FIRE

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The night air is cool but the kind of cool that  is enjoyable. The kind of cool that a sweatshirt and a cup of tea will fix. The flames are dancing in the fire pit and I watch the wood crackle and spark. I poke at it, moving around some magazine papers that were tossed in a few minutes ago. I watch the stick I’m holding burn, I shake it and put out the fire and then put it in again to watch it burn. 

I typically don’t think of fire as renewing, in fact, I spend precious hours thinking, analyzing and agonizing over the thought of a fire. What’s the plan? Is everything unplugged? Are the smoke detectors working? How would we escape if a fire started? What would we lose? Do we have insurance on that? In that regard fire is dangerous, destructive and terrifying. But sitting here with the heat of the flames and wafts of the smoke against the crisp air reminds me that it has other qualities. Fire is often used to refine, remake and comfort. Fire takes something and alters it to something else. The alteration can be devastating but it can also be transforming.  

As I write this article, we are still amid a pandemic. Although the more time that passes the more this is starting to feel like normal life. In the midst of trying to manage work, home schooling and the worry of it all, we opted to find a place to park our RV for the summer. We had many trips planned but one by one they were starting to fall apart and the added stress of planning and traveling was quite overwhelming. We finalized our seasonal and after paying the sizeable fee for it, we parked it and began to set-up. 

My husband and I have different ways of enjoying time. He likes to sit by the fire with a whisky sour and some country music (how this Dominican man came to love country is beyond me) and I like to snuggle in bed with some iced tea and a good show on Netflix. In our RV we have one tv though and usually, at bed time, the kids take over. I left them inside, snuggled up, watching The Secret Life of Pets for the 27th time and decided tonight was a nice night to enjoy some quiet by the fire. 

Before I knew it, two hours had passed. We didn’t have long conversations, we didn’t scroll through our Facebook feed, we didn’t pose for pictures or even have to tell the kids 14 times to return to their beds. It was quiet, it was peaceful, it was restorative. The only conversation was that of the crackling wood, the hum of the soft music and the rustling of the trees. The fire burned the magazine paper, the graham cracker box that was now empty, the leaves that we had raked earlier and the large wood that we carefully placed each time it was starting to dwindle. The fire brought a calm because it demands to be watched and cared for, it demanded attention and caution. 

Fire destroys and the effects can be devastating but it also has the ability to renew, refine and change.

Perhaps right now we are in the fire and the destruction and damage is making way for the change that will come. Fredrick Douglass once said, “It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake”. The fire in the pit has enveloped everything we put in and only ash and debris remain but what has changed is my hope and what has been restored is my soul.  


Fawn