She was 10 when Yellowstone burned. They lived in Idaho at the time. Over a hundred miles away from the park and yet they could still smell the smoke. There was still a fine layer of ash on their family car in the morning. The sky was yellow and sick looking. She remembered feeling a little guilty because she had liked the way the smell reminded her of campfires.
Her father had told her that it was okay to think positive things about the smell. Even as destructive as this fire was, fire still gave life. It kept them warm in the winters. It fed the forest with nutrients that couldn't be found without burning. It cleared out the old and made way for the new. It was okay.
Almost 30 years later she had been living in Oregon when the Gorge burned. She was in the suburbs of Portland, about 60 miles from the fire itself. But the smoke clogged the air. It was hot that year and the heat and the smoke and the ash made it hard to breathe. Friends who had children with asthma tried to escape but the whole state seemed to be burning that late summer. She remembered sitting on her front porch reaching out and catching the giant flakes of ash on her hand like she would have the first snowfall. Big white flakes of ash that would disintegrate between her fingers as she held them, leaving smears of soot. The smell was still like a campfire, but this time she didn't enjoy it. Tears ran down her face as she thought of the loss.
Two years after the fire she walked the trails seeing the damage. It still smelled of charred wood. Even though it had been rained on and snowed on and was starting to see new growth. The char was there. Feeding the new life. She thought of the lessons her father had taught her all those years ago. Fire was part of the forest. It was a cycle that had stood for the history of the world. There were even certain plants that only grew after a fire. The seed pods could not open without the extreme heat. She knew all of these things. But she still mourned the loss.
She picked up a piece of burnt branch and slowly sharpened the end against a boulder making a charcoal crayon. Nature's art supplies. Some ancient person somewhere had discovered this. After a fire. Every bit of art sprang from that fire. Writing, painting. Charcoal drawings were the start. She felt tied to the earth right then. To the call of history and to the pull of the future. Her spot in the middle someplace. She tucked the stick into her back pocket and walked on.
There was a tree in the middle of a scorched area that hadn't burned at all. She never understood how that was possible. There was nothing but burnt out logs and stumps around it, but this tree, this one tree stood there green and growing. As if the fire had parted and gone around it like a stone in a river. She placed her hands on the trunk, then leaned her forehead against its rough bark. Breathing in the deep rich pine sap smell. She thanked the tree for surviving.
Then she picked up a small stone and dug a hole at the base of the tree. Through the dried pine needles, through the burnt layers of forest, through the rich thick dirt. Then she took the small bag from her backpack and held it in her hands. Still and silent. Listening to the forest around her.
The fire in Yellowstone had smelled so good to her.
The ashes from the Gorge had felt like flakey snow on her hands.
She had been surprised when these ashes had felt like powdery grains of sand, not ash like at all. Gray, grainy dust. She had smelled them when she got them. They didn't smell like the woods. They didn't smell like the fire. They didn't smell like him either.
She opened the bag and poured the ashes into the hole at the base of the tree. Patting the dirt over them she let her tears fall to the forest floor. Helping to water the new life started here. She took the charcoal from her back pocket and drew a small heart on the tree then placed the stick in the dirt mound. The only marker she would leave. Knowing the heart would wash away and the stick would be carried off by some animal or it would eventually break down and feed the soil.
Like he was.
She knew that fire was part of the cycle.
That there were things that could only grow after the flames.
She knew this.
She just wasn't sure she believed it anymore.
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