Today has been a scary day, so I want to console myself and maybe entertain you by sharing a story.
Last night, I was telling my husband about when I was in high school and read Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" the first time. I didn't really understand it until I read it again as an adult. At that time, I was just enchanted by how Valentine Michael Smith viewed water! Like I was on the edge of having a cosmic mystery revealed if I drank and bathed enough!
So...
And we really believed we loved each other! We were brothers and sisters, and any disagreement could be resolved. Because we all drank from the water together. So we were one entity made of multiple people.
My husband asked me at what point did I realize I had started a cult? "A few minutes ago, while I'm telling you about it. But you've read the book! That's weirdly fitting!"
And we laughed.
@weirdfizz Thank you for the wonderfully written story. Loved it.
But I'm thinking about it tonight. Maybe, for a little more than a year, my high school friend group got as close as we could at that time to understanding community and unconditional love. It's silly...but also maybe not silly.
Maybe we need to learn how to share water and truly mean it when we say, "May you never thirst."