Thirst

Thirst: little yellow cups, ready to receive.

From bud to bloom, the daisies outside my door speak of thirst, thirst for a drink, thirst for the sunlight and a sweet breeze, thirst for the bees and flies hungry for its pollen. They are like little yellow cups, ready to receive. Their lives consist of this thirst. They open in the morning and close in the evening, day after day.

A college instructor once said to me, “You won’t find the answer until you ask the question. Get the question right, and you will get the right answer. Be thirsty.” I have been thirsty, curious, which is different from wanting, from desiring more and more. This type of thirst is a readiness, a quiet waiting with the question opening within, like the nearby daisies. This thirst drives me.

One of the first question I formed and dwelt in was, “How can I be happy? What is happiness and how does one find it?” I was younger then, small children ran round my legs, playing chase and tag. “What is this delight they find as they giggle and play?” They would laugh and squeal as I lay on my back and hoisted them one after the other atop my feet like small airplanes soaring in the living room. “Is happiness the same as this joy?”

When I was in high school, struggling through geometry class, I was the one who asked questions, unrelentingly, until Mr. Kacyzanski would sit down, chalk still in hand, and sigh. “Do the angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees, Mr. K.?” “Yes,” he would say. “Why?” I would follow-up. “On a plane, they can do nothing else,” he replied. “But what if they are not on a plane? Or what if the plane has curves?” The questions only stopped for him when the bell rang.

And here I am today, wishing I had a Mr. Kacyzanski somewhere around because I have questions. Do infections continue after the level of herd immunity is reached? Can a bacteriophage be built to take on this virus? What drives the protesters, is it anger, or fear, or lack of control, or could they be besot with denial? Will I last through the next two years or so? Three years? How?

What can I throw myself into to that will so consume me that these walls take on an air of privilege? Of a gift? What will I have to show for this time?

I will sit with this question for a while. I will hone it and explore it and let it rest in my arms, in my heart, and let it grow. I am thirsty for it. I want to know. I will get the question right. Maybe today is the time to ask. And maybe tomorrow, I can begin to receive. Have I created a place within me for that answer to find a home?

Perhaps I will sit in the sun by the daisies for a while.