Not being a gas fireplace, it requires a fair amount of effort to get going and manage, and that includes not just acquiring wood and keeping a stock of matches, but kindling. Kindling is absolutely key, as the building of a proper fire cannot happen without it.
As a tiny and pyrophilic pup, I'd pay close attention as my father set the fire, and he'd happily describe the necessary process for getting a good roaring blaze going. Three stages were necessary, as I came to understand it. First, ignition kindling, something one had in quantity that would catch quickly and burn fast. Newspaper, crumpled and pressed into a bed? That was ideal. But if you only used newspaper and split logs, the paper would burn off before the wood caught. So you needed an intermediate stage, which was a big mess of twigs and sticks and small branches. They all needed to be dry, inside and out, the sort of sticks that break with a snap rather than bending.
Gathering those sticks was a child's job. Go, O my Son, and gather kindling, that we might have a fire! Yes, O my venerable Father, I shall do so! Or so that conversation never went, as I was sent scampering out into the yard to find appropriately sized bits of tree-fall. That pattern continued with my own sons when they were little.
It's a perfectly kid-sized task, one with clear benefits and purpose. The goal is achievable. It engages mind and body, and the results are warmth and coziness. On a particularly good night, when one is making S'mores, the acquisition of a good marshmellow roasting stick can be added to the mission.
Yesterday, I was thinking all of these things as I wandered through our wooded back yard. The day was warm, almost unseasonably so, but the forecast was for rain, followed by a stark drop in temperature. So if there was to be a fire, I'd need a good stock of wood bits to get it going.
In between housework, writing, and church work, I took a few minutes to putter about in the yard, gathering sticks. Our kids are grown, and so the labor of gathering kindling falls to me. It doesn't take long, less than ten minutes of bending and picking up. My eyes flit across the ground, assessing every option, choosing a blend of sizes and thicknesses that fill a small bucket. Occasionally, I'll test a questionable stick, keeping it if it snaps, tossing it into the ivy if it does not.
As I gather, I also consider this: I am a grown man, doing a child's work. It's ten fifteen on a Thursday morning, and I'm not in a meeting or working on a memo or analyzing data or reviewing the work of my AI assistant. I'm picking up sticks. Am I bothered by this?
I am not. Nor should I be. It's true that it's a rudimentary task, blissfully simple. It's not something one gets paid to do, so basic that it runs beneath the valuations of the marketplace. But it also has a radiantly clear purpose, and a definitive outcome. Your labor is necessary for the hearth, and the hearth warms the house. It's the sort of task that gives us a sense that work has meaning, and that it has intrinsic value.
How much of how we fill our days is as obviously useful, and has such a pleasant result?
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