Inside a Burning Ember

The sky was a perfect crystal clear blue Saturday so I knew what the evening would be.  Autumn in Atlanta is the optimum time of the year to see the night – there’s no smog, no clouds plus the first-quarter half-moon was immaculate.  It wasn’t as cold as it’s been so I made a cocktail and a not-so-roaring fire in the pit on the patio and killed some time until the basketball game was on.  It seemed like a great opportunity to get the dogs out for some night play.  Maynard prefers his quiet time grunting and snorting, rooting around in the corner by the sweet gum by himself (my kindred spirit).  Belle’s a bit more social. Trying to have a quiet moment with her in the back yard can be a challenge but the ball distracted her just enough to allow my mind the time it needed to wander. 

Lying on my back staring into the sky trying to position the dippers and Orion and the rest, I realized it was the first time that I had looked up in months – years maybe.  The first time I allowed my mind to be still in a while.  It was nice.  There is a peace I feel sometimes that I doubt most would understand.  It’s when I’m at my home, with my dogs and my thoughts. Period – end of sentence.  When I hear the freeway humming in my backdrop I can easily convince myself that I’m in a hammock on a beach.  My grandma had a conch shell that held open the kitchen door in her little house on Vine Street and when I held it up to my ear I heard the “ocean”.  It’s the same sound I heard Saturday night – the same sound I hear every time I hold this city up to my ear:  it gives me the same comfort.

I wake up everyday and I think about (obsess about really) what has to get finished today. What is the most important ball that can’t hit the floor? Constantly searching for a way to make my career, my life, my world better?  How can I treat a client different today than I did yesterday that will change his mind and convince him to pull the trigger?  How can I be a more consistent leader, a stronger example to the people I work with?  What do I have to do today that will make me a better architect, a better man, friend, person?  How can I get a leg up?  How can I get out from under? How can I get the drop on this cluster-f#@& of a world I live in?  Sometimes I need a timeout: probably more often than I allow myself.  The battle will always be there for me to fight tomorrow, and I imagine the world will be around for me to conquer as well.  I’ve got some TOs left and it’s not even halftime yet (hopefully).

I think I’ve said this before but there is a strange phenomenon that occurs when a man is sitting next to a fire.  I can’t count the times I’ve sat across from a self-selected, fire-side philosopher transfixed by their narration, the power of the thought seemingly amplified by the crackling and the smoke. Many times it has been me.  There’s something about the random flickering madness that is a camp fire that I find soothing.  It’s mesmerizing and forces me to look inside of myself.  Not so much forces as politely insists that I do.  Regardless of the manner of invitation, I cannot resist.  I forget about it when I’m not there, but when I am it always feels like being at an old friend’s house.  My old friend – who I’ve silently disclosed more to than probably any actual person I’ve ever known.

Having given up on the constellations, staring into the fire I was reminded of a line from my favorite book when I was in 4^th grade The Outsiders.  Even at that young age I guess I realized that I was on the other side of everything.  I understood Ponyboy even then.  I’ve read that book a hundred times since and as a grown man it still speaks to me.  Not surprising really – I’ve always identified more with the anti-hero; Cool Hand Luke, John Bender et al.  That’s a conversation for another day. The point is what Pony said when he and Johnny were alone in the park.  “I saw Johnny’s cigarette glowing in the dark and wondered vaguely what it was like inside a burning ember…” This of course is Hinton’s foreshadowing metaphor of what Johnny and Ponyboy would discover later with the unfortunate burning of the Windrixville church.  I’ve always viewed it as more than that, the ember I mean.

Everyone decides who they are at different times and I imagine most don’t realize when they do.  I think that at least a portion of my future personality was defined when I read these words in the same book, “It wasn’t fair for the Socs to have everything.  We were as good as they were; it wasn’t our fault…”  It is possibly the predestination I’ve felt based on my early exposure to this idea but I have fixated on this my whole life since: the us vs. them, the me against the world mentality and the dynamics thereof.  Saturday night, gazing into the flame, that long lost memory was summoned back to the stage. 

There is nothing especially extraordinary about my life or who I am, but every minute of every day is a new challenge.  It’s a new opportunity to succeed or to fail, to win or to lose.  It’s the same for anyone.  Every decision we make, no matter how small has consequences.  There are a million balls that must be juggled at all times.  A million personalities that we encounter that each require a different level of interaction and attention; a million paths that we could travel, a million choices to be made.  That’s a heavy load but you can’t be scared to make a mistake, to fail, to lose or to get burned.  You can never expect to win if you are intimidated by the game.

If there is a discernible point to be identified in this ramble it is this: Life is a troubling, messy, disorganized, random cluster of ideas and realities that many don’t have the courage to deal with.  That’s the burning ember. Having the awareness and capacity to know when to shelter it from the wind and when to fan it into a blaze or when to douse it into a cool glow is what makes you the person that you are.  That’s living inside of the burning ember.  

The ability to exist inside of a burning ember without getting burned is what separates the wheat from the chaff.

I'm still working on that one.