L’Shanah Tovah!
Last night was my very first Rosh Hashana celebration, and
it was also the night that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. September
18th, and truly 2020 as a whole, is one for the ages. It’s currently
6:44 am, and I’m awake, which is confusing on so many levels, most of which is
because I normally sleep like the dead. And after going to bed at 1am, I woke
up at 4:20am (ish) and have been wide awake since. So, this writing may be more
delusional than inspired, but here I am, teeth brushed, coffee in hand, sitting
at my dining room table typing out the random thoughts in my head. I’ve got too
many to really hold a coherent thread of story, it’s mostly just these snippets
that I feel the utmost need to get down on digital paper. If I were trying to
hand write this, my hand would be cramped, and I’d only be on the second
sentence.
I’m mourning for an amazing woman, who, truthfully, I hadn’t
really known existed until the past few years. I’m not a hipster by any stretch,
and when she was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1993, I was 4. So, I had other
things on my mind and missed her confirmation. She has been a huge part of why
it is that I can be seen as an equal in the job market, at school, in my life endeavors,
and I didn’t really know it. How can you ever mourn enough for someone like
that? And even as I read the Washington Post headline, while the Rabbi was
giving his Rosh Hashana Sermon (Evidently I’m off to a great start as a new
Jew), my immediate thought was what Justice Ginsburg’s death meant for the Supreme
Court, for this country, for democracy, and my heart didn’t break, or shatter,
it just became so heavy, I found myself trying to get it out of my left shoe. I
used to half joke that the only thing keeping this democracy together was an 87
year old 3 (or 5, I can’t remember, but does that even matter) Cancer SURVIVOR.
That woman is an icon. And those “jokes” were really my prayers that she
survive this election cycle because I feared what her loss would do to the
fabric of the country. So in her honor, I stood last night as a mourner, for
the Mourner’s Kaddish, dedicating my prayers to her and her memory.
Maybe that’s why my bladder woke me up at 4:20am, because it’s
vindictive and it wanted to make sure my brain was working full overdrive,
mourning, questioning, and subsequently reading every single thing I could find
on RBG on my social media. And I did. I worried, and felt the community of
other mourners, reading their words, and reacting to their loss too. Those both
famous, and like me, regular people who feel the great loss. In a year marred
by roughly 200,000 American lives lost to the Covid Pandemic, it feels wrong to
focus so acutely on just one person. But evidently, this is my mourning style,
because this thirst for memorials, for stories of how RBG changed people’s
lives, is exactly how I handled the passing of Chadwick Boseman too. Searching
for people who knew him, loved him, and who were changed by his presence in the
world. In times of uncertainty, and this life-altering pandemic, I drill down
into the losses that I feel. Hoping to keep their memories alive by stock
piling them with all of the information in my head. Because if I can refer
someone to an amazing memorial, like Letitia Wright’s, or Tracie Thoms's for Chadwick,
or President Barack Obama’s, Sheryl Sandberg’s, or Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s for RBG, I
can keep their memories afloat. Granted, they’re now stacked in a place in my
brain that’s full of incredibly useful knowledge, like how Bill Hader, Liam Neeson
and myself all share the same birthday. So, that’s got to be a concrete filing
system up there, cause when I need to remember “where I’ve seen that guy before”,
it does always come through. Hello Harry Melling in “The Devil All the Time” I
fucking see you. (…But not those spiders because GROSS.)
My brain works in incredibly weird ways.
Last night, after the Rosh Hashana service, and after I ate
my first ever apple with honey (5 stars), Ryan and I sat down to watch “The
Devil All the Time”, as planned, and while that seems exactly the opposite of
how people should celebrate bringing the New Year, it is actually what my brain
needed this morning, at about 5:45. Bear with me, it’ll make sense when I get
there, hopefully. One of my all-time favorite movies is “October Sky” with Jake
Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, and Laura Dern, it’s a true fucking story to boot,
man it’s incredible. It’s based on the book “The Rocket Boys” by Homer Hickam,
about he and his friends, in the time of Sputnik, and the race to the moon,
dreaming, and achieving incredible feats in science from their small coal
mining town, Coalwood, in West Virginia. And as “The Devil All the Time”
opened, there’s a map of West Virginia, and a bit of Ohio, the two states where
the stories in this movie takes place. So naturally, my brain drew that
connection between the films, especially given similar time periods, and because
of how well Tom Holland and Jake Gyllenhaal worked together on “Spiderman: Far
from Home”. That press tour was a bromance if I’ve ever seen one. So, after the
2+ hours of the movie, and the credits roll, when Jake’s name pops up as a
producer, I laughed so fucking hard. Ryan was utterly baffled by my response to
the credits, while I practically teared up from laughing so hard at a joke only
I knew, and only I found funny. What are the goddamn chances?
In December of 2017, I was a heart broken girl who was
miserable, but also finally free of a relationship that had lasted nearly 5
years and had destroyed who I thought I was. So I hatched a plan, I was going
to take a solo road trip. From August of 2013, until Memorial Day 2016, I had
lived in Alexandria Virginia, while I was in Grad School in DC. And living
there, all I wanted to do was drive to West Virginia. It really wasn’t that far
away, but I never made it there during that time. I had always wanted to see if
the West Virginia of “October Sky” was real. (Which, spoiler alert, the movie
was filmed in Tennessee.) So after convincing my parents (at the ripe old age
of 28) that I’d be safe, having put a gps tracker on my phone that they could
track, and being told my 2004 Toyota Camry would have to sit this one out, but
I could use my Dad’s 2017 Rav4, I was on my way to West Virginia, and then
North Carolina to visit my close friend Sydney in Durham. The first night I drove
from Lynn, MA to Harper’s Ferry, WV. I slept in an Econolodge in the town where
the Civil War began. The next morning, I got up, then drove 5 hours to Coalwood,
West Virginia. I have to say, that drive is still one of my favorites, the mountains,
though covered in bare trees, was still a beautiful sight to behold. And now
every time the Irish Comedian Ed Byrne pops up on my iTunes, I’m immediately
transported back to that drive, when Ed kept me company for hours on end. I
always joke I terrorized West Virginia that day because I drove so slow through
some of the smaller roads, which were literally on the sides of mountains. But
fortunately, for the most part, the residents didn’t beep at me too much. I
think those drivers mostly took pity on me because my plates told everyone, “Oh
she’s not from around here”, and because as soon as I was able, I’d pull over
and get out of everyone’s way, then continue my slow drive until the line
behind me got too long again.
What I expected when I arrived in Coalwood, was a ghost
town, nothing, no people, just the remnants of a town that had thrived back
when the coal mine had been open, but that had dehydrated and died when the mine
did, back in 1982. What I wasn’t expecting was a small town, with folks out
bringing Christmas cheer to their neighbors on the second Friday in December. Hell,
I wasn’t expecting any people at all, so the fact that there were people there
to give me strange looks when I drove by, with my Massachusetts plates in full
view, was shocking to me. People going about their modest daily lives, just
like anywhere else.
Which brings me back to this morning, at about 5:45am this
morning. I was worrying/mourning the loss of RBG, questioning whether our
democracy could possibly even go on if RBG is replaced before the new election
(which sadly, could still see tRump reelected); how I could possibly bring
children into this world in this country whose very core seems to be dwindling;
how I could even possibly be happy about my upcoming nuptials when the world seems to be upside down and off its axis? All the while some random thoughts about “The
Devil All the Time” cut through my anxieties, because my brain loves to analyze
a good movie, which is probably why I minored in Film Studies in college to
begin with.
And then it hit me, like a sack of bricks to the frontal
cortex. Life will continue on. I was immediately transported back to how
confused I was when I found an actual population of people in Coalwood. Despite
the mine shutting down, those people didn’t give up hope, or take off in all
directions immediately following their lives being turned upside down. And
that, gave me hope. I was also reminded of a post I saw celebrating Rosh
Hoshana, that had to immediately be edited after posting, because of the news
of RBG’s passing. Margot Bloomstein (who I don’t know, but immediately love
anyways) had this to say:
L’shanah
tovah, friends! Here’s to making it a happy and sweet new year this next go
around.
Editing to add,
now minutes later: Judaism teaches the concept of tikku olam. It means the
world is a broken place, we all bear the responsibility to heal it, and just
because you cannot do everything does not mean you are freed from the obligation
of trying.
The welfare of others? Our responsibility.
The well-being of our environment? Our
responsibility.
Equitable policies
and laws, that ensure justice for others, regardless of gender, race, sex,
origin, or wealth? Our responsibility.
Few people have
embraced these responsibilities with the rigor of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Her commitment is informed by both Judaism and reason: to enjoy society that
uplifts everyone, we must do the work to uplift everyone.
RIP RBG. Now let’s
embrace her energy to do the work—our responsibility—to ensure a better society
and the November outcome be want to create.
And there it is, the melding of
all of the things I’ve been thinking, feeling, experiencing. My brain, in its
weird, yet infinite wisdom, brought together these seemingly random bits and
pieces, anxieties and hopes, even Tom Holland, and Jake Gyllenhall (before I knew
it was credit official). It’s really amazing to me how in the despair I felt
myself being courted by, my brain wired itself to show me how even in this mourning,
there can be a future. It’s up to us now, to take our responsibility, and make it
the best future we’re able, for everyone.
Rest in Power, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
your work may be done, but your inspiration will continue on for generations.
And we can’t possibly thank you enough for being your selfless self, for all these
years.
