Reading practice 39
As my father and I gathered twigs and leaves for our campfire, it was still the earliest stage of evening. The vibrant forms of daytime-flowers, trees, and radiant water-still1 flooded our eyes, but all the earth's activity took on the falling action of a story that had passed its climax. The tension had been resolved: the expectations now clear; the progression calm. My mother was playing her role, setting up tents and laying out pillows and sleeping bags inside of them. Here, amid these familiar habits, the possibility of Dad losing his job at the plant, as so many of his friends had, began to evaporate with the disappearing sunlight.
The Wood River rolled by our campsite with a gentle gurgle. My father taught me to look at the river as he does: a metaphor for the human body. "The shape of it basically stays the same," he said, "even though the underlying substance is always changing."
My father was now attempting to start the fire with the first load of kindling. As he teased bits of leaves, sticks, and dry pine needles into a stack underneath the firewood, I went to look a second time for more of the same2. Whenever you're trying to ignite damp, untreated wood3, you need to keep some tiny flame alive by finding a steady supply of easier things to burn.
4 I set off from the campsite in the opposite direction from the one I had gone before, just as a fisherman would sail downstream after catching the first load of fish. The snaps and pops of the burning tinder started to come with greater frequency. Then, without even turning to look towards the campsite, I knew things were under way.
Just like the grand finale of a 4th of July5 fireworks display, the sound of a blazing fire is a conversation of too many individual sparks to hear each of them speak. "Honey, do you want me to start boiling some water?" my father yelled6.
Even though it sounded like a question, it was really a request for my mother to hand him the pot. We always boil some water for the sake of the hot cocoa we would eventually sip by the fire, once all the work had been done to prepare the campsite for sleeping and the campfire for burning.
"Are you ready for your sandwich?" responded my mother as she began pulling the water pot and other food supplies out of a paper bag.
I sometimes marveled at the well-grooved partnership my parents had carved out. It seemed so familiar to both of them. Often, I considered it a sign that the once-heaving seas of young love had quieted within them to something more like the standing water of a pond. However, right now the familiar habit of camping with my family was a welcome reprieve7 from the strange new presence at home: fear of the uncertain future. What sort of job would Dad get if he needed to find work? Would we have to move away from Eugene or back into the dusty basements of my aunts' and uncles' houses where I had spent my earliest years?
"Myra, do you want your usual two?" my mom asked as she measured the amount of water we would need for our cocoa into the cooking pot. I used to sigh so mournfully at the end of my cup that my mom would offer me the rest of hers. Soon, she realized she could just make me extra so that she didn't have to sacrifice her own. "Yes, please." I replied.
My dad smiled in return, his face illuminated by firelight but projecting its own warmth. This time, the familiarity exchanged between my parents seemed like a wonderful gift they had earned by being together for so long. Like a river, their relationship maintained a constant appearance while the substance that flowed through it continually changed8.
