Fire

It takes some time. And it takes some effort. It takes some hiking.

I park the car up at the beginning of the trail, shrug on the backpack, check my laces and set off. I have an emergency locator beacon, a good cell-phone, a first aid kid, and I register my intentions with the proper authority. I’m responsible.

And look, I don’t do this in the middle of summer when all the trees and undergrowth and going to be tinder dry and just itching to embrace a spark, to send heat and smoke and colour billowing up towards the sky. I do this in the early spring, when the winter doesn’t make it too heavy going or too irresponsible. See, I’m good. I’m one of the good ones.

Oh, they all still say I’m mad, I’m drowning in grief. I don’t even know myself, don’t know what I’m doing. And maybe they’re right. Because God only knows, I have not been myself since I lost her. I haven’t known how to carry on. I’ve lived this life of empty routine, just hauling myself out of bed and stumbling off to work, slouching onto the bus to go home again, to eat – and more and more to drink – my way through the evening until I can bear to sleep. Get up. Do all the same things next day.

There are people who don’t think I should be let off some sorta leash to go tramping out there in the thick forest at all. My brother thinks he ought to come with me, keep an eye on me, be there if I need to talk.

But I don’t need to talk.

I just need to listen.

And here’s the thing: when I’m far enough way, up on that great hunk of rock with trees all floating like a sea beneath me, when I get to that point, when I set up my tent and light the fire, when I’m finally there: that’s when it happens. At first its just the crackling of fire, just the wood being eaten up and turned into smoke. But a point comes where I know I can hear her singing. It’s a sound that seems to come at first from the fire, but after a while it’s coming from the forest, from the air all around me, from the sky, the stars. And it is so beautiful. It’s beyond perfect. My heart weeps – it can finally weep, it can join in the singing, it can meld with her, re-join, re-unite. And in the smoke, I can see her form, I can see the way she’s dancing for me. I can feel the smoke mingle with the tears in my eyes, eyes that hurt against the heat of the flames. Well, it doesn’t matter, the sting is worth it. Just to be this way, as together again as is still possible.

I know the morning will bring dull embers. Ash. I know I’ll have to douse the ash firmly with water. I know I’ll have to leave her behind. But the night before will have been like fuel for me, stored inside me like a solar battery. It’s that night I count on to get me through the rest of the year.

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work