Porch swing, summer in a glass./ Drinks get named for thirsts we discuss.// Discussions skirt deeper thirsts./Such thirsts burn, turn sand to mirages./ A mirage is a drink the mind mixes./In a glass marked no it pours out yes.// Yes, the sign says, this door is an entrance./At the portal, fields flower without end.// End of the road, grim terminus./We’re thirsty, we get force-fed.

Andrea Cohen

Summer is the time for deep thirst. Something about heat: we long for something. Longing agitates rest. Longing pokes the soft underbelly of rest. We need to escape. We search to fill the empty. We dance or cry. We retreat into quiet or burst into song. If wintering, as Katherine May suggests, is about allowing ourselves to turn inward, reflect, and heal, summering is about turning outward and allowing ourselves to feel deeply and state our desires. Rest, there, looks like relief and laying our burden down. The naming and claiming of our passions, the statement of our most sincere and honest wishes and dreams, the calling into reality a deeply held “yes” is how we quench summer’s thirst and rest.

Being thirsty is the search for “yes.” Being thirsty is the dangerous edge of hope. Being thirsty is the story we share. Being thirsty is the crack in it all that we mend with gold. Being thirsty is the light that refuses to go out. Being thirsty is the quest, the pilgrimage, the climb. Being thirsty is the as if and not yet. Being thirsty is the why and the why not. Being thirsty is the root and the bud.