[dropcap]I start the fire[/dropcap]
in the morning, before the grape cherry koolaid in the sky makes its appearance before it announces what the day will bring. It’s still night though officially according to a bunch of Romans or Mayans or group of people who come well before me, decided that now it is morning.
It just doesn’t look like it.
I start the kettle. I try lighting the fireplace. I let the dog out. I keep trying the fire. The matches take forever to light because they’re the cheap kind that take 11 tries and sometimes one will light up. Meanwhile they wear down the strip on the side of the box. So that I have to try and find a patch that is still good to light up a cheap matchstick. I think of the Matchstick Girl selling matches for a pense. I think of Hans Christian Andersen who kind of has the same last name as I do except for the sen part. I think of it every morning when I have to light the fire. I get the fire going eventually, some days it is much easier and faster than other days and I can never tell why, I am reminded of Laura Ingalls Wilder and heating up the house for the first of the day.
Then I think I could never live that life because of asthma and how I’d die around horses and cows. But then I think well, yes, if I had indeed lived that life I would right now be dead. Hardly anyone ever lives to be as old as someone born from 1860. I mean, before the things I love were around, or at least made available to me. Things like Holland and its freesias, Japan and its … subarus…Africa and Belgium for its truly rich milk chocolate.
Before then, back when I was on the prairie, when I was another person, a good person, I had just my family and some farm animals. And probably a better fire.