Musings at the New Firepit

photos: The Old Firepit, with raging inferno, and The New Firepit, with distinct and subtle flame.


This is one of those blog moments where everything is sorta connected to everything else, maybe yet another minor epiphany, but here it goes:

So, moments after I (hopefully) solved my summer-long pool leak issue, my firepit finally fell apart the other day, which will happen to even a terracotta/ceramic firepit if you use it practically every day, all year, for about seven years.  Luckily the wood wouldn't catch on fire, no matter how hard I tried, with paper, or cardboard, or kindling, or anything, because it was so humid and wet out.  I used a stick to move some wood around in it, and one piece just falls off.  I put it back (it's not hot, because nothing would catch) and another piece suddenly goes, plus the original again.  And then another.  So I throw my water (yes, I just had water) on the wood, to make sure it wouldn't catch, because with my luck, it finally would have, overnight in a shattered firepit while I'm not watching it.  And the next day I decided to buy another one.

Now, in case you haven't noticed, firepits are a very, very important part of my summer (and fall, and winter, and....)  Sitting at one just chills me out, and if you know me, you know I'm not often chilled out.  It's one of the only things that relaxes me.  So buying a new firepit is, seriously, more important to me than buying next year's professional wardrobe, because I care more about my firepit than I do about what I'm wearing.  (You can see from my pic at NYC's Cleopatra's Needle that cool-looking buttoned shirts are not relevant to me.  I'll pause here so you can look at that pic, to the right of this page, and then come back.)  I give myself a few hours to buy another one, and I'm hoping beyond hope that I can go to the place I bought the one that broke, and just get another one exactly like that.  (If you know me, this is not a shocker.  I have the same philosophy about clothing stores and restaurants.)

Well, that didn't happen, because it's (sadly) practically the end of the summer, and that make and model was about seven years old.  So first I went to the Salk's/Ace Hardware, where I buy practically everything backyard or tool related, and they don't have any firepits at all.  Next I went to Benny's, nearby, but they had some really shoddy-looking ones (which even the salesman was honest enough to say I shouldn't buy) and a really nice one for $150, and the things in between weren't the snazziest.  I keep the $150 one in mind, because it was huge, bowl-shaped and deep like my last one, and went to Ann & Hope Outlet.  They had just one firepit, one that I couldn't decide if it was cool or schticky, as it was huge, monstrous, and you could cook on it, but it was $180, and it had fall leaf cutouts all around it, so the flames would flicker and dance, which would either be really cool, always, or which would get old very, very fast.  I didn't feel like spending $180 to find out.  So I went to Lowe's, and they had an okay selection, except everything was metal, which will rust quickly.  Metal stands and lids will start to rust after just one season.  So a whole lotta metal equals a whole lotta rust.

But I realize that this is probably it, unless I also feel like hitting the Home Depot, which I didn't, and an older couple came by, and in our convos they said they'd been there, and it didn't have anything.  "Did they have anything terracotta or ceramic?" I asked with excitement.  No.  So this was it.  I didn't like the $59 one, because it looked flimsy, and things that are too cheap worry me a little.  I also didn't like their very expensive ones, as they were all metal, all the time.  So the couple and I decide together (this was an odd group decision) that this $80 sort of flat one was the best choice.  It's very shallow and very small compared to what I'm used to, but I felt a life-transition come on, so I bravely went with it.

I get home and put the thing together.  The directions say it should take fifteen minutes, but it takes me about 45 minutes, because I'm like that.  Mostly this was due to the directions saying at one point to attach the bolts, but not to fasten them yet, and so I did that but the pieces kept unattaching, so I finally rebelled and fastened the damn things when I wanted to, and it was smooth-sailing after that.  I actually felt very proud of myself for putting the thing together, though I realize that it was super-simple to do, as self-assembly goes, and anyone who works with his hands for a living at all would've shaken his head at me.  (I pictured Robert Shaw saying to me, "You've got city hands, Hooper!  You've been countin' money all yer life!")  Maybe so, but it's been all coins, mostly dimes and pennies, I assure you.

So I take the thing for a ride that night, of course, though it was hot and humid and about 82.  It has this small space beneath the grate--this area is too small to be able to use the grate to cook something on--that you put your paper or kindling.  I did that.  Then the rest of the square- and bowl-shaped area you put the wood.  But as it's much smaller than what I'm used to, there's actually just room for large pieces of what I had been using as kindling, stuff that in my other firepit would've burned out in a couple of minutes.  In this one, though, this stuff lasted forever, so the amount of stuff which would've been five minutes of kindling in the other one was about an hour of the real stuff in this one.

Now here's the big reveal: I realized that less is maybe more here, and though I did not stick with my norm, this firepit will let me burn less in more time.  Plus, I can see all the wood that's burning (the other one was so deep that wood got buried, never to be seen again) and I can hear it better.  Instead of a roaring inferno, it was a quieter crackling.  More soothing.  More relaxing--which, if you remember, is the entire goal here, to relax me.  It also lit the area better, since more light got out because it was much more shallow.  (Though I'm not saying here that shallow is better.  Learned that wasn't the case in high school; proved it with my shallow attitudes and shallow girlfriends in my 20s.)  I furthermore took this a step further and realized that I (again) need to slow it all down.  I don't need a huge bonfire every night in my backyard, which used up more wood, which burned more quickly, which caused me to use more wood and round and round we go.

Slow it down.  Don't burn through everything (and everyone) so quickly.  Take it easy; take it slow.  Relax.

So while I was musing all this, and relaxing more, I had another epiphany:

Someone should invent another cable movie channel, but this one will show only movies with the director's/star's commentary on it.  (I hereby send notice that I am copyrighting this idea.  Where's the c in the circle thing???  Well, consider the idea Copyright 2012 Steven E. Belanger.)  Anyway, am I the only one who loves the commentary on the DVD?  I won't even buy a DVD if the commentary isn't there.  In the last two days I watched/listened to the commentaries on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, the director) and on Easy A (Emma Stone, the star, and Will Gluck, the director).  Love those things!

So if anyone starts a movie channel with just movies with DVD commentary, I want my credit, and my cut.

Re-Claiming My House and Land

So now I bring your attention to http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com.  This is a website, also a little old and I don't know when it was last updated, about a guy who essentially is like the MacGyver we all want to be in, and around, our own homes.  He has gardens that could apparently feed a small army.  He makes awesome-looking wall shelves out of old desk parts--and these shelves have great-looking and handy drawers, too!  He uses types of paints I've never heard of, and he uses metal pieces to kill weeds in his gardens.  He makes his own honey and jams and things, and he only uses a stove to heat his house.  He sort of comes across as a survivalist, big-government hating kind of guy, but whatever--the point is that he knows how to really take care of his home and land.

Now, I'm never going to be this guy, and aspiring to be this guy is useless.  I'm just not that handy.  But after viewing his site, I decided that I needed to take control of my own home and land.  He has his son (maybe sons) and his wife to help him, and I don't, but I can still do some things.  And, believe me, some things need to be done.

So the first thing I wanted to tackle today, in the second straight day of 95+ degree heat, is clearing away this nice shed/patio area I have (basically it's a much smaller version of my house).  This thing has a large-ish storage shed, with electricity and plug outlets, no less, and a large sitting area that's completely in the shade, with blinds that I could maybe use, but that also may be a bit of an eyesore.  We'll have to see about those.

Anyway, I used to sit in this area and a) watch my father work very hard; b) watch gales or hurricanes; and c) drink a beer with my father after I'd exhausted myself sitting in the shade watching him work very hard.  When I bought this place after he died, I would sit in the same area, on comfortable chairs, and just kind of chill.  Which I don't do very often.  I guess I would also reminisce, and read a little, and enjoy the outside.  It's as country as I get.

But now I can't do that.  For some reason, I thought it would be wise to store large, and small, pieces of wood against the stone wall in the back.  This ended up taking more room than I thought it would, and I also now have to walk through the entire area, which is also full of other things, to get to this wood, which is now inconvenient, which defeats the whole purpose.  (Though the wood was kept dry over the winter, without having to cover it.)  For some reason, a mostly-hollow door also found its way to this porch area connected to the shed, and there's a grill there, and boxes and barrels of kindling and smaller pieces of wood and sticks, and some broom handles, and lots of plastic barrels, and...and beside this shed is another area of wood--a pallet that is now empty because I used up all the wood that was on it, and a box-spring from a neighbor that I have flipped over and stored more pieces of wood, of various shapes, sizes, and thickness.  (I have a little bit of a wood/fireplace/firepit problem.)  So now I can't get into the sitting area, and the land between this area and the fence is crowded with a pallet and a box-spring of wood.  And, oh yeah, I also have a very old glider, with no cushions (though the thing still works very well, I think, but I wouldn't ever sit on it again), that has some very old wood on it--wood that goes back to when my father was still alive, when he would pile his wood on that.  (My father would jury-rig things like that all the time.)

That whole part of my backyard, in short, is a mess.  And I also have wood stacked haphazardly on the other side of the fence, on my side-yard.

Now this is obviously a multi-day, perhaps multi-week task.  What to do first?

Well, here's where I impressed myself with my slight MacGyver-ism.  I took this door, and I quickly but carefully tore off all the cheap, weak plywood, or whatever it is, and I broke that up into little pieces to use for the firepit.  (I told you, I have a firepit, firewood problem.)  I also took off most of the round cardboard thingies on the inside, and I threw that into the same barrel for the same purpose.  These will make good kindling.  (The barrel is weakening on the bottom, so I'm not using one of the good ones for this.  And it's just for storage, so I'm not worrying too much about moving the thing and having the bottom fall out on me.)  Then I noticed that some of the nails I took out to do this were really good, long, strong nails.  So I took these, and I hammered them into the wooden boards of the lower walkway in the backyard, as these pieces were coming loose because the wood had warped, or the screws and nails in it already had given way (Yes, screws and nails; as I mentioned, my father would jury-rig things--but they always worked when he did!), or whatever.

So the point here is that by tearing up this door, I a) re-used the plywood, or the wood panel, or whatever, and the round cardboard thingies for the firepit, so there was no waste or more junk for the landfill; b) I re-used the nails as needed for my wooden walkway; and c) I'm going to re-use the solid, good pieces of wood of the door for other projects around the land, as the wood is still good; and d) I'll re-use the wood I can't use for other projects by burning it in the firepit or fireplace.  And I cleared some much-needed space off the shed patio, so I can sit and reminisce again about how I used to exhaust myself watching my father work very hard!

And now there's only a dozen more hours of work to do there before I can really relax there again, as opposed to the fourteen or fifteen total hours that there had been.  I also spent some time in the sun--with constant breaks for water and central air; we're not stupid here.  Well, not all the time--and I exercised, got a tan (or a slight burn?), and enjoyed working on my own land to try and re-claim it.

Not the Deliberate Agrarian, maybe, but not bad--for me.  And I will put a garden around here, too.

Musings by the Firepit, Part 2

The writing has not gone well.  Short stories are being rejected (though I only sent out a couple to a few places) and novels are not being written.  I am very confident that I'll write more--and more consistently--once I'm in my own office in the new house.  I always wrote more there--but not always better--and of course that was a much different time.  And I was a much different person.  But I do feel strongly that I'll get more done, and focus better.

But that's just Resistance, as Steven Pressfield would say, and he's right.  I could write more RIGHT NOW.  I could stop "researching" so much and use what I've got RIGHT NOW.  Anything else is some kind of excuse.  I know this.  I know this.  I know this.

The fire is smoldering; the light is dimmer (though nothing can compare to the inferno I've sustained for the past few hours!); and the flickering flames, still strong, are clearly petering out.  I'm finishing my drink.  I don't want to put the last of the short, thick logs on because they take forever to burn.  And somewhere off in the neighborhood, some guy has emptied his bottles and cans into the huge recycling bin we all have--surely a loud sign that the July 4th weekend is over!

And yet I will write to the last, to the last flicker, to the last remnant of smoldering wood, to the last drop of my drink.  Because we don't ever want the fire to go out, do we?  We don't ever want to be done.  We will fight to the last--we will rage to the dying of the light.  My better half is in bed, sleeping, and this fire keeps crumbling...I know I'll have tomorrow, but how many more tomorrows will any of us have?  How much fire is left?

I dedicate this to my father and Mary, both who died too young.  May their flames burn on.

Musing by the Firepit

Hey, it's been a long time.  Again.  Sorry for the disappearance; buying another house, doing something with mine, professional responsibilities, dealing with agents, lawyers, inspectors...No time at all to blog, or to write anything.  Last night was the first time in a long time that I was able to write anything at all; but write I did, for a couple of hours, with breaks, over an awesome firepit that was so well stocked that I could see more than well enough to write by just the firelight, up until I decided to let it go out at 1 a.m.  It was a wonderful release, so here's some of it, with possibly more to come next time.

Just at midnight, so July 5th.  I'm writing by my firepit's warm glow.  On an 80 degree night, I'm so close to it, and it's so hot, I'm melting.  The flickering effect is very cool.  I've always wanted to do this...Wait, it's getting lower...There.  Took some doing, but awesome job.  I look forward to doing this in my new home's fireplace--all winter!  He'd be surprised to know this, but I think of my father every day.  I wish he'd told us more of what he was going through.  I would've gone over more; I would've told him I'd loved him more often; I would've asked to stay the night, spend more time.  I miss him all the time.  It was so fast--better for him, of course, but...I can't believe he's gone, though it's been since the beginning of March and you'd think I'd be over it by now.  Nothing's the same...

This firepit is one of the few things that calms me down.  I need to actively do more of that, everyday.  I need to calm down and appreciate everyone and everything more--my better half, my pets, my homes, my career, my health, my friends, my abilities, my writing.  Everything!

To calm down every day, I could have my ice coffee every morning with raisin bread, like my father used to.  I could wake up earlier so I'm not always hurrying and stressed.  I have a feeling that I've been like that for so long that I'm stressed without realizing it.  I need to read and write every day.  Maybe have a firepit or a fireplace fire more often.  The flickering flames and the crackling embers are fantastic!  I just need to be happier!  I can be, and I should be, so why aren't I?