Mea r

Heat

daniel c. berlin

Istood like firelight in the street, and convection middle of the was my only friend. I thought about my day, six hours

of collecting and piling, collecting and piling, collecting and piling, so that just

before dark, I took my day's work and set about systematically arranging it in what I thought to be the positions most efficient for its destruction. In the end, a teepee of four logs stood in the middle of the fire pit

in our campsite. Three of the four openings between them were walled up with small fans of twigs and leaves. The final

side was my work space, and through the opening could be seen a small Lincoln Logesque cabin, built of twigs not much larger than my fingers. This too was open on one face. Inside this central stack of kindling was a small collection of pinecones, which I

had been told were excellent fire-starters. Underneath everything were the smoldering remains of a fire that had died in the rain earlier that morning.

My monument to pyrotechnics was nearing completion when I noticed smoke trickling up through the open side. I walked

up to the pit and squatted to get a better view, but after a few seconds of looking inside, my eyes couldn't stand the smoke anymore and they watered and shut. Curse my instincts, I thought as I reached for the stick which I had previously deemed most apt for poking and general meddling. When I found it, my eyes recovered and I was able to see the pinecones turning red. I stirred the forgotten embers, and the smoke stopped for a moment. Just when I pulled out the poking stick, as I was deciding whether to add more kindling to my colossus of firewood or to reach for the torch lighter and start it, the pinecones ignited themselves and immediately set fire to their cabin, which collapsed almost entirely within the minute and began a great exodus of smoke. Instead of fear, here there was amazement. Awe. Wonder. And finally admiration.

Apparently I had known what I was doing. I had known just which shapes would allow for the spread of the flames and just which layouts would channel the heat. I had done everything even more scientifically than I had intended. I had built a fire so perfect that it had lit itself.

As I called to my friends jumping and

shouting, I neglected to realize that what had actually started the fire was not so much my construction as the act of stirring the dormant embers of this blaze's forgotten predecessor, and since this fire was in fact an accident, what I also failed to notice was that the log cabin of kindling had not yet been built high enough when it had

started burning, and therefore would collapse and slowly smother itself long before my little furnace had had a chance to trade its energy to the logs around itself. The fire killed itself almost as rapidly and unexpectedly as it had started. I collapsed the

teepee and set to laying out new kindling in simple, boring bundles under the logs.

As I said before, I thought of this while standing in the center of the campsite road. I'd have made excellent prey for most species of predators, glowing as I was, but the fact remains that no human eye could have found me buried in the shadows of the trees. Still, I stood apart from their trunks, under their branches for fear that had I strayed from the center, the field of heat I carried with me might have accidentally set fire to nearby pinecones. I didn't want to be responsible for any forest fires.

So I stood like an invisible Sol, in the mid-

dle of the street, and convection was my only friend. I thought about my day, cooking burgers on the grill, cooking salmon on the propane stove, cooking marshmallows on the open fire. Cooking myself under the sun by the fire pit. I thought of this excursion and realized that for us, camping was not so much an escape as it was a revisitation - a reversion without the negative connotation - to something from which we have moved so far away in our day-to-day lives. I could find no other name for it than living. I realized that when we flee from everyday clockwork and modern recreation, we are not running from, but running to. This way of life, with natural forces holding me up and pushing me down in perfect