Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Several days in late March 2008

KINDLING FOR THE FIRE

Spring is slowly working its way up to 7,000 feet where I live. There’s still snow in the mountains above me. Lower down, between here and town, the first wildflowers are rising to the seduction of clear days and warm sun. My house is in between. Not much sign of fresh green around yet, though the earth has dried out beyond the muddy stage. When I look around me I imagine the new life that is moving just inches below the dirt about to explode. Any day now, KAFOOOM!

Finally freed of the clutches of shingles, my own energy is renewed and I am out soaking up the sun and cleaning up the winter clutter downed by wind and snow. Mostly dead branches of pinon pines and junipers. I collect this dry wood, break it into short lengths, and stack it on the west porch. At sundown I light a small fire of this kindling. And sit in a rocking chair enjoying the snap and crackle and smell of the privilege that is mine.

I say privilege because in most parts of this civilized world it is unlawful to collect and chop wood or build a fire out of doors. In Seattle I would be visited by the fire department and police, and fined for any outdoor burning. Even using the indoor fireplace in my Seattle house is limited to days when there is no wind or it is raining.

Here in the great open spaces of the west, wood cannot be gathered on public land without a restrictive permit. And no fires are allowed in National Parks or many public camping areas. If you have a fire in a designated space, you must bring your own wood.

Of course there are good and obvious reasons for these regulations. A huge percentage of the human race still depends on fire for heat and cooking. And in most of those areas, the land has been stripped to the bone. Dried animal dung is the only renewable resource. I actually built a campfire out of cow chips to see what it was like. Depressing experience. What a stench! It took two washings to get the smell out of my clothes. Maybe I should have used drier cow patties.

So I stick to collecting small kindling, building small fires, and sitting quietly with my mouth turned off and my imagination turned on. There is such a deeply pleasurable experience in having a bright fire to sit by out under the stars. Something ancient is stirred by staring into the flames – no doubt left over from the thousands of years when fire represented security and survival. I never go to bed after watching the last coals die without feeling calmed and contented.

I apply the notion of collecting kindling for fires in another sense. One that I use to begin my day and provoke my thinking and writing. These are phrases, words, notions, sentences, and thoughts of others gleaned from books I read.

(Several years ago I published a book, WORDS I WISH I WROTE, that consisted almost entirely of this material. The guiding principle was, “I wish I had said that, because I cannot express it any better.")

Though I try to be original in my writing, I know all too well that there is really nothing new to say. You renew existing truth as it passes through you for the first time and is recycled in your way of expression out of your specific experience. A creative writer’s real task is to mask and disguise plagiarism well, and rephrase everlasting wisdom in the currency of the language and metaphors of one’s own time. One is always building with used bricks.

Though my stringing together of words into sentences may be common craftsmanship, some of the beads on the string represent profoundly powerful ideas. That may be said with confidence because the ideas are not mine, but those that have been found in older, deeper quarries than mine.  If all I do is choose and polish and pass this lasting richness on to those who read my writing, well enough. Gold doesn’t rust.

For example, here’s a page of recently acquired kindling for my fire – what I’ve collected over the last month and re-read this morning. (I should note that, since these are out of my private, personal journal, and because they have been modified somewhat by me for my use, there’s no attribution.)
_________________

If nothing’s chasing you, don’t run.

Don’t cut anything you can untie.

You can exhaust yourself, but not the world.

Each one was the one and only. And if that riddle baffles you, then you don’t know much about love.

Before getting into bed, as if she was snuffing out a candle, she blew out that day’s tiny flame.

If you have an imagination that wanders far and wide, you can live far and wide.

If you know there is a door in the room of your life, you must open it and go through. Otherwise you will only be forever arranging and rearranging the furniture in the room in which you live.”

Joy is a fruit Americans eat green.

If you wish to be an artist you must learn to look at the world five times.
First to focus on the world immediately before you.
Then to focus on the world nearby.
Then to lift your eyes and focus on the distant horizon.
Then to look up and see the sky.
Finally, to close your eyes and see what you can only imagine.

tatemae (ta-the-mah-eh) Japanese – the reality that everyone professes to be true, even though they may not privately believe it.
hone (hon-neh) – the reality you hold inwardly true, even though you would never admit it publicly.

I should be content to look at the sea or a mountain or a river for what it is and not as a comment on my life.

The world is forever out of control.
The world sucks.
So? Embrace the suck and go on.

Advice from a man about swimming the English Channel:
“Start on dry land. Finish on dry land.”

He was never on time. He was never in time. But his timing was exquisite.

He founded a society so exclusive that he himself did not qualify for
membership.

The Labyrinth of the World.
The Sanctuary of the Heart.

Very short love story: She wanted a dog. He did not. And then one day she came home with two puppies. What? You can have a pet, too, she said. The next night he came home with a boa constrictor.

If you can’t be with the ones you love, love the ones you’re with.
If you can’t love the life you have, love the life you invent.
If you can’t have the life you want, want the life you can imagine.
If you can’t live the Way you please, please live well the Way you can.

The life you plan can get in the way of the life that’s waiting for you.

Sometimes I feel like I’m driving lost in the dark, but I can turn on my headlights, and though I can only see a little further down the road, I often get all the way home that way.

_________________

Enough. That’s this month’s kindling for the fire.