Last Tuesday morning, 24 hours after my normal mammogram

I met my friend Marjorie in the woods near Kitchens Lane for an early morning walk. We had scheduled our walking date a few weeks before. Marjorie is someone whom I've known for a long time, since she was in rabbinical school and I was there at RRC getting my Master's degree, and though we don't see each other regularly, I always enjoy being with her. Last fall her mother died suddenly

and we hadn't had a time to connect and talk about how she was doing, her grief, and also about me and my year and everything that had gone on since the last time we were able to make time together for a walking conversation.

It was cold in Valley Green park and breathtakingly beautiful: the bare tree branches reaching up to touch the gray sky, the stream below us both icy and flowing, little patches of snow collected over the rocks where we walked. I had on sneakers and jeans and my fuzzy warm winter coat and a thick hat and gloves but I still felt the cold pressing hard against me.

I love the winter now, I told Marjorie, I see the beauty in it, this kind of morning and you know I never had been able to before, I just sort of slugged through these winter months waiting for spring

but now I appreciate it so much. This is gorgeous, I said, motioning

to the hills with trees that extended up from our path. I loved January and I've never loved January before, I took the kids outside almost every day around 5PM even as it was getting dark and just took in the fresh air and now

that it's February, I'm watching each day how it gets lighter and I'm noticing the change in the light. It's really gorgeous and clear, February light.

Marjorie agreed--she grew up in Wisconsin and embracing winter was not anything new. We walked on for a while, talking first about our work and our hopes for work and trying to find balance in a busy life.

We came to a little bridge that we crossed and on the other side of the stream, Marjorie asked if it would be okay if we said Kaddish, that every morning since her mother died, she stops during her walk to say the Mourners' Kaddish and set a kavannah (intention) for the day. I said I would be honored to say Kaddish with her--

in fact, I had been thinking about saying kaddish because my Grandma Min's yahrzeit (the anniversary of her death) was coming up in a few days and didn't want to miss it. So we stood there, above the stream, breathing in the cold and the quiet of an early February morning in Pennsylvania and we said those ancient Aramaic words, praising God for life.

Marjorie asked if I wanted to set an intention for the day and I said, with tears in my eyes, to keep letting go; that I was really doing it now, letting go of expectations, and in letting go, discovering that my life could flow in an easy rhythm.

She nodded and we walked in silence for a bit, until we came to a turn that lead us back down the hill towards our cars.

Marjorie, I said, I didn't know that I needed a ritual, but I did. Yesterday was my first mammogram since cancer and it was clear.

Oh wow, she said, you must be relieved.

I am, I said, releasing my tears, I am so relieved. I am thankful that we planned our walk for today, because I needed this so much.

I'm glad that I could be part of your ritual, she said.

And from there we started talking about rituals and I told her about all the kind of rituals that I had over the last year and how they all were so different and how each ritual got me through the cancer experience in a different way.

There were rituals of all kinds, I said.

That's the name of your book, she said.
****
It made me think, hell yeah, I did create a lot of rituals. Each one was totally different, depending on what I needed in that moment; there was:

the healing circle that took place the night before my surgery at Rabbi Yael's house, where close friends and my sister gathered and Yael lead everyone in prayer and people wrote me cards of encouragement or blessings and then a lot of people shared them out loud and Rabbi Yael presented me with organic lavendar lotion and annointed me with it. She laid her hands on me and invited everyone to as she said healing prayers. It was one of the most powerful moments of my entire life, I'll write more about it later, but that was the first ritual, there on the eve of my surgery

and the next one was the Saturday night before the week of my chemo and that ritual was meeting friends at the Drake Tavern and getting totally shitfaced and that was a really great night, too and just the ritual I needed in that moment (and Fred won't let me forget pulling the waitress aside to let her know that I don't usually drink this way but I had some personal things going on. I'm sure it shocked her, Fred said, I'm sure she never saw anyone come into the bar to get drunk before)

and then the next ritual was probably again with Yael, on my 38th birthday, when I met her at the labyrinth and walked it in silence and came to sit by her on the bench, realizing that on the path, I could feel God with me and how God is always with me

and then the next ritual was the day I ended treatment and went for coffee and then a massage and said good-bye, good-bye to all that...

and then a few weeks later, a really awesome ritual was meeting my friend Steph at Infinite Piercing off of South Street, where I got my nose and ear lobe pierced. That was an experience and so awesome doing it with Steph

and then there was also the walk I took with Yitz, actually it was before the healing circle, when I was diagnosed but hadn't seen the surgeon yet, and we came to the stairs in High School park that lead to nowhere (there's a park now where a school had once been) and we stood at the bottom of the steps looking up into heaven and Yitz said, do you want to take that walk? and I didn't--

I was scared shitless but I said to him, I'll take that walk if you go with me and he did, our arms locked together, me crying a little and when we reached the top, I said, okay, it's not so bad.

that began my letting go, I guess, that improvised ritual, that winter morning with Yitz, a year ago bringing me to the walk I took with Marjorie a week ago, a ritual I so clearly needed and didn't even have to plan.