I like watching fire. There's a comfort to the leaping flames. The sound of crystalline crackles of destruction as wood combusts feels like home to me. It's been that way since I learned to make it.

My family growing up had a wood burning stove that heated a single room in our three bedroom house. Of course, I have allergies and I grew up in southern Mississippi, so it wasn't used too often. I remember my dad sitting by that big brown box shoving wood inside it. My great grandfather's shotgun hung over it. That shotgun, long since decommissioned, now sits next to the fireplace in my apartment. I have the materials to mount it and might someday.

At about ten years old, the scout leader handed me my Firem'n Chit badge and said "don't burn down your parents house." I proved that I could be trusted to start, maintain, and put out a fire safely. I don't remember much of what we had to do to get that badge other than read a safety manual and promise not to burn anything down. One test we did was to light a fire, mix up raw ingredients for a pancake, and cook the pancake within a half hour or so. My fellow scouts and I drank that mixture of raw eggs, flour, and milk next to a pile of coals. I have come along in my cooking.

In national parks across the country I have set small fires to stay warm and cook by. In the Smokey Mountains, I helped a lesbian couple from the University of New Orleans start theirs, and they shared their wine with me. In the Ozarks, I lit a fire after cleaning bottles and cans from the pit and wondered if there was more to life. In northern Idaho, I put my mind and body back together and slept under the stars next to a small fire. Stars look better next to a campfire with or without company. It feels safe in a primal way articulated only by invoking warmth and accomplishment however small.

I have lived in this apartment for three years and just set a fire in the fireplace. The love in my life bought me wood and a tool set with a poker and brush and the rest over a year ago. I could not bring myself to light the fire, though. I think I had a block. I could not find the comfort I normally had until now. Thinking on it, it might be because I needed to heal some.

My dad died late 2023. He left behind my mom and my sister and me and several piles of wood in the yard. The wood had rotten. Roaches and fire ants and termites had taken residence.. As he died inside the house, eaten by cancer, I made it a mission to burn all that wood. The first fire had fire ants and roaches stream out of the pit that had not been used for months. Every night for almost two months I lit a fire and watched the flames and listened to audiobooks and podcasts. Some nights I read. Some nights I was joined. We roasted marshmallows and hotdogs. But after a while I sat out there alone with my thoughts. My thoughts were not kind.

I did it again the next year, this time with a girlfriend. Spent New Years 2025 surrounded by uncles and cousins who poked at the fire too much and would not let it be. A few times they talked about dad. I was quiet.

We went back this year, and I took my place and started a fire. It felt different. Same old wood, only two of the piles left. Much less, more rotten and eaten through. But it burned just the same. I felt different, though. Something woke up a little in me. Defiance and anger and humor. It all seemed so absurd in a way I could not articulate. Still can't. My thoughts were more kind, more hopeful, more alive. Something shook loose and lit. Something inside me let go. Woke up and let me see the flames and hear the crackle again.

I'm writing this from my apartment smelling like campfire and warmth. I might make another fire and sip on bourbon. I might enjoy myself in a quiet comfort. I might mount my great granddaddy's shotgun.

I might watch the fire and like it again.