I sheepishly admit we’ve recently grown rather fond of a vegan snack made from chickpeas (among other ingredients). It unfortunately ticks all the boxes of an ultra-processed food and is also unfortunately a cheap addition to our pantry (it doesn’t help that Costco carries it in the Extreme Party size). We’re trying to curb our crunch lust and only buy one bag every few weeks, salving our collective conscience with the nutritional information label that boasts four grams of fiber and six grams of protein per serving. Let’s call it a “transition” food choice as we rearrange our diet away from unnecessary items.

But the other day, as I munched away on a small bowlful next to my tuna salad sandwich (with Kewpie mayo, rough-chopped banana peppers and a generous teaspoon of horseradish), I noticed their saltiness and drank twice as much water as I usually do after lunch. Now I think of it, I’m drinking more water in general, even with a responsible measure of these cheese puff snacks in my diet on a semi-daily basis.

Two acres away, our farming neighbor is harvesting his soybean crop three weeks earlier than last year, filling the air with a brown dust that just hangs there, nowhere else to go.

At 8:43 this morning, summer dragged its tired, thirsty limbs across the final stretch of a dried-out finish line, limping from dehydration and passing the baton to a cautiously hopeful autumn. Chilly nights and warm days make for a dewy morning walk but there are far too many leaves on the ground beneath the sycamores, box elders and cherry trees that line the paths and precious little color beyond the sickly yellows and browns that hang inconsolably from criss-crossing and brittle branches overhead. 97% of Ohio is in dry or drought conditions, with 28 counties on the primary disaster list and another 17 literally warming up in the bullpen. We are joining an unenviable global club impacted by water scarcity—40% of the world’s population—and like them, we beg the heavens for relief. It might come (might) this Tuesday if the weather-guessers are right. All we can do is wait and hope that it’s enough.

Last week our kitchen faucet was on the fritz and washing dishes became a Rube Goldberg arrangement of makeshift brilliance involving water from the bathtub faucet heated on the stove in the largest soup kettle we have, followed by a thorough rinse with the detachable shower head, sudsy dishes spread out on the shelves of a sturdy plant rack set up in the tub (remember, I said “thorough”. Nobody likes a salad that tastes like soap). Earlier this year, we went for one of those touchless faucet contraptions and our well water system rejected it outright, sending minuscule bits of sediment through the quarter-inch lines to collect in the spout’s filter. Intermittently throughout the spring and summer, we had no water, then only cold water, then only hot water. Three plumbers’ visits later, we went back to rocking it old school with a faucet that must be turned on and off manually. By global standards, it’s still an insane luxury we don’t take for granted as the daily headlines offer up graphic images of children with saucepans and plastic jugs crowded around an aid truck to collect water for an extremely scaled back daily supply. I shudder at the choices forced upon them in such conditions.

There’s a deep and helpless ache in the face of it all and, in a moment of pause, I realize that a future we feared is already upon us. I’m standing on its cracked and parched soil beneath a sun that has little choice but to shine down on us all from a mostly cloudless sky. What I notice most days are the tough drought-resistant plants that refuse to be discouraged, including the aptly named ironweed and acre upon acre of goldenrod. Though we finally took down the sprawling patch of pampas grass along the north side of the driveway, felling its stalks with the sickle bar attachment of the weed trimmer and finishing it off with mower, tufts of new growth have sprouted up defiantly, looking like a rebellious adolescent’s intentionally bad haircut. I find it both annoying and reassuring. Something within that grass’ dense and fibrous thirteen-foot root system is a will to live that I can’t help but admire (what’s in my root system? Now I’ll be contemplating that for the rest of the afternoon)…

Eating salty snacks during a drought makes little sense but we do it anyway. Being without running water in one room of the house didn’t do anything more than inconvenience us for a week, push our creativity to new levels and recalibrate our humility. But the earth is still thirsty and I try to keep my footsteps light and respectful as she and I and all of us move through this scary time together. I pat my hand gently on the bare cracked patches of her skin between the dying quack grass and curled-up plantain, making tender note of the wild asters smiling up at me from their shady spot beneath the mulberry trees off the front porch. Some of the falling leaves are a bright golden yellow and shimmer as they cascade past the old wooden bench that overlooks the meadow. Beauty is resilient too and I mustn’t forget that. Even in the midst of my human tribe’s suffering and thirst for a way out of the current madness that sours our regard for one another, there are those among us carrying the water of kindness and justice cupped in their hopeful hands; it would be good for us to drink deeply whenever it’s offered.

If the rains don’t come this Tuesday, we must still take care of each other. Please, friends…keep searching for water.