The Memory of Thirst

Wilder, a 2-year old German Shepherd and Husky mix and recent addition to our family, lunges at water formations on our predawn walks. These are not rivers or streams but muddy puddles, snowbanks caked in dirt kicked up by passing cars, pools collected on the tops of recycling bins, beads of water decorating sewer grates. 

I’ve never seen a dog so desperate to quench his thirst. Stephanie, the dog lover in charge of connecting Wilder with a “forever family”, told us that he spent his first years on the streets. After being picked up, he was held in a shelter where dogs vied for water dispensed in communal troughs. His foster family revealed that in his first days with them, he drank his own urine.  They deduced it was one of Wilder’s survival tactics. 

In our home, Wilder receives a minimum of 6 cups of water a day served in a dish solely his own. After two weeks of steadfast watering, Wilder’s feverish lapping in and outdoors has lessened only slightly. The memory of unquenched thirst is deeply embedded in him. 

I see a similar desperate search for watering in me. Even while surrounded by and immersed in people, experiences, opportunities, and spaces which keep my cup filled, the memory of not having enough is strong like the pull of gravity - it influences my movement even when I am not conscious of it. 

The sense of scarcity I felt in my childhood related to my family’s low-income and my father’s need to juggle 2-3 low-wage jobs to support us. It stemmed from the limited number of years I enjoyed with my beautiful, vibrant, and gregarious mother who transitioned when I was four. It grew from absorbing my maternal grandmother’s sorrow as her grief wracked body held my brother and me tight. It took root in response to the alienation I felt as the only Indian girl on the school playground. A sense of scarcity solidified in my 8-year old self when the many and varied needs of my blended family members gave me the impression that the attention of caregivers was limited and overtaxed. As an adolescent in the 1980’s, it embedded in me as I felt attraction to girls and women and encountered religious and media messaging that the intimacy I desired only existed in forms that were pathological, deviant, evil, and caused an early and deserved death.  

As in the case of all queer bodies of culture”, my personal experiences of scarcity played out against the backdrop of white body supremacy, racial and ableist capitalism, and hetero-patriarchy. As a Gen X queer Desi 1.5 generation immirgrant, I entered into adulthood believing that survival was the best I could hope for and it required keeping my needs and wants hidden and minimal. The limiting beliefs instilled by these systems of oppression demanded that I prioritize the needs of others at the expense of my self. That I earn whatever space I took up given the ways I fell short and deviated from dominant culture norms. 

Thirty years later, the unquenched thirst to be seen, to be valued, to belong can lead me to a frantic grasping for relationships, projects, tasks, activities, groups, courses, and events. These pulls at my attention and energy make me feel needed, useful, informed, and networked but they are poor substitutes for what will slake my thirst for purpose, growth, pleasure, and fulfillment. They fill my time, my mind, and my heart space but never satiate my desire to be my most powerful Self and to heal, make justice, and practice liberation side by side with my movement kindred. 

In 2021, I want to continue to make space for those commitments that keep my cup full: my morning meditation practice, weekend song making sessions, a weekly womxn of color meditation group, sister goddess check in’s, weekend meals with chosen family, walks in the woods, and queer/BIPOC movement partners with powerful dreams for our collective future. 

These commitments nourish my sense that I am Whole and my wholeness includes my woundedness. They connect me to my ancestors, lineage, and future descendants. They tap my creative life force, drawing out my juicy essence. They align my intentions and practices with my wildest dreams, boldest visions, and most sacred values. They spark delight and help me honor and make meaning of the painful and joyous events unfolding in my community. They fill my cup to overflowing. 

In 2021, I want to give to movements of healing, justice, and liberation from this sense of abundance. To generously water the seeds, roots, and shoots of Beloved Community and Practices of Reciprocity with Mother Earth.

I hope that Wilder will soon trust that he is in a place where his thirst will be quenched. 

I commit to nurturing my trust that I am in such a place. 

And I embrace the liberatory possibilities for me and the world which flow from my sense of fullness. 

*On the term “bodies of culture”: Resmaa Menakem, a somatic abolitionist, therapist, author, and founder of the Cultural Somatics Institute seeded the term “bodies of culture” to refer to Black bodies, Indigenous bodies, and Bodies of Culture whose humanity has always been in question since the start of the twin pandemics of white body supremacy and racial and ableist capitalism. As a powerful alternative to the term “people of color”, the term bodies of culture grows out of the practice and culture of somatic abolitionism. To learn more, visit Resmaa Menakem’s website, read his book, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathways to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, and/or view this powerful conversation on Healing Racialized Trauma between Resmaa and Tara Brach, a psychologist, author and teacher of meditation, emotional healing and spiritual awakening.