The week before my New York wedding, I boarded a train at Penn Station, Boston-bound, to immerse at Mayyim Hayyim. I was flustered and hurried, as brides often are in those logistics-packed pre-wedding days. The instructions in the prep rooms at the mikveh gently urged me to slow down, to reflect, and to clean under every fingernail. As I lathered my body with the soapy washcloth, I began crying big tears of release, of memory, of transition. The last time I had felt a soapy washcloth on my body was when my parents bathed me as a girl. Until that moment, I had been preoccupied mostly with place cards, flowers and seating arrangements. Standing in the shower at Mayyim Hayyim,…