A dormant season

Controlled burns imitate naturally occurring fires by removing accumulated dead vegetation and releasing seeds from dormancy. By opening the woodlands to more sunlight, the fires prepare the soil for new spring growth, and the cycle of renewal continues.

(Jane Fulton Alt, in the e-book What is Dying to be Born)

I see new things now, some weeks after the fire. Sometimes embers still rise unexpectedly from the ground and sting me, but I'm never in any real danger these days. Now is the season where no encouraging weather appears - simply because it is not time yet. And I've hung up the "Closed for repairs" sign outside and sit inside my head - trying to ignore the cold - making cups of ideas that I don't feel like drinking dry just yet. I'll make them and let the steam billow up and feel happy for their promise, but as long as I feel no thirst, I tend to let them cool. Maybe I take just a tiny sip - like a flirtation - but truth be told, this is the season for chopping wood. I realized this very late. And chop wood is what I do - that, and eat and sleep. If the birds happen by, I'll stop to listen to them and look at them for a while, maybe feed them in return for the company, but I don't go seeking them by myself just yet. It's alright too, they take all the initiatives and sometimes I give them my attention if I've chopped enough for the day.

I neglected the woodpile for the longest time. All of last summer and fall I preferred adventure or just being blissful and cozy inside. The axe - didn't sharpen it, exactly. I had company, was warm the entire time and just didn't think. I ignored that woodpile to the point of telling my companion that there were more important things.

But the thing is that you can't ignore the cold anymore when you're left alone. Also, when your cabin is burned down, it becomes uncomfortably evident that whatever survives the fire is often highly useful, but perhaps not so pretty.  And then you realize that time has passed and the chopping of wood now needs doing both day and night. You need the warmth that comes from doing it, and when you can't anymore, the security from knowing that finally you got you act together and are doing it.

Sometimes the birds will even sing encouragingly. I'm glad to have them.

And all things considered, now that I have no roof, I see stars at night, sky all day long, and plenty of headroom. Without walls, I see the horizon all around and realize that I could be anywhere, and that place may be just as good as here. Of course, it isn't comfortable. One gets used to creature comforts, such as myopically dimmed-up windows and indentations in all the body-warm furniture.

But I'll stay here for a while. I've got wood to chop. I'm supposed to, and I'm sure it makes me stronger. And my appreciation for birdsong, stars and horizons is making me re-think the charms of the opposite. Knowing both and loving them does make life easier to live, and at any rate no fire or winter lasts forever.

When spring is back, I'll have chopped all the wood, and regardless of whether it will prove useful to me or someone else, that's when I can move on.