Campfires and New Friends

It's amazing what campfires do to people.

For those of you who have never been to one, you need to find an excuse and go, or figure out your fire laws where you live and have one in your own backyard. There is nothing so soulfully cleansing and primitive as watching beautiful red and yellow flames gently lick the sides of rough-edged logs. It's mesmerizing.

When you add in the company campfires draw, often times it's the best of both worlds - the internal one, which is somehow hypnotized into a sedated, ancient comfort and the external one, where friendships are often born and nurtured under the starry sky.

Such was the evening tonight.

After "Casual Friday" in the clubhouse, eating Chinese food and playing games with other residents, a woman we met last week upon arriving here invited us to come back to her site to see a camper sofa she and her husband are giving away for free because it's too big for their space. As we stepped with her onto her deck, the group around the campfire, most of whom we've had only met briefly, welcomed us as if we had just walked into Cheers. Before long, we were sitting around the fire pit, laughing at the stories told and spinning some tales of our own.

Of course, Patrick and I have always loved campfires.

He grew up camping in the woods in NJ, and for him, fires weren't just a chance to catch up on the lives of friends, but means by which to cook food, clean utensils, and heat water for their stay on the mountain. With my childhood being spent at a cottage on Berlin, campfires were precious to us because it was only a few times a year my grandfather would go through the motions of building one. But when he did, out came the fruit pie makers and the smores ingredients. You didn't have to ask us twice if we wanted one stoked up. And when a pyre was blazing in the yard, just strides from the rocking dock on the black water, kids would come from throughout the neighborhood to hang out by our fire.

Some of my most precious moments around the campfire, though, have come from last summer and the summer of 2008. When we had the foster kids a few years ago, we had put the RV down the shore in New Jersey and on Patrick's long weekends off, we'd head down, with my husband building a blaze Thursday night which lasted all the way until Sunday morning. Those were extremely fond memories, sitting around that circle with my son, my husband and our foster kids. If I close my eyes, I can still see their young faces reflecting in the flickering glow, and the joy those city kids shared with us at getting back to nature there on that sandy soil.

Last summer, in Ohio, we put the camper at a seasonal spot out by Salem and had the pleasure of spending the summer with Mandy (Fleet) and Rob Mackie and their kids. Most weekends were spent sitting on their site, sticky smores smearing goo everywhere and kids laughing into the night as they got themselves ready for bed. It was a rare occasion that we'd have a fire at our spot because of our location, but even then, it was a pleasant way to relax before turning in.

Campfires are magical. Even without the alcohol often brought to them, they seem to be earthy and simple ways of bonding for humans. It's really amazing how filled your soul is as you walk away from the deep red embers left in the pit, and how good your heart fills at the friendships you've just built upon.

Everyone should attend at least one bonfire or campfire a year with friends. Even if you just roast a marshmallow or spend fifteen minutes staring into the flame, you'll find life never feels so rich as it does when you're disconnected from the world and centered on nothing but the heat of the flame and the hearts and voices of those around you.

Somehow, even without the smores, life is sweeter when your life is blessed by a fire pit and the company of friends.