Storm Stayed

 It was January 1980. My (then) fiancé and I were sitting on the floor in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace at my brother's apartment. Each of us sipped on a hot chocolate. All the lights were off, and the fireplace exuded wave after wave of nice, dry heat through our sweaters, soaking us in hearty, healing warmth.

It was over 40 years ago. But the memory is just as vivid: the taste of the mini-marshmallows smooth on our tongues, the warmth of the hearth making one side of our faces hotter than the other, the utter peace and joy in that moment, nestled in each other's arms, the crackling and asymmetric thrumming of the flames, the only other sound being our own breathing or the occasional whispered confidence as we gazed into the dancing tongues of fire behind the mesh grate. 

The storm was raging outside: one of those come-out-of-nowhere winter storms when the snow gets into cracks and makes ever-changing desert scenes in swirling snow-devils barely visible in the starlight. That we would possibly not make it to church the next day was the farthest thing from our minds. We were lost in the dwindling flames, kept just as hot by the glowing embers as the clock slipped past one o'clock, then two. We were loath to leave it, because it meant I would head to the guest room and he to the sofa. So we lingered.

Free image by Capri23auto at Pixabay.

That scene flashes into my mind when there's "nothing on TV" and I see that the Fireplace channel is featuring a roaring fire in Banff or les Laurentides... without music. The decision to change the channel is not hard! 

With just the sound and appearance of the flames, without any of the deleterious side effects of wood smoke (stuffy nose, watery eyes, etc.), somehow my body feels warmer, and that peaceful, relaxed feeling slips over my tired soul and lulls me into an extreme state of mindful gratitude. Sometimes I even drift off into a doze and catch myself nodding off. My head jerks upward - did anyone see? Nobody would care anyway - they were doing the same thing.

I even enjoy seeing the wood become charred, like rows and rows of charcoal, black alligator hide all aglow with dancing fire-creatures, the flames burning lower and lower until the embers seem lit from within: last, brilliant jewels of their former glory. 

Other memories surface. Sitting in a cozy living room in Dorchester, New Brunswick listening to the flames inside a wood stove and enjoying their heat to the music wafting up from my brother's Ovation guitar. Singing along with him in harmony ... and wondering if life got much better than this. I had long since put my own guitar down, fingertips throbbing, but he kept going - joying in a gift re-given when he recovered from a woodworking accident enough to be able to play his "axe" again.

All those images, sensations, sensory memories of times gone by, swirl around me like the flames swirl around the logs they consume. I am in the fire, and I AM the fire. I both consume and I am consumed. There is no difference. Past, or future, only feeds into the now. I bow my head and fuel my own flame. 

And here, surrounded by the crackles and the wisps of smoke, I am more easily able to wait. Time becomes an abstraction. Minutes, hours, days ... all meld into the moment of becoming who I am.