Open Flames

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Even before I taught seven-year-olds how to make fires, I was terrified of them. There was always something about the expectancy in their eyes. It makes you feel like they think you hold all the secrets of the universe and that, if they want you to, you will tell them everything you know. To hold that kind of power over someone so young and full of curious wonder was one of the things that frightened me the most as I walked barefoot through the woods with a  group of said seven-year-olds in the sticky heat of early August. 

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I held large bundles of painstakingly collected sticks in both hands and, every now and then, I adjusted them and flexed my palms to ease the stinging jabs of some of the more aggressive twigs. Around me, children full of delight and bubbling with conversation tramped along a winding, uphill, dirt path in the woods giggling about some song, pointing out caterpillars here or strange spiders there, and eagerly awaiting the discovery of our destination. Three days prior, these jovial children had been dropped off by their parents at The Living Earth School, a nature connection camp located in the foothills of the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge Mountains of Sugar Hollow, Virginia. They had not known what to expect and neither had I when I was first a camper eight years prior. 

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Since my first week of camp, I came back Summer after Summer to experience the awe and wonder of becoming attuned and connected with the world around me. So, when I heard of an opportunity to volunteer as a Counselor in Training, I applied immediately. I could be an even greater part of the thing that had cared for and influenced me so much as a child. So there I was. Back again at the place that I adored like another mother with terrifying seven-year-olds waiting for me to teach them the secrets of the universe. 

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My feet ached from hiking but the hammering in my head drowned out everything else as a counselor herded the rowdy kids into a circle, a respectable task. There was a moment of partial silence during which the children watched the trees high above them for scampering squirrels and fiddled with little sticks on the ground as they watched ants and beetles make their arduous way across a moss-covered rock on the outside of their circle. The birds, having not yet returned to baseline, made their songs scarce in the woods, but we listened for rustling in the canopy as a gentle breeze fluttered through, loosening black walnuts from their precarious positions on the branches of their trees. It was time.

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With a deep breath, I stood from my place in the circle and let the kids gather around me. I looked once more at the dappled shadows that the late morning sun cast on the low-hanging sassafras and spicebush leaves, painting them with various shades of near-translucent reen. My heart beat wildly as I unclenched my fists and sorted my sticks into piles based on their size and thickness. I dusted my sweaty hands on my legs and began to tell them a story, a story about a seven-year-old much like them, just more timid, and named Phoebe. They listened lazily as I told them about attending this very same camp and learning how to bring something to life, how to build a fire. Their eyes trailed between the sticks as I explained the names and sizes of the different types. My hands went through the motions of assembling a teepee structure while my words rambled on with explanations. 

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I was handed a matchbox and with one swift swipe of my hand, the match lit. Carefully, incredibly aware of the glowing eyes of all the children boring into my fire structure, I leaned over and lit the smallest sticks on fire. Soon, my whole teepee was ablaze with dancing orange flames that licked their way through the twigs and larger sticks. I hadn’t realized my heartbeat had slowed until I saw the awe written on the faces of the children. All the seven-year-olds were smiling as if I had just given them clues to life’s greatest mystery.