Most of you know that I’m pro-ritual. Big on rituals. Basically, the more the merrier.

Because they’re powerful and grounding and stuff. And because they gently nudge you towards having a more conscious interaction with time and how it passes.

Blame yoga, blame the Jews. I don’t know what the deal is. I just really enjoy the repetition of something, and having it be both familiar and new at the same time.

Anyway, Friday is my biggest ritual day because it’s the end of the workweek, and there’s the Jewish thing and that’s just how I do things.

There are the cleaning rituals and the bread baking rituals and the picking up books from the library rituals. There’s yoga and computer-back-up and master-minding it up with my friend Janet. And then meditation and candle-lighting. Fridays are intense.

But my favorite comforting Friday thing to do is Reviewing The Week That Was.

Perspective is trippy.

Sometimes when you Review The Week That Was, you realize you’ve totally left stuff out. And then you think, Oh boy, how did I repress that so ridiculously fast?

And other times it seems like a week that you thought went by in a flash was actually full. And not just full, but full of wonderfulness.

Or maybe a week that — at the initial moment of summing up — seemed like good times, actually had much more than its share of hard.

Anyway, taking that ten minutes or so to reflect is really one of my favorite things. I don’t mean this in a “Gee, what have we learned?” kind of way. It’s really more about noticing and observing and recognizing. And remembering. It’s useful.

What I’m getting at.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise for me to do some of my Reviewing The Week That Was here with you. To check in.

But out loud instead of just in my head.

And if it ends up being something that’s not horribly boring, maybe we’ll make that a wee little ritual of our own. Just tossing some of the hard stuff out there (in no particular order) followed by some of the good stuff.

Not some phony, forced “count your blessings” thing. Because yuck. But just noticing. Letting those “Good grief, what did happen this week, anyway?” moments dissolve. Letting little slivers of memory surface.

And if you want, you can do a little check-in too and report some of the good and/or hard moments of your own week. If you feel like it. You don’t have to.

As we say in the world of teaching workshops, you’re allowed to pass.

Okay, I’m heading into ritual territory here …. starting … now.

Some of the hard stuff ….

Healing can be slow.

I had a “let’s see where we are” meeting this week with my chiropractor. Haven’t made nearly as much improvement there as I’d hoped. Which is frustrating.

He tried to cheer me up by saying how flexible I am, and I was like, hello I’m a yoga professional.

I mean, a decade of daily stretching makes it easy to touch your toes the same way that being in Portland and having $1.75 in quarters makes it easy to catch public transportation to the Roller Derby.

But then during the treatment, listening to other people there moaning and grunting in pain, I realized, you know what? It’s still pretty great that my body is happy and pain-free. So not everything is in ideal alignment yet … but working on perspective.

Not being in Germany is weird.

Whenever I come back from my annual month of teaching in Berlin, I really just want to be in Berlin. Making peace with the fact that I’m actually not in Berlin has also become a kind of ritual for me. Right now still in the hard.

The world: it is full of pain sometimes.

A story I read about the life of Danielle, neglected child, is heart-wrenching. Neglect isn’t even the word for it. Ay. Awful.

She’s described as a “feral child” in this fascinating/depressing article from the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. Just that concept alone is pretty hard to take in.

It’s pretty inconceivable that stuff like this can happen, period. But right next door to real, live human beings who for whatever reason weren’t able to do something? With the knowledge of authorities who for whatever reason didn’t do something? Ugh.

The kindness and good-heartedness of the family who took her in — while I’m not crazy about their methods — is completely inspiring. I still kinda wish I hadn’t read this though. So much pain.

Some of the good stuff ….

I won a thing!

Getting the weird-and-cool “successful and outstanding blog” award thing from Liz Strauss, and thereby getting acquainted in a “Hi!” sort of way with Liz Strauss and some other fun people: neat.

Still amazing, after all these years…

A dear friend from junior high school days found me on Facebook and we’ve been catching the heck up.

There’s some hard in this too. It’s hard knowing that I haven’t always been there for her. It’s hard knowing that one of the hands-down smartest, most talented people I’ve ever met has been bowled over by so many challenges that she hasn’t yet found a way to use those gifts.

But anything hard there is softened by how completely blissful it is to be back in her life, sharing her thoughts and words. Amazing.

Speaking of friends …

I’ve been hanging out a bit online with Emma McCreary aka @CheekyBoots if you’re a Twitterite. We know each other from both Twitter and Biznik. Yay, internets!

And this week she wrote a sweet, thoughtful post asking whether we really need to be aggressive to get sales — which was inspired by my sleaze-non-sleaze kosher-marketing continuum post. Yay, exchange of ideas!

Actually, I’ll get to meet her in person this Wednesday and am completely psyched. Yay, new friends! And for the record, she also has a duck. We could, like, have a playdate for our ducks. Don’t tell Selma I said that. She’ll freak out.

The way to my heart: through my stomach.

My gentleman friend — who as it is cooks up a storm of deliciousness for me every single day — made an especially mind-blowingly, neuron-meltingly tingle-worthy ratatouille. I may (finally, he says) have to marry him.

Life is beautiful.

If you really want a dose of pure joy, take a look at this.

My friend Myra Klarman, a seriously great photographer, spent an afternoon taking pictures of Suzie. Suzie got a “Make A Wish” chance to be a frog-charming princess, rather than the kid with leukemia. She’s doing better, gott sei dank.

Seriously, go look at these gorgeous and charming pictures (bonus: volunteer frog). They will make you so, so happy to be alive.

That’s it for me ….

You’re totally welcome to join in my Friday ritual if you feel like it and/or there’s something you just want to say out loud too.

Happy weekend. Happy week to come.