It doesn't have to mean avoidance.
And it doesn't have to mean never.
Sometimes “not yet” is exactly what makes later possible.
This is part of learning each other's language, too.
A thoughtful exploration of how effective learning depends on finding the right teaching method and teacher for your unique brain, not just trying harder.
Conversations with Seth
How the right teacher, explanation, or approach can transform your ability to learn.
Sometimes You Haven’t Found the Right Translation Yet
The other day, Seth and I got into one of those conversations that starts in one place and ends up traveling through about seventeen others.
It began with motivation.
Seth:
I realize it’s kind of cliché, but you know how a lot of people’s life advice is basically just, “Do things” or “Take initiative”? Surprisingly, it actually works. I used to think it was kind of dumb, but I get it now from a logical standpoint.
Me:
I’ve actually been reading about how motivation can work differently for people with ADHD and autism. Sometimes waiting until you feel motivated doesn’t work particularly well. You may have to start before the motivation shows up. This isn’t laziness. It’s a difference in how we get ourselves into motion.
Seth:
I’ve never heard that before. I find that a little bit bunk, but let me finish what I was saying.
Me:
Go ahead.
Seth:
What bothers me about most motivational speeches is that they don’t actually tell you how to do anything. When you ask someone, “How did you get so good at this?” the answer is usually:
“I practiced.”
Or:
“I studied.”
Okay. Practiced what? Studied what?
Training is only a method. Your resource is just as important as your method for gaining a skill. And when I say “resource,” I don’t necessarily mean tools. I mean the teacher. Who you learn from—and how you learn from them—has a huge impact on whether the skill makes sense to you.
That caught my attention.
Because we talk a lot about whether someone is “trying hard enough.” We talk much less about whether the way they’re being taught actually works for their brain.
Seth:
If something doesn’t work, sometimes your body will tell you, “This teacher doesn’t work for me.” Your body can know even when your brain doesn’t. Things aren’t becoming intuitive because they don’t make sense to you. That’s why I think it’s useful to have multiple teachers.
He used his current IT instructor as an example.
Seth:
My IT teacher is trying to do it all. And in my head, I’m thinking, “You cannot do everything.” He’s accomplished a lot for himself and for other people, but that doesn’t mean he can teach everything equally well.
I think he can teach me. I just don’t think he is the best teacher for me.
Me:
So, he isn’t a bad teacher. He just isn’t the most effective teacher for you.
Seth:
Exactly.
And that distinction matters.
There is a huge difference between saying, “This person is a bad teacher,” and saying, “This is not the way I learn best.”
One judges the teacher. The other recognizes that learning depends on the fit between two different ways of processing information.
That distinction would have meant a lot to me when I was younger.
For years, when something didn’t click for me, the assumption was usually that I needed to try harder, concentrate better, practice more, stop making excuses, or somehow force myself to learn in the prescribed way.
But what if effort wasn’t the missing ingredient?
What if the missing ingredient was translation?
I mean, Seth and I are both neurodivergent, and even we don’t learn the same way.
What works beautifully for one person may be almost useless to another.
A book may be exactly what one learner needs. Another person needs to watch someone demonstrate a skill. Someone else needs to ask questions. Another learner needs to see the entire system before any of the individual steps make sense.
And sometimes, “Practice more” is meaningless advice until someone answers the much more important question:
Practice what?
Maybe learning isn’t only about finding the discipline to keep going.
Sometimes, it’s about finding the person, explanation, example, or language that finally makes the thing click—and recognizing that something isn’t working for you doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve failed to learn.
It may simply mean you haven’t found the right translation yet.
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