Summer Flames

I smell like bonfire. There's a mixture of smoke and food that makes that aroma unmistakable. A pile of leaves burning is different - more musty. A cigarette...well that's a different story. But a bonfire smells wonderful to me. Not because of it's actual scent, but because of everything it's connected to.

Smells equal memories to me (so do songs, and places, and just about anything, but that's not the point). The point is: I have a lot of wonderful memories tied to bonfires.

One year we camped in my backyard and four of us slept in a one man tent. All night everything smelled like bonfire and all night I kept waking up. I was freezing in my mummy sleeping bag until one of my best childhood friends crawled in with me and we kept each other warm (yes, we spooned. Except at the time it was completely innocent and we didn't even know what that word meant).

During high school, every significant event was marked by my friends coming to my house for a bonfire. Afterward, we would lie under the stars or crash in the cabin. Sometimes we'd take a trip over to the water tower hill where we could be closer to the sky.

The summer before my freshman year in college, me and five of my girl friends took an overnight kayaking trip. We loaded all our gear into four kayaks and a canoe, boated down the river, camped overnight, and finished the trip in the morning. We made meals on that fire - we lived on that fire - and we did it ourselves. We didn't need an adult with us, and we didn't need a guy with us. We took care of ourselves. That's the first time I fully realized I could do life on my own.
Of course, life shook me up a little bit after that and I realized I need my Lord and my family more than I'd like to admit.

Bonfires are good things. Lots of good conversation happens around them. We don't need an agenda, we don't have to be doing something, we don't even have to talk. Just sitting and looking into the flames is enough keep us comfortably occupied, no awkward silence here. The bonfire can bond us.