The Items we can watch Burn - Originally Written January 12, 2019
Looking for something to post and thinking about the fires here in the Pacific Northwest I decided on this essay. The folks in my writing group suggested the title. The writing prompt was a sensory experience - something was dropped in our hands...and then you write. Fire - feeling the smooth cardboard container touch my cupped palms - as soon as it hits my hands and my fingers curl around it I know what it is - I can almost smell the ingition of a match in my imagination and it takes everything that i have not to immediately pull the first match from the book and light it - but I am in a house that is not my own, and though I am sure I will not start a house fire - my logical mind takes hold that this really isn’t the time or place. I have always had a fascination with fire - the way the flames lick and leap up from the tip of the match with that white/blue base into yellow, orange and sometimes a brief red tip. I just spent Winter Solstice trying to burn a piece of paper with wh...