Not that many months ago, I saw RBG in person. We were at a movie theater downtown waiting for the elevator to the parking garage below when the doors parted, and a couple of big burly guys cleared the way for a tiny old woman. Two younger women helped her shuffle off, and before I could look away, embarrassed to stare at her physical weakness, she lifted her head and made eye contact with me. There was no frailty in that gaze, and when the party had passed and we stepped on the elevator, I knew who she was.
I don't think I've been to a movie since. The world fell on its side in February when we cleared out and sold my mom's home, and turned completely over in in March when everything shut down, and it spun and wobbled in April and May with the primaries, and flipped again in June with all the demonstrations, and continued to teeter and sway in July and August with the rise of virus cases and deaths and college outbreaks and anti-maskers and ugly, election-year politics, and of course, the reality of distance teaching and learning has rocked our worlds for the last 4 weeks.
And losing Justice Ginsberg is like losing true north while navigating the shit storm that has been 2020.
But even when she was weak, she stayed strong. I saw it myself, and I will look to my inner compass to persevere.
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