Fire

To observe the importance of fire is to state the obvious. For unknown millenia it has been crucial to humankind as a giver of heat and light, providing a means to cook and survive, and all the well-documented rest of it. But this blog is about beauty in the commonplace, and fire is magnificent. You can take an average room or place, an average situation, add a fire in a fireplace or bonfire pit and suddenly the atmosphere changes entirely. There is a new warmth that has nothing to do with temperature, a new focal point. If the room is dark enough, the fire outlines the people around with brushstrokes of gold and red and flickers interestingly on changing facial expressions. There is a sudden unity when there is a fire, whether due to the common activity of marshmallow roasting or simply to this central presence. Fire renders the chilly bearable, the ugly mysteriously beautiful, and the commonplace magical.

The power of scent

I am always astonished by how strong the memories are that accompany certain scents.  When I was very young (we're talking very young!) my mother wore Tweed perfume whenever she went out somewhere, and to this day if I stumble upon that fragrance I can feel her bending over my bed to kiss me goodnight.  Love's Baby Soft puts me back into my early teens with jeans and shirts and does-he-like -me concerns.  Upon smelling a combination of sizzling bacon and cool air, I am in our summer holiday tent trailer with a cold nose, burying myself deeper into my cozy sleeping bag and listening to my dad cooking breakfast out at the picnic table.  The mix of diesel fumes and early spring air instantly transports me to France -- happy trip! -- to the times I accompanied students on an exchange and we spent a lot of time around buses.  (Kinda neat that a basically negative smell could have such positive connotations for me!)  The list goes on and on.  What strikes me is the force with which the memory returns; I am there, reliving that moment viscerally.

I wonder why scent has such a strong association for us -- we, who are usually such visual creatures. 

Bird brains

I spent probably forty years of my life able to complete ignore the existence of birds.  I mean, hey, we briefly had a canary when I was 7, and in Grade 3 they made me learn what birds don't migrate south, but aside from that they were one of those things in the background to which I paid absolutely no attention.

So why is it that in the last few years I notice them all the time?  New attention to bird calls I can understand:  now that we have a cottage, that is the one and only thing I can hear outside my bedroom window on a summer morning, and it's a fabulous way to wake up.  Plus how can you not stop to savour an evening loon call?  But even visually they newly occupy my interest.  I like watching what games they're up to when I take the dog for a walk; I get a kick out of the mourning dove that watches us from the fence outside our kitchen window.  (Why is there only one?  Has she/he lost its mate?  Will it find another, or is it doomed to mourning-dove loneliness??)  The hawks soaring by the escarpment make me yearn to fly -- er, soar.

Today's fun bird-watching was a lowly robin who, in not such a lowly fashion, was preparing a nest.  The little creature decided it wanted some of the long grass by our chainlink fence to go with the dried grasses already in its beak so it went over to get some.  Peck, peck, peck...it must have gone on for two minutes.  I couldn't help but wonder how it got new grass without losing what it already had!  And so it gathered until something made it decide it had enough, and up it flew to the top of the cedar tree and proceeded, I assume, to add the new bits to a nest.  Tis the time of year of new life, I guess.  I'll have to keep an eye on that tree to see if I can see the new building development.

At a funeral

Two days ago I drove out of town to attend the funeral of the mother of a very good friend of mine.  She was 84 and had had a stroke so it wasn't the tragic death of a young person, but she was a much beloved mother and long-time member of her community, so I was anticipating an extremely sorrowful event.  I took a deep breath to prepare myself as I entered the funeral home and joined the line of those last-minute mourners who wished to have a word with the family before the funeral.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered the atmosphere to be not subdued at all, but rather buzzing with chat and news.  I wouldn't go so far as to say it was cheerful but it wasn't melancholy at all.  I was intrigued and, incorrigible people watcher that I am, I had to listen and watch to figure out why this would be so.  It didn't take long to figure out that the reason the atmosphere was non-funereal was because these were members of a Community re-uniting, re-discovering each other and exchanging tidbits.  I use the capital "C" purposefully because the sense of community in that place was palpable.  Obviously we were all drawn together for a common reason and through common acquaintance, but it was more than that.  Most of these people knew each other through one venue or another in this small town, and the unexpectedness I felt was that bonding and communicating.  

I have to say that it was quite a lovely thing.  I also felt really good knowing that my friend and her family are going to have lots of support as they go through the grieving process.