It is dark as I walk up the hill to my car. The little store is secure and dimmed for the night. My drive home is more cautious. Headlights pick up the occasional glow of eyes along the stone walls. The deer and moose rut season is upon us and the animals are moving, losing sight of the dangers roadways pose as they seek a mate.
As I come around the bend in my drive, my “devil dog’s” eyes glow green in the window as my headlights catch her at her post in the window, watching for my return. Wagging tails greet me, and small grunts of pleasure as I hit light switches on my way into the cold house. Cats circle, Belle is demanding I check her food bowl. Dumping my bags I head for the kitchen to fill dog dishes, all the while singing the “Doggy Dinner” song to my audience. Alice dances as kibble hits the ceramic bowl. “Go find your sister!” I demand. She races back toward the door where Dahlie has settled to contemplate her feet, lost in her age and senility. I coax her toward the kitchen and make Alice wait, then sit before placing her dinner on the floor,
Solitude with friends. I gather a bundle of kindling and set about the fire. Newspaper is skillfully twisted in bow-ties, as my father taught me. Cardboard is carefully place and kindling is positioned. A single match sets it ablaze. The crackle and aroma fill the room. No words are forthcoming.
I set the music low, a cello solo that is so familiar it is wall-paper to my thoughts. Dinner preparations, a chilled glass of wine, I traverse a familiar routine that calms and carries me deeper into my head. Animals crowd around when I finally sit to watch the flames and eat. Do humans have a season of rut? Why do deer mate right before the harshest weather sets in? Both times I was pregnant it was winter. I didn’t live outside but it was still not easy to navigate life amid snow and ice.
I have a special stack of pine outside for burning when the coals are just right. It makes for a hot, fast fire. Sparks fly and the wood pops sending embers shooting from the grate. It is loud and demanding but a quick way to heat up the hearth. Amid the calliope of the fire, the phone intrudes with harsh demands. I look at the number. He is from the past, the distant past. He wants to know how I am, and commences to reminiscing about our time together; our adventures and foibles. What is not discussed is the reason our lives parted. Then he stops to take a breath. “Come with me and we’ll flee North, we’ll leave civilization behind and live simply. I never should have let you go. Marry me and leave this all behind.”
This? This is what I am, who I am, what I have built. Leave and pursue your dream of nirvana? I stop and brush aside the feeling of warmth, of being wanted – needed perhaps. Ah, it is the being needed to complete his vision of happiness that is a thorn. Wait while I digest this fact.
There is no mate in my world at the moment, but that doesn’t worry me. Let the deer and the moose have their season.
Mount Monadnock – The Mountain That Stands Alone..
Therapeutic Misadventures 
Your evening sounds like a lovely ritual, Ms Bunyan. Lessons in wood types and what kind of fire they produce, Moose, Deer, snarfulling dogs, cellos and chilled wine… warm fire…. all by your own hand. What could possibly compete with that? Seems to me you are already needed and well loved, just ask Alice, et al. (gorgeous hay in the photo by the way!)
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Thanks Doppleganger. It was really good looking late cut hay! As to the rituals of life, they could be seen as dull routines with the wrong attitude, right?
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“Leave and pursue your dream of nirvana?” This is surely one of the hardest things to do.
Thanks for this post!
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Thanks Hassang66 for dropping by and commenting. Everyone’s vision of Nirvana is different and not necessarily inclusive of others!
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@marthaschaefer
Thanks!
You are right. Sometimes living one’s own Nirvana is difficult.
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“Amid the calliope of the fire” – nothing like a warm fire. (You described it perfectly. We can it fatty pine – the ones collected that burns quick, bright, and snapping)
You sound centered and solid.
Lovely read.
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Thanks Phil for checking in…always good to hear from you!
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I wonder what makes old lover’s think rekindling a relationship after years will bring back the spark which set the blaze to begin with. There are always reasons the past is the past – it is where is belongs. Other than the intruding phone, it sounded like a very peaceful evening. You are wanted, needed and loved by those around you!
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Thanks Laura. Funny about old loves and sparks that have died a natural death over time…
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Loved this Martha – my favorite post thus far. I connected on several levels here and actually felt a chill and a lump in my throat while I read.
GREAT post. You know who you are and I wish you all the very best. You deserve only that!
Wow. Blown away…
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Thanks Julie, humbled by your comments. I would like to think that most of the time I do know who I am and that most of the time I am a very lucky girl!!
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I really miss a good wood fire, especially when I read about yours.
Deer mate at this time of year so the fawns will be born in late spring when there is plenty of food and cover.
My wife spent a long hot summer pregnant with my daughter and I think winter would have been easier.
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I think i will just pass this on to my sister as it is.
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Thanks Cheryl. So happy I struck a chord with you. M.-
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His dream of nirvana may not be yours. It’s nice to feel wanted but strange to get such a call out of the blue after many years. I like the sound of your fire and dogs better.
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Thanks Marie. It was a strange call. “Leaving laughing and wanting more” has always been my motto. That said, I’ll take my fire and dogs any day!!
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