Three Week Anniversary -- and All About Kindling
Three weeks ago at this time of the morning, we were getting ready to go to the hospital. There were so many unknowns. Today, while there are always unknowns, we are in a much better place. I am healing well, feeling great, unable to count all my blessings but trying to keep up, and have been enabling this persistent writing addiction. I always had it, but it is truly a presence now. I am off all medications, I can drive, I have attended some carefully chosen meetings (where I was needed but I wouldn't collect up a whole list of new responsibilities), and we have had uplifting visits from Benjamin, Rebecca and Alissa. I even had a piano lesson yesterday, which feels like a huge step because it required me to sit up straight without a break for an hour, engage my whole brain, and focus on learning. I had already gone to choir the day before, so I knew I could do it. It felt so good to be back, in both cases, and I also recognized that I am not yet 100% better. Today is going to be a lovely day outside and I am going to spend most of it on the couch, catching up with my resting.
__________
Even before the Mexican water heaters, we had a kindling quota. There were always kiddie jobs, and picking up kindling was one that never went away. Luckily we lived right at the edge of the woods and we didn't have to go very far to fill up our bean basket, but of course we still felt like the job was endless. Over time we would learn that there were many tasks that never went away (washing dishes, clearing the table, milking the cow), but since we heated our house with wood -- and then eventually our hot water as well, gathering kindling was a task that could not be escaped.
Our mother describes their parenting style as "benign neglect" but I realize now that she is forgetting a lot. We were never neglected. Our parents just paid attention to the things that mattered the most at any given time. They did not hover and there were certainly long periods of time when we were allowed to choose our own activities. I mean, my sisters would go on camping trips for days and nobody worried about it a bit. And I am talking about a time when we were still elementary or middle school age. By the time we were in high school, we were so integral to the farm that we had to fight for our discretionary time, or at the very least find our own rides to get where we wanted to go.
Back to the kindling. If you have never lived in a house that depends on a wood stove, then you might not appreciate how much easier it is to start a fire with the right sized pieces of wood. It needs to be dry and dead and easy to break over your knee. So all you need to do is go outside and wander around, looking for sticks that are not buried under leaves, that you can break into lengths that you can carry, and stuff the sticks into a basket and bring them back home. Depending on your mood and how put-upon you feel, this can take a few minutes or it can be a torturous afternoon. Needless to say, we learned to make it quick. Our parents were not going to come out and help us finish.
In fact, we didn't need to start fires all that often so this wasn't something that really happened every day. We just had to be sure there was inventory. The fire could stay lit overnight and all day. But when Dad discovered Mexican water heaters, the kindling needs increased. A Mexican water heater is a cylindrical tank on top of a small fire box, holding maybe 30 gallons. This fire box cannot hold big pieces of wood, it depends on a small, hot fire. If you wanted to take a shower or you needed to wash the dishes, you needed to think ahead and make a fire. This water heater filled our father with so much joy. It made so much sense to him. In fact, one winter he drove to Mexico with an empty pickup truck and bought a truckload of water heaters to sell to all his friends. I don't remember who bought them, but I haven't seen any residual inventory in the sheds, so somebody did.
To this day, my brother considers it a challenge to light a fire without a single piece of paper. In our house we have no pride -- we use kindling and old cardboard boxes and newspaper to start the fire. When Jon and I first moved to a delapidated house in McLean, the only heat source was a wood stove. This was fine with both of us -- I am not sure why Jon was so adaptable and ready to haul and split firewood, but for me it was normal to keep a fire going. Benjamin spent the first two years of his life in a house that was 45 degrees when we woke up and took a few hours to get up to cruising temperature (we always say that is why he learned to walk at such an early age -- he needed to get off that freezing cold wood floor).
I remember when some of us graduated from the kindling detail and the grumbling of my cousin John who lived with us for a few years. He had so many feelings about the relentless task of picking up sticks. But since that was the way to a hot shower, those feelings were overshadowed by necessity. He still grumbled a lot.
If you want to think about how this might have affected our development as children, this business of always have chores, I would say it taught us to do what is needed. But never to submit to made-up work -- we knew other children who had to do chores because it was good for them. Ha. I doubt that was part of any thinking in our household. Our jobs were assigned because of our age or capabilities and they filled a need. In fact, as children, we decided that our parents were never going to clean the house and we took it upon ourselves to find ways to try to create order from time to time. We would put a record on the record player and clean madly for one whole side. Our house was never like other people's houses (still true). So much dust and tracked-in mud and outdoor projects brought inside for better working conditions (think chain saw on the dining room table, getting sharpened before dinner).
As kids, we were aware that our lives were different from our friends' lives. I don't think we were ashamed, but I don't think we bragged about it either. It was just how it was.
__________
Even before the Mexican water heaters, we had a kindling quota. There were always kiddie jobs, and picking up kindling was one that never went away. Luckily we lived right at the edge of the woods and we didn't have to go very far to fill up our bean basket, but of course we still felt like the job was endless. Over time we would learn that there were many tasks that never went away (washing dishes, clearing the table, milking the cow), but since we heated our house with wood -- and then eventually our hot water as well, gathering kindling was a task that could not be escaped.
Our mother describes their parenting style as "benign neglect" but I realize now that she is forgetting a lot. We were never neglected. Our parents just paid attention to the things that mattered the most at any given time. They did not hover and there were certainly long periods of time when we were allowed to choose our own activities. I mean, my sisters would go on camping trips for days and nobody worried about it a bit. And I am talking about a time when we were still elementary or middle school age. By the time we were in high school, we were so integral to the farm that we had to fight for our discretionary time, or at the very least find our own rides to get where we wanted to go.
Back to the kindling. If you have never lived in a house that depends on a wood stove, then you might not appreciate how much easier it is to start a fire with the right sized pieces of wood. It needs to be dry and dead and easy to break over your knee. So all you need to do is go outside and wander around, looking for sticks that are not buried under leaves, that you can break into lengths that you can carry, and stuff the sticks into a basket and bring them back home. Depending on your mood and how put-upon you feel, this can take a few minutes or it can be a torturous afternoon. Needless to say, we learned to make it quick. Our parents were not going to come out and help us finish.
In fact, we didn't need to start fires all that often so this wasn't something that really happened every day. We just had to be sure there was inventory. The fire could stay lit overnight and all day. But when Dad discovered Mexican water heaters, the kindling needs increased. A Mexican water heater is a cylindrical tank on top of a small fire box, holding maybe 30 gallons. This fire box cannot hold big pieces of wood, it depends on a small, hot fire. If you wanted to take a shower or you needed to wash the dishes, you needed to think ahead and make a fire. This water heater filled our father with so much joy. It made so much sense to him. In fact, one winter he drove to Mexico with an empty pickup truck and bought a truckload of water heaters to sell to all his friends. I don't remember who bought them, but I haven't seen any residual inventory in the sheds, so somebody did.
To this day, my brother considers it a challenge to light a fire without a single piece of paper. In our house we have no pride -- we use kindling and old cardboard boxes and newspaper to start the fire. When Jon and I first moved to a delapidated house in McLean, the only heat source was a wood stove. This was fine with both of us -- I am not sure why Jon was so adaptable and ready to haul and split firewood, but for me it was normal to keep a fire going. Benjamin spent the first two years of his life in a house that was 45 degrees when we woke up and took a few hours to get up to cruising temperature (we always say that is why he learned to walk at such an early age -- he needed to get off that freezing cold wood floor).
I remember when some of us graduated from the kindling detail and the grumbling of my cousin John who lived with us for a few years. He had so many feelings about the relentless task of picking up sticks. But since that was the way to a hot shower, those feelings were overshadowed by necessity. He still grumbled a lot.
If you want to think about how this might have affected our development as children, this business of always have chores, I would say it taught us to do what is needed. But never to submit to made-up work -- we knew other children who had to do chores because it was good for them. Ha. I doubt that was part of any thinking in our household. Our jobs were assigned because of our age or capabilities and they filled a need. In fact, as children, we decided that our parents were never going to clean the house and we took it upon ourselves to find ways to try to create order from time to time. We would put a record on the record player and clean madly for one whole side. Our house was never like other people's houses (still true). So much dust and tracked-in mud and outdoor projects brought inside for better working conditions (think chain saw on the dining room table, getting sharpened before dinner).
As kids, we were aware that our lives were different from our friends' lives. I don't think we were ashamed, but I don't think we bragged about it either. It was just how it was.
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