As I grabbed a towel and walked from the preparation room to the mikveh I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I noticed the little gold studs glinting on my earlobes.
A thought, “Should I remove my earrings?”
I have 5 piercings and three earrings remain in my ears at all times.
I never take them out.
I stood in front of the mirror, meeting my own gaze.
I took each earring out carefully, watching my ears lose the stars and opals I had placed in them years before.
I met my gaze again.
The woman in the mirror looked utterly defenseless: naked, clean, and completely without adornment.
She reflected how I internally had felt for the past month: exposed and vulnerable.
I walked into the room that held the mikveh, noting the warm light that filled the space. I clutched in my hand what I was hoping to say when I immersed.
Step by step, I walked towards the mikveh.
I felt fear, curiosity, and hope coursing through my body.
Fear the immersion would mean nothing when it happened.
Curiosity over what this action would uncover. A half-crazed thought, “If I feel nothing, will I feel farther from God?”
Hope that the ritual of immersing could hold me in my pain, loss, and transition.
I was surprised by how the water physically pulled at my body as I descended into the water. Each step I took down the stairs of the mikveh, wading deeper and deeper, I felt the weight of the water grasping me.
Finally, I stood on the bottom step.
I took a breath.
The bracha slipped from my lips as my foot left the stair and I allowed my entire body to be engulfed in water.
And I felt…nothing.
That’s it?
Where was the big moment of holiness and meaning that I had been sold as “a woman’s mikveh experience”?
I immersed a few more times, this time including the intentions and brachot that I had been provided with, the pages sensibly laminated and perched on the ledge of the mikveh.
I stayed in the water. Waiting.
Waiting for what?
Just…waiting.
Finally, I decided to emerge. It was time to move on with my day and I was flying to Israel in 48 hours.
As I placed my feet back on the stairs and walked up each one I felt the same pull and weight of the water, as if the mikveh herself was saying, “don’t leave. Not yet”.
Once out of the water, I sat on a seat positioned in the corner facing the mikveh. I had brought my journal with me and I stared at the page, hoping the feelings of divinity and holiness would decide to make themselves known so I could breathlessly write about my experience post-immersion.
Nothing.
Instead I scribbled a few thoughts and reflections and headed back into the changing room. Once my clothing and earrings were on I realized how much they felt like armor, protecting me. Holding me the way the water of the mikveh had encircled my body.
As I exited the mikveh, the attendant called out to me, “did you catch the thunderstorm?” Unbeknownst to me, while I had been in the water, a thunderstorm had shaken the mikveh and drenched the city.
The world had immersed with me.
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