Maria Ramos Chertok

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September 23, 2020 By Maria Ramos-Chertok 8 Comments

RIP RGB

My dear friend texted to ask if I wanted her to bake me a round challah for the Jewish New Year.  I was elated.  “Yes, tell me what time to come pick it up.” We agreed on 5:00 pm.  I stopped on my way over to pick up a bouquet of flowers.  She was just arriving home as I pulled up and parked.  I jumped out of the car with a smile, feeling grateful to have this generous person in my life.  I handed her the bunch of red roses, orange gerbera daisies, and yellow alstroemerias, hoping to elicit a smile.

“You haven’t heard,” she said looking into my eyes.

“Heard what?” I replied reflexively, as on cue, not even thinking.

“Ruth Bader Ginsberg died.”

“NO!  NO.  No. No…”

I stared at her.

“We will remember this day for the rest of our lives,” I said quietly. 

She agreed.  We were now forever a part of each other’s herstory.

I took the beautiful challah and got back into my car.  Driving alone, my mind started reeling:  Abortion.  We’ll go underground.  More women are doctors now than when abortion was illegal years ago. 

The November 2020 election came onto my mental screen: the results will likely end up in the Supreme Court.  The tears welled up.  It was all too much.  But this was not the time for tears.  Action is needed.  Yet, imagining a Supreme Court deciding in favor of 45 was more than my heart could hold.  I began sobbing and could not stop.  I made it to my house and parked in front, unable to walk down the flight of stairs to my front door.  Slouched over the steering wheel, I cried and cried.  Ten minutes later my husband returned home and found me howling.  

“What’s the matter?”

“Haven’t you heard the news?” I asked.  “Ruth Bader Ginsberg.”

“Yes, I have.  It’s bad.  It’s only going to get worse,” he said before stroking my hair and inviting me inside.  Marrying a truth teller has its moments.

Inside, my oldest son consoled me with a hug.  He knew better than to say, “It’s going to be okay.”  He said those five words after the 2016 election, and I gave him an earful.

My younger son said, “Jewish law says that anyone who dies on Erev Rosh Hashanah is a Tzaddik.  Write about that in your blog post. A Tzaddik.”  He said this to comfort me, referring to the Jewish label for a person of great righteousness.

One of the reasons for a round challah is to remind us of the circular nature of the year and seasons.  For me, it’s a reminder of the cyclical nature of life:  recurring ups and downs; new life and eventual death; happiness and sadness.

This is a season for grieving.  I’ve come to accept that there is no consolation for me. Yet, it does not feel like the time to cave into my sadness.  Ruth modeled that so well.  She used her life force to fight for what she believed to be just, kept her mind strong, and her body in shape.

So, in RBG’s memory, I’ll ask myself three questions as I move through the Jewish New Year 5781:

  • Am I using my mind to advance justice?
  • Am I doing my very, very best?
  • Am I keeping my body healthy so I can do what I’m here to do?

I hope these questions fuel me toward righteousness till the very end, in honor of her greatness.  

Rest in Power RBG. 

Photo by Jen Theodore www.unsplash.com

Filed Under: Blog, Uncategorized Tagged With: Jewish New Year, RGB, Ruth Bader Ginsberg

October 10, 2018 By Maria Ramos-Chertok Leave a Comment

2018 Fall Newsletter

Check out what’s in flight!

https://bit.ly/2J1bHTr

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February 9, 2016 By Maria Ramos-Chertok 4 Comments

Re-Solve: February 2016

As 2016 approached I began to think about what I might write for the new year, which then prompted me to think about resolutions. I didn’t want to write something trite – the cheerleading blight that I can’t stand to read. But, I started thinking about the word “resolution” and in my musings realized its link to the the word “resolve.” Then the word resolve parted for me – breaking into Re & Solve and I got it!

The resolutions we so easily leave behind us as the year moves on are related to those things we need to figure out, embrace, learn or change. We often re-visit those things in our lives, sometimes year after year, until we get it: until we’ve solved the puzzle.

I felt intrigued to think about what it is that I am currently trying to re-solve. Here’s my short list:

  • How to laugh more with my two sons
  • How to deal with aging and not be fearful of death
  • How to stay away from the lure of my phone and computer screen
  • How to best use the class and educational privilege I hold in service of equity and justice

Some of these I’ve been re-solving for several years (technology’s pull; responding meaningfully to the vast inequity in the world) and others are more recent (death; laughter). I’m in the process of thinking about what the pieces are to the puzzle for each of these and how they might be linked – if at all.

What are you re-solving this year? What’s the puzzle in front of you? How do the pieces fit together?

Take a minute to write down one thing you want to re-solve this year and then think about it like a jigsaw puzzle – look at the components to what’s calling for your attention and then play around with the pieces over and over until you get a “snap”!

It might take years or an epiphany might come in the pre-dawn hours or in the shower. Whenever it arrives – welcome it with a smile and an open heart – for those are the moments that propel us to the next step in the journey we’re each dreaming.

May your 2016 be enlightening,

Maria

Filed Under: Uncategorized

September 1, 2015 By Maria Ramos-Chertok Leave a Comment

Creativity

I remember the moment it happened.  I was in an elementary school art class and the teacher – a woman with strawberry blonde, disheveled curls – gave us a large sheet of tan construction paper and a crayon and told us to put the crayon on the paper, close our eyes and draw.  When we opened our eyes we were to examine our creation and decide what it was.   Mine was a man delivering a pizza in a box.  That was the last time I remember being satisfied with a drawing of mine. [Read more…]

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August 1, 2015 By Maria Ramos-Chertok Leave a Comment

Inspiration

Where does inspiration come from?  I wonder about this as I notice an idea energize me or a string of words in my head turn into a poem.  Often I feel something stirring inside my stomach – kind of like the whirling of a small ball of energy and if I pay attention to it, it often lets me know there is something brewing that I need to bring to the fore.  When I wrote my novel, Rosie’s Blues, the inspiration came from a woman I had seen on the streets many years before.  Her appearance struck me because she was dressed in all white – and I was captivated by the way she walked slowly down the street, clearly in distress, yet almost ghostly in her appearance.  I never forgot her and ten years later she became the voice for the protagonist in my novel.  She stirred something in me and that is currently one of the ways I understand inspiration. [Read more…]

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About Maria

Bio

A graduate of UC Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Maria was a fellow with the National Hispana Leadership Institute, where she attended the Center for Creative Leadership and Harvard School of Public Policy. She received her mediation training from the Center for … Read more...

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