Dec. 31: Campfires

 It's been said that the closest one can come to Heaven on Earth is to sit around a campfire with the people you care about the most.

Sounds great on paper but, pragmatically, it would be awkward. Need proof? Make a list of the 12 most important people in your life. Go on. I'll wait. 

Okay, now that the list is done, do you really think you'd be comfortable hanging out with all 12 of those people at the same time? Odds are you wouldn't. That's because all of us belong to different groups and, more often than not, those groups don't co-mingle.

I belong to a church. I belong to a work group. I belong to a family. I belong to a fraternity of magicians. I belong to a writers' circle. If I had people from each of those groups sitting around a fire with me, I'd be so worried that most of them would be bored out of their trees. It's got to be stressful being with a whole lot of folks whose only common bond is that they all know you.

I wonder if that's how Jesus felt.

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When I was just out of high school, I became a freshman student at the Rosebud School of the Arts, a small Christian theatre guild school somewhere in East Central Alberta. The very first thing we all did was go to a camp somewhere so we could get acquainted with each other. There, teachers, students, and staff members all co-mingled. There was always a campfire at night. People would sing Christian songs and hymns around it. Then a guy named Laverne would preach a message. 

Sitting at that campfire made me feel a bit like an outsider. I felt like my sins were much worse than this clean cut freshly scrubbed group of young folk. Little did I know that most of the happy marriages on display before me would implode sometime over the next decade. But some are still going strong. 

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The fireplace does not have the magic of the campfire. This is because the campfire's utility is not just to warm the living space; it is to act as a communal hub. A campfire circle is very much like a temple, only the cleansed can enter.

This has become apparent to me on the many occasions when I stumble upon a campfire. I usually greet the people and I am greeted back and then there is the ritual of small talk. But I sense very quickly that my presence there is tolerated and that I must not forget that I am an interloper.

This happened frequently over the Labour Day weekend when a campground hired me to perform strolling magic for campers throughout the property. So I stumbled through the dark, decks of cards in my pockets, and found the happy people sitting around their fires. I did my magic and they were suitably delighted, but not as delighted as they were just being with their families.

The most memorable campfire encounter happened when I was in my early 30s. It was the Labour Day weekend, I was out taking pictures for the paper, and I saw six young people - three boys and three girls - sitting around a fire. All the girls and two of the boys were eager to talk to me but one boy remained in his chair, brooding and surly. I thought that my presence offended him, that he thought I was only there to seduce one of the girls, and was scared he would challenge me.

But that didn't happen.

Instead, the boy started to cry.

He said that all six of them had been friends since kindergarten. They had gone to the same schools together, graduated high school together, and now, NOW, they were to be separated by life. They were branching out - some going to University A, some going to College B, some going to Trade School C. They would make new friends, forget about the old ones, and the bond they had nurtured so lovingly over the past 12 years would finally be shattered.

One of the girls tried to sooth him, speaking in low hushed tones about how that would never happen. But I don't think the boy believed her. I didn't believe her. I had 12 years on those kids. I knew how life worked.

I don't know where those kids are now. They'd be in their late 30s though. Most of 'em are likely married with kids. If I were to ask them to make lists of the 12 most important people in their lives, I wonder if those lists would include any of the others who sat around the campfire with them one Labour Day about 20 years ago.

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I don't have a campfire in my yard. I don't have any friends either. My friends are dead or they live far away. I have a family here. Besides them, there is no one I can call to see if they want to catch a movie or watch a hockey game or do any of that male bonding stuff. 

But such is life. Welcome to middle age. 

As luck would have it, I am writing this at a Domino's Pizza while my kid gorges himself on a triple pepperoni with no cheese. I know he's on my list and I am on his. It's New Year's Eve and it's raining outside so I doubt there will be any campfires today. That's okay though. We will share this one moment in time and we will have some fun.

And maybe, just maybe, a 38-year-old mother of two somewhere in Eastern Ontario will wonder whatever became of that high school friend she had mollified around a campfire a couple decades ago. 

I hope she picks up the phone.