Fire Fetish

MySpouse says I have to stop trying to portray us as normal people. Did any of you actually think that?

We have a yellow daisy-shaped kiddie pool in the backyard...for dogs.
We have a cat who runs down the driveway to meet MySpouse when he gets home from work.

As per the title, I have a 'thing' about fire. It started out innocently enough.

I made friends with a young man who came to AA meetings here in town. I had two years of sobriety when we met. At the time I was one of the younger attendees, living only a couple blocks from the meeting place. For the meeting- after- the-meeting my house was convenient. When we started out all we had in common was a desire to stay sober and a love of dogs.

I'm outgoing and mouthy and my young friend thought that was all there was to me. I worked in a factory that mailed out junk mail, surrounded by people and machines, week after week. I had found some pretty, quiet places out in the country where I could go with my dogs and I took Chris to one of them.

At first I drove. As this escapism continued, he drove. He had a Nissan pickup; it was easier to wrangle dogs in his pickup than in my car. Over the course of a couple of years we had settled on a rural park south of town as our usual destination. It was rarely used and we could allow the dogs to run on their own. We'd go every six weeks or so for stress relief.

We would take a thermos of coffee. While the dogs ran around scaring the coyotes he and I would drink coffee and talk about sobriety and relationships. We would make a fire in the firebox/grill at the park. It was soothing, relaxing. We even started going to the park in the wintertime becuz stress never stops. I remember one occasion when the pond was frozen and there was no water available to put out the fire. I solved that problem by heaping snow onto the coals.

Chris was a student at Iowa State University. He worked his way up to being Doctor Chris Peterson. He hunted for a job in keeping with his education and interests and found one. He moved to Mississippi.

I know that professionally and personally he had to go, but his going left a huge hole in my life.
He was my best friend and I missed him terribly. I didn't go out to the rural park for about a year after he left Iowa. When I did go to the park again I asked my husband to go with me. I didn't want to go there by myself and cry over Chris.

During the time that Chris and I were friends I'd divorced my second husband, had a learning experience with a married guy, courted and married my third husband. MySpouse and I live in a big 100-year old house here in town. For the last three years having transportation of my own has been iffy. I couldn't get out to the rural park easily.

I adopted one of the holes that the dog dug in the backyard as a firepit. Just to relieve stress, every couple weeks I'd have a small fire. That has worked up to having a fire almost daily. There are times when it's too windy or precipitating too heavily, too cold or I'm too busy, to have a fire.

My routine is to get up in the morning, come downstairs with the dogs, let them out to potty in the backyard, and either start a fire or add to the coals in the firepit from the day before.

Partly the fire is to relax and partly to practice a survival skill. I met and talked with a refugee from New Orleans in 2005. She came to Iowa to stay with her sister after the hurricane. I felt sorry for Jean, but she also brought home to me the need to be prepared for a disaster. So I practice my fire-making skills.

Having a fire is more than just a hobby for me.