Lest I be accused of being obsessed with fire, let me share that one of us eight Buckingham siblings once played with matches and lit a neighbor’s yard on fire and subsequently ran away from home. That sibling was not me!
But if not obsessed, I am indeed, let’s call it, enthralled.
Last year around this time I wrote a column about embracing the onset of early darkness. Wearing it like a cozy blanket. My theory was that if my attitude was one of welcoming the opportunity to retreat and reflect, then these days of waning sunlight would not be something to get through, but something to cherish. As I often do, I found a book with a wise author’s words to support my approach. Katherine May’s “Wintering” offered a guide through.
This year, I need an additional strategy and another wise author. Thankfully, I’ve found both and one involves, you guessed it, fire.
I’m a little late to the fire pit craze that took off over the course of the pandemic. Drive through a random neighborhood then, and you’d as likely see smoke rising from someone’s backyard as those ubiquitous strings of lights that transformed once quiet patios into social spaces.
But as much as I’ve enjoyed gathering around our new fire pit with friends and family this summer, its use as a means to extend the light of day is, to me, a revelation. (H/T Duffy Byrne for noting kindly, and rather hilariously, that I wasn’t getting the benefit of UV rays from this exposure — science was never my forte!)
In the 10 days or so since we turned the clocks back, I’ve successfully resisted putting pajamas on before dinner. And I’ve started a new, decidedly unscientific, ritual.
At about 5 p.m. I take our pup April out in the backyard. I have a ball, some treats and a lighter. We spend about 45 minutes or so like that, me throwing the ball, April searching for it, the fire pit lit. There’s still plenty of bird activity to enjoy and puzzle over — a pair of gulls flying away from the ocean, three blue jays vying at the feeder with multiple sparrows, twice now a red-bellied woodpecker there, too. I would have missed all of this if I stayed indoors. I search out the first visible star and make a wish, another ritual I skip in late fall and winter when I close myself inside too early. A shower of leaves falling, outlined by the flames, makes me laugh in delight.
Now the book, another revelation, one Ann Patchett called a “Howling love letter to the world.”
It sure is, starting with the title — “The comfort of crows, a backyard year” by Margaret Renkl. Crows? A comfort? Yes, Renkl argues convincingly. She writes about a tradition, new to me, that the “first bird you see on the first day of the new year sets the tone for the next 12 months.” The year she wrote the book, her first bird was a crow which she noted was “smart and brave and loyal.” More research revealed the association with death (thus a murder of crows) but she kept digging and found further links of crows with the traits of adaptability and transformation.
Each chapter covers another week throughout the year and is accompanied by original color sketches of the natural world by her brother which deepen her written portrayal of seasons of joy and grief.
My plan is to read a chapter per week to take that journey with her through these dark months and soon enough, into the lightening skies of spring.
If you were wondering, the sibling who lit the neighbor’s lawn on fire ran away only as far as the downtown corner store where his godfather worked. Mr. Scully quietly called my mother. “Mrs. Smith,” he said, so my brother was none the wiser, “I have someone here for you.” She went and collected him. And as far as I know, he remains an upstanding citizen, father of two, with no pyromaniac tendencies today.
I promise I have none either. Just an appreciation of extending my time outdoors a little bit longer.
Happy Thanksgiving all, and thank you so much for letting me share my thoughts with you each week.
