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We and Wood

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I have a tendency to hold on to things. Not so much in the sense that I will be able to use a certain item at a future time or for a future project but as a snapshot of what my life was like at a particular time. I kept a blow-up orange that my Dad brought back from Florida for each of us kids when he was driving truck cross-country. I have a piece of rock from the outcropping where Chris proposed to me. I have priceless pictures and tiny clay sculptures from when the kids were little. They are all in boxes now, tucked away from sight and mind on a daily basis. But they are there if I want to revisit those times. Holding something in my hand that represents a certain time in my life gives physical reality to the past.

At this time of year with the passing of an old year to a new one, we each get to decide what to keep from the past and what to purge. It is not a stretch to say that everyone was glad to see 2020 go. What a crazy, chaotic, Covid year. But we can’t just throw it all out and pretend it didn’t happen. There were memorable, deeply moving moments that should be remembered and cherished. There were a myriad of important lessons to be learned. But what about the garbage, the refuse, and the rubbish of the past year? What about the things that have hurt us, held us back, or no longer nourish our life? Burn them. Literally or figuratively or both, send them into the flames of a fire.

We spent a number of our New Year’s hours building and tending a fire. It was a still day, a perfect fire day when the smoke ascends straight up to the sky. There was no shifting and moving to keep the smoke out of our eyes. We were clear-sighted and clear-headed. The trees around us still held their embellishments of fluffy snow—their holiday season decorations.

Old discarded needles fell among the vibrant green ones that sustain the tree. And a seed-containing cone had started the process of drying and opening for the dispersal of the next generation. Past, present, and future.

Fire, like any element of Nature, can be life-giving or destructive. There needs to be parameters, limits, containments, and safe practices in order for it to be life-giving. Fire becomes destructive in the hands of a maniac who has no regard for rules or for others. Power of any kind, like fire, can move from helpful to harmful to catastrophic in the blink of an eye.

There cannot be fire without fuel. Chris’ summer clean-up work has given us a stack of fuel—brush for kindling and branches and logs for sustaining a warm Winter fire.

Burning wood is a multi-step chemical reaction—wood + oxygen + heat = carbon dioxide + water + ash (simplified). It is a transformative process where molecules are broken down and new molecules are formed. Heat and light are produced from the chemical reaction. But most importantly, all the atoms are conserved. Nothing disappears or is ‘wasted’—it is just rearranged. Something new is formed from the old.

(Fun fact: flames are ‘pointed’ because of gravity and subsequent pressure differences.)

Our New Year’s fire, complete with a visit from a wise, wonderful friend, was a multi-layered transformative process. Warmth and light were produced as we and wood were transforming. So while we each get to decide what to keep and what to purge at any time in our lives, we always carry our past, our present, and our future. Some of us like to hold the material, realistic, factual items of our past; others throw them away. It is understandable that we want to purge the hurts and pain, the disappointments and soul-searing experiences that burden us, and the utter garbage that lies in the wake of destructive power. But nothing is wasted. Cherish the memorable moments. Learn the lessons that need to be learned. Use the fire, use the chemical reaction, use the contained power of transformation to break it down, rearrange, and build it into something new and life-giving. Fuel your fire with love.

The Aftermath

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In the aftermath of the Minnesota Vikings’ loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship game, the disappointment was expressed in various ways—some were thankful for a great season, some were bitter that Minnesota would be hosting the Super Bowl for the Eagles’ fans who were ‘less than nice’ to the Vikings’ fans, and some were able to express their disappointment with humor.  Bryan Leary of Minnetonka wrote a short, succinct letter to the Star Tribune: “When I die, I want Mike Zimmer, Mike Tice, Brad Childress, Denny Green, Jerry Burns and Bud Grant to be the pallbearers, so when my casket gets carried to the cemetery, they’d have the chance to let me down just one more time.”  The pain is real.

January, in the aftermath of thankful and festive months, is long, dark, cold, and usually snowy.  It is mostly a month to be endured, and getting through it gets us thirty-one days closer to Spring.  Christmas decorations still hang in some corners of my house—I’m reluctant to give up the cheer of lights and shiny red decorations.  The Christmas wreath is now a Valentine’s wreath, and hearts have replaced the nutcrackers that were nestled in the lighted evergreen garland on the mantle.  Our cedar pole Christmas tree in the front yard still shines all night long—a reminder that we haven’t lost what we gained on that December day.

But the Christmas tree is now a perch for the birds by the backyard feeder, lying beside the aftermath of countless meals by birds and squirrels who ate the nutritious sunflower nuggets and discarded the outer seed cover.

The weather has not been typical for January—we’ve had the bitter cold, as usual, but the temperatures have swung into the forties for a number of days.  Our piddling of snow, in the aftermath of thawing temps, has melted away.  We missed the storm that dumped ten inches of snow on the Twin Cities on Monday that resulted in cancelled flights, stranded school students, and stuck commuters.

January, the first month of a New Year, lends itself to introspection.  It gives us a chance to stop, look around, and assess our situation.  Where am I in this New Year?  What do I want my year to look like?  Who am I?  What kind of person do I want to be?

The aftermath of a New Year’s Day fire that tried to keep us warm in the sub-zero weather, reminds us that some things from the old year should be released to fire and sky but also cautions us that it’s hard to re-build the bridges we burn.

The warm, gray days that melted the snow produced fog and bone-chilling dampness.  In the aftermath of fog and freezing nighttime temperatures, spikes of frost coated the trees and grass, transforming them into winter beauty.

 

Aftermath: something that results or follows from an event, especially one of a disastrous or unfortunate nature; consequence.  In the aftermath of a wildfire, mud slide, flood, hurricane, tornado, or snowstorm, the pain is real.  In the aftermath of death, divorce, job loss, disease, injury, or other traumas, the pain is real.  In the aftermath of disappointment, discord, impropriety, conflict, or disunity, the pain is real.  So what to do with the very real pain….  Malcolm Lowry wrote about “the long black aftermath of pain.”  There is a long, dark, cold period of time to be endured—which gets us closer to some resolution, solution, closure, peace, forgiveness, transformation, or justice.  We triage our situation, do what we can to stop the bleeding, adjust, repair, recycle, receive, work, struggle, release, give thanks, make progress, laugh, backslide, and transform.  The pain begins to diminish.  We begin to find our way again.  A second meaning of aftermath is a new growth of grass following one or more mowings.  New growth after being cut down.  We remember that we haven’t lost what we gained in that lifetime before the pain, but by various, glorious ways, we step ever closer to Spring.