A sip

The other night I made a big bedtime mistake: I ate some feta cheese. I was hungry, and I can’t go to bed hungry, and I figured a snack of fat and protein would be a better bedtime bet than Cocoa Pebbles, which is what I really wanted.

You may have anticipated this, but I didn’t: That night, I was possessed by dreams of excessive thirst. My dreams are often rich and vivid, even moreso when my body needs something in the waking world. My sleeping mind was consumed by an overwhelming need to rinse the thirst from my mouth. I forget now if the dreams were the ones in which I drink from a creek or from a toilet bowl even though I fear the bacteria or the ones in which someone keeps offering me wine when all I want is water. At some point, though, I opened my eyes a crack and saw through the corner of the left one the plastic Playtex sippy cup my son had placed on the bedside table before he fell asleep in between me and my husband.

I reached for it; shook it to see what was left. Estimating only a few drops, I unscrewed the top for I knew that a labored sip through the tiny holes was not going to satisfy me.  I gulped what remained.

And, surprisingly, it was … enough.

Enough to quiet the mind; enough to make it to morning.

It was that satisfied sensation I was reminded of today as the first drops of rain since last spring fell this morning — the first containing any real strength and sustenance, at least.  As I drove up and along the hills of the Lower Galilee, I rolled my window down to let the breeze blow the drops in; to feel them tickle the side of my neck enough to make me shiver. I knew the sun was coming. I could see it ahead of me and to the left near the Bay of Haifa. I knew this wasn’t the downpour we needed. I knew this was only enough for a sip.

But it was … enough.

Not enough. But enough.