Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Fanning Flames

In my California mornings, I reinvigorate the fire.

In early light, the sun not yet crested above the surrounding hills, I bundle in layers and follow my breath to the fire pit. The coals from last night’s big Oak round have burned down to a few pulsing cinders.

With cold hands, I gather the small sticks, a toss of Oak leaves, and begin to fan the flames. Sometimes Jeb is with me and we can huddle around the smokey pile, feeding and blowing in delicate attention. Other times he’ll wander off to stand among the dogs that wrestle on the frosted grass, leaving me to stoke alone.

I can pull my hair back with one hand and bend in close to breathe long and full into the orangey-red embers. I’ve been building fires most of my life and there is always a satisfaction felt when my own exhalation makes flame. My breath to fire, wood crackling to catch, a small blaze building.

This warmth gathers us. Family members from three to sixty-three, wander out in the morning with steaming mugs in their hands, big coats and sleepy eyes. The fire wakes us. Even once the sun has cast slants upon the melting lawn, the fire will still hold a steady flame. Spirals of smoke will dance in light throughout the day.

We realized last night that the fire has been burning without pause for three days. A heartbeat pumping, our family’s outdoor hearth is only an ‘h’ away from the love-life source that keeps us living.

We laugh at how I’ve taken to keep it burning in the morning. I love the unending cycle of stoking coals to flame.

“Well, whaddya think? Let’s keep it burning til 2012!” we say as we sit and warm our hands.

We smile in the cold as the knees on our jeans get toasted. My father’s quiet tone
drifts in the swirling smoke, our eyes fixated on the flames.

“…there’s something about a fire…”

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

In Range

I had to drive down the road
to find a place where I was in range
pull out
and park
just above the spot
where the trickling creek
gets deep
and full of water fowl
living in low-slung trees
along the banks

I thought we had a missed connection
when my cell phone
got voicemail
what could I say
to convey
in thirty seconds
this restless stirring
so instead
I said
that I was sending love
on Christmas
from the foothills

the Bohemian –
well, he and I,
we surprise me
and suddenly our timing
clicks in a tick
and we make contact
he calls back
while I can still receive
reception

his voice ripples through me
with all his rounded consonants
a few omitted prepositions
his happy laughter
and I remember why
I love him
it doesn’t matter what he’s saying
though “I miss you, Jess!”
is nice to hear

along the river
a Great Heron takes flight
on wings that seem too big
to balance
a body that looks too huge
for flying
but with majestic grace
it moves its weight
in a slow and steady swoop
above the water

the Bohemian recaps the progress of our garden
admits he’s done more planting
but still left some space for me
he fixed those falling towel bars in the bathroom
polished the kitchen counters
cleared some of those fronds out of the yard

outside the windows of my parked car
sandy hillsides slope softly
in winter sunlight
beyond these hills there is an ocean
and in the middle of that sea
is a man with a beautiful accent
puttering around my house
and growing vegetables

there’s a sensation
right about the center of my chest
warm and moving
like honey with a fizz
and it feels good
in this parked car
with his voice right at my ear
he can eat my popcorn
and help himself to my kitchen cupboards
I don’t care

I’m so very happy in these foothills
but now I know the number
the exact amount of days
until I come home

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Magic and Myths

The house is unusually quiet at 5:52am. I have the warmth of my father’s writing room all to myself while the family sleeps.

By now I’ve learned the workings of this big coffee maker and have two pots ready for when the aunts, uncles and grandparents wake. Last night was the convergence of relatives while children danced in stocking feet.

After the Christmas cookies had worn off and the kids were soundly sleeping, the grown-ups gathered around the fire under the clearest sky of stars. Owls screeched and coyotes yipped to each other in distant canyons.

courtesy of seaside rose garden

In the midst of the wildlife, Santa was still in our midst. The holidays pull stories of our youth and we shared our memories of his bounty and the day we learned there really wasn’t a red suit and sleigh.

Never having wanted to tell my son a lie, I have not perpetuated the Santa myth. Jeb’s known the story, but I’ve never told him, absolutely, that Santa was real.

So when he asked me about 3 years ago to know the truth, I did the double-check “do you really want to know?”

“Yes!”

“Do you think Santa is real?”

“No.”

“Who do you think brings presents to the kids?”

“Their parents…?”

I couldn’t bring myself to speak the word “yes”, somehow not wanting to completely squelch all sense of the mysterious. But I nodded and smiled.

I talk to a few adults about the time they learned the truth about Santa, and on more than one occasion someone has said it all happened at once.

“I learned about Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and sex all about the same time.”

Maybe it’s a rite of passage around Jeb’s age of eight. Learning that some of the stories you’ve been told are fables, coupled with the revelation that there are sacred secrets of life you never knew.

He wants to know the whole truth but he longs for magic.

And isn’t this true for most of us?

On this quiet morning I reach to my father’s bookshelf for a little poetic direction. Find T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and flip to a page like a divination. I find a passage from “East Coker” that speaks of the unfolding.

I sit here and seek a sentence of my own to elaborate on these words, but how can I?  But I’ve got to end this post somehow.  So here’s how I try…

There’s a place where words end and experience speaks volumes.

Life awaits our presence here.

In a place of magic. Where we can feel what’s real.

“Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.”

T.S. Eliot
excerpt from “East Coker”