Come On Baby Light My Fire

I got home early this afternoon. The sun was about to set. The air felt fresh but still a little chilly. It was one of those days in the Pacific Northwest: it was not warm enough to stay outside; It was nice enough that you didn't want to stay inside. Solution: sit outside around an open fire.

That was the plan. It should be an easy plan to execute. We have built a brick fire pit a few years ago. Next to the fire pit, a big pile of chopped logs from us falling the trees on the property  are neatly lined up painstakingly by me. They are an eyesore to the surrounding environment. We have offered the logs to our friends free of charge and some of our friends have expressed interest in taking them but none of them has acted. We figure we will have to burn them all this summer. It's just March. I know. But let's start a fire now.

I brought a long bench by the fire pit, preparing myself to a leisure afternoon around a warm fire into the night. Richard stacked a few logs in the middle of the fire pit and tried to light them. No luck. Then he sprayed some lighter fluid on the logs and threw a match inside the fire pit. The logs caught a big fire instantly and went strong for a couple of minutes, and then the flames went out leaving only the smokes rising from the blackened logs. He took out some of the bigger logs and chopped them to smaller pieces, and added some more Cedar wood because Alderwood is harder to ignite. After rearranging the stack, he tried lighting, aided by lighter fluid. All ended with the same result. "What happened?" I was just asking, not questioning. "I know my shit. I have done this a thousand times". He said. I know my math: many = 0; 100 = 10; So do the match. 1000 times is equalevant to, say 100 times. That's a lot even after the deductable. "Have you?" He asked (questioned). "Many times. I invented fire" I replied. I know my math as well as my history (I = We: Chinese).

We finally decided it was either because the logs were too wet, or there was too much moisture in the early spring air, there was no chance we could light a fire in this damn fire pit this afternoon.

We transitioned into the house. While settling tonight on the comfy sofa inside the house, I relived the short-lived flame in my mind, feeling the heat over my cheeks and ears against the cool air, watching the fire burning until the dying embers catching up with the stars in the starry night, and listening to the sound of the fire crackling, mixed with the coyotes' howling in the distance.