On burning your dreams

And creating happy little clouds

Moving wood, dear reader, is an act of love.

I love my woodpile. I love my wood.

I split it. I cure it. I treat it with care.

Each stick is unique.

I’ve handled most of the pieces, multiple times.

I know them better than the old guy at Tim’s who makes my tea every day.

I have a relationship with this wood.

These sticks and slabs all have stories. They all have imagined futures.

I can just see it in your grains love, you could grow up and be a lovely maple spoon some day!

But then?

Then I’m pathetic, useless and little more than a non player character in my own life.

I give up on that little creative dream.

I take that lovely piece of what once was a tree and I put that motherfucker directly into the fire.

All of this good wood - wood with dreams and potential - all turned to ash.

But that’s what the fire does. It’s always calling for a reckoning with the good wood.

There is a problem, dear reader,

We can’t save every stick.

We can’t turn every dream into a spoon.

Sometimes, the best we can do is show up, keep warm, and love the wood we’ve got—before the fire calls for its reckoning.

And maybe, if we’re lucky, all that burning will send a few happy little clouds drifting up—reminders that even the dreams we lose can make the world a little warmer, one polar bear at a time.