Building A Fire
by Cyntha Owen Philip

One of my earliest childhood memories is of my mother laying a fire in the library of our 1803 Federal house in Rhode Island. It is morning and she is folding a double page of the previous evening’s newspaper over and back, over and back. At each turn she aligns and smoothes the creases with her long strong fingers. The result is an accordion-pleated strip about an inch wide that she folds in half and spreads out at the open end. Eureka, a perfect fan! She makes another then lays them both carefully between the andirons.

Her next creation is quasi-kindling. For this, she rolls single sheets of newspaper into tubes and, with a quick flick of her wrist, knots them. She makes five and places them on top of the fans. Job finished, she steps back to admire her neat handiwork, then putting the remains of the newspaper together, she sweeps out of the room onto the next household task. I tag devotedly after her. (I don’t believe I ever saw her lift any wood onto her fans and knots. That I suppose was done by a hired man named Henry who came in for that sort of chore.)

My father gets home from his office in Providence around six o’clock in the evening and goes straight to the library where our family awaits him. He bows to my mother, rumples my sister’s and my hair, fishes in his pocket for a match and, with a grand ritual gesture, ignites the fire. Poof, the flame races through the fans and onto the knots and the logs. Before you can say “Jack Robinson,” the room is aglow. The parrot in the corner lets out a triumphant “Ha! Ha! Pretty fire! Pretty fire!” My mother and father drink their pre-dinner drinks. My sister and I play a game of Old Maids. Our Irish setter puppy stops bouncing and flops down in a pool of warmth. All is right in our world.

You might think with such powerful memories, I would be a sterling fire builder. Not so. Stubbornly, I lay fires in my octagon room’s excellent fireplace and in my computer room’s Vermont casting stove with whatever is on hand — crunched up junk mail, brown paper bags, discarded drafts of articles, empty orange juice cartons and the candle ends I prudently reserve for desperate occasions. I pop the remains of half-burned logs on this mélange, strike a match—or two or three or four—and hope for the best. A waste not, want not approach? Probably. Ecological wisdom? I hope. The pleasure of handling the logs I carried in from the woodpile myself. Who knows. Anyway, sometimes the fire catches immediately. As often it flickers and dies. Always after a series of frustrating tries, I vow to imitate my mother’s finely crafted knots and fans. Alas, it seems I’m too ornery for lasting reform.

Recently, during a visit from a handy friend, I suffered one failure after another. He waited until I, rather than the fire, was ready to combust. Then he patiently said, “My grandfather, an Episcopal clergyman and as such a Trinitarian, composed a simple slogan of three words on how to start a fire. They were: Sechity, Proximity, Luminosity. I will demonstrate.” He retrieved a small ball of crisp paper and some dry twigs from my helter-skelter collection of “kindling.” Over these he laid three small dry logs in a nice row and on top of them, three dry medium-sized logs, placed close together but canted at a slight angle to provide air vents. One match and the structure was ablaze. He added three large logs, canted in the opposite direction. A brief pause and the room radiated heat and light. “Just remember,” he repeated in measured tones, noticeably fringed with pride, “Sechity, Proximity, Luminosity.”

Do I follow that wise mantra faithfully? Well, I try. In fact, I suspect my success rate has risen by a third. And so I pass it on to you, dear reader, believing that, if I were not such a backslider, it might even reach 99 percent. Follow the teaching of those three magic words. They work. So do my mother’s newspaper fans and knots. And be sure to warm the chimney with a twist of lighted paper before you strike your match. It will prevent downdrafts that billow smoke into the room before it extinguishes the fire. And yes, the boxed matches, a prime concern. Get the best you can. The ones I have now break and the scratch strip for igniting them has already worn out.

In short, do as I say, not as I do, and you’ll be cozy in your cocoon despite the blustery wind outside. You might roast some chestnuts and toast some marshmallows, too. And, mesmerized by the dancing flames, hold hands. A very happy winter to you all!