Every fire is different
I had my tarot read last week and in the reading she noted my even balance- well, the literal dance of fire and water on the table. I feel like this is going to be coming… Rising for a while… I love the water. My inner waters and how my water is seems to offer others, even people I barely know (like a woman I recently met on the towpath) permission to get in. To the deep. To their own curious mysteries whether I consent it or not. I know however I am really ready to embrace- and missing -my fire. In honor of this, I've started taking dance classes. Partly for health, but mostly to move some things out of me that I am so bored of carrying around. The first one was last week. I loved it mostly. It took me about 2/3 of the class to really let myself go. As things started to get going, I realised that my hair smelled like smoke. Like the sweaty free released essence of me is actually fire. One of my favourite aspects of #boatlife is how ultimately I've gotten to know the elements. I've always been good with a campfire. Growing up in the mountains meant most of my first romantic, independent, and most secret memories were all around blaze in the woods somewhere… My first whiskeys… My first sneaking out… My first proposal… All in the glow of a forged wood haze of smoke and moonlight (moonshine some days) and youthful naiveté. Sown. is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.But boat fire is for survival. An ancient sort of remembering I have to say I am quite good at. I've evolved my technique since my teen fire-starter days. We regularly keep firelighters on board; a modern luxury it took me a couple boat winters to surrender into using. My father would have never. Newspaper stacks and kindling with one impeccably placed match was more his style. I actually think I can only remember one time where I think out of pure necessity he doused a pallet in lighter fluid…I suppose -20° winter and having three children will force you to lengths you would be later embarrassed to admit. I'm going to poetically remember it was probably something to do with needing to feed us in the middle of the woods maybe after it rained or one of us dropped the matches in a river or a creek or our small hands had forgotten to pack them in lieu of an extra stuffed animal or a pack of cards. However, not all my fire memories read like a country song. The smoky hair dance also took me back to the first time I ever called 911. Our home had filled with smoke and flames as we stood outside helpless. Wondering why none of the neighbours had noticed, grateful the dog had gone to a kennel while we were away instead of having someone to come check on her in the house…being instantly embarrassed when the fire chief asked if I did want anything from the charred remains of my bedroom and my 14-year-old self just pointed at my favourite and most loved toy knowing this man was not only the the fire chief but was also the dad of the girl who made my school hell-well at least PE and my locker for a few years-and I knew in my bones he would go home and tell her what it happened and all she would hear- all everyone at school would know-wasn't the fire and how everything was gone or how all the photos from when my dad was little had vanished into ash or how decades- even days later- I couldn't remember the holiday we had taken in the days leading up to the blaze- all they would know is that on top ( or underneath?) my frizzy hair (remember curly hair girls were not so loved in the early 2000s) and braces and divorced parents and excellent grades-not only did I still sleep with the stuffed animal- She was all I wanted to rescue. Mind you none of this came instantly to mind as I was moving (dancing sort of) among all the Hackney hipsters, but it most certainly rose with a vengeance after. Like the good eldest-daughter-millennial I am I had a nice delayed shame and horror bout thinking back on my teen self the day after dance that week- but this is precisely why I am going. Because I cannot reclaim or live from my fire- my passion- if some hidden part of my body is still worried about getting made fun of at school after the ash settles. The universe-God if that works for you- knows what she's doing. At the time of writing this, I've been ill for a week- just another teacher in the burnout cycle. But it's meant I've been feeling sorry for myself. I've missed all my spring break friends and plans as I just heal on the boat. It's the most domestic I've had time to be since about October and I can feel my body fighting my brain to let us come back to our regular pace. The pace of breaths actually breathed in, water passing the windows…the pace of getting a fire good and going. As it's spring, all the shops have stopped stocking firewood in lieu of bags of compost… As most of the UK has only need for a Christmas fire and logs are a purely aesthetic expense. So firewood is a slightly more precious resource at the moment… I foraged some kindling this morning and was lucky enough to have been given some logs by a boat friend… After splitting them into reasonably smaller but still dense pieces, I let the fire starting commence. There's a saying I've learned on the water, ‘every fire is different.’ Some start right away. Some don't need you once they get going, some need gentle coaxing and endless feeding; this was mine today. My entire job today-not planned but prioritised-was to keep my home fire burning. Having a cold made this even more important, and it became such a long day of listening I hadn’t realised I needed. When a fire is ready for more, it hits a sweet spot. If you blink or get distracted-you'll miss it. If you miss it, it's not the end of the world, but you have to feed it smaller bits before the big bites it’s really hungry for -kind of going back a step-so all day I just sort of listened… Realised my body could sort of tell, in ways maybe I didn't know I had-when the window was opening. You can't constantly watch it, you just have to know it needs to be tended. I say to my students sometimes ‘we just know in our knowing.’ I feel like this is what my return to dance, my return to fire is… A renewing, re-meeting of my knowing.Some Spanish music came on in class last week and my body instantly knew how and where to move. My mother says it's because the blood, our blood, remembers. Something else I often offer my students - not nearly enough to myself, is instead of "I don't know" we should say "let me remember." I've been wondering what else I have forgotten or been conditioned to forget…if some long dormant but eager part of me knows-remembers- how to tend many fires and dance ancestral steps… Surely finding my way to my path has to be in there-in here-somewhere…waiting to be remembered.As I write this, I can't help thinking fire is the element of myself I have had the hardest time knowing and using, owning maybe? Probably from decades of being told I was too emotional or to calm down or only being sexy when it matched with someone else wanted that to look like. You know the usual common boring but true dampness on anyone's fire; everyone wants a strong woman until she shows up. A friend sent me a song a good while ago then there's a lyric that sort of haunts me "I don't know which ancestor gave me this rage, but I am ready-I am ready-I am ready to put it down." Some days that is me (except I know exactly where my rage comes from), but the scary maybe just vulnerable honest truth-my truth of it anyway- is some days that rage is the only thing that makes me smile. The only thing that pushes me, that guides me forward… That allows me to show up. The only thing that is keeping me warm.I think I am in love with it a little bit. But after so many selves being told to let it go without ever really giving myself the chance to look at it, I kind of I'm curious about it. I feel like maybe it's time to court it in a way. Intu… Get full access to Sown. at seedlingspiritual.substack.com/subscribe
