Thirsting.

Our palette has hazed and browned out in a pretty hard-core way this week. I look at the weather reports and predictions for Cambridge: it's 53˚ F there now, going to the low 70s later. I look away. What I want is a lake so cold I'm afraid to go in beyond my knees. When I lived in Ithaca, I only swam in Cayuga Lake twice: once when the thermometer read 105˚ and once when I was sort of trying to impress someone. The rest of the time, we'd get in up to our knees and chicken out. The water was that cold. We'd just stand there, knee-deep in cold clarity, skipping flat stones until our arms were sore--or until we knew we'd thrown so many that our arms would be sore the next morning.

This weather makes me think about putting my sandals on and finding water, almost any water, to climb into. The bathtub might even do the trick, and I wouldn't need my sandals there.