Remembering Campfires

I love this time of year…when the cooler weather sneaks back in… when the leaves begin to change…and fall It’s campfire time again. I’ve always loved a campfire…watching the colors mix and mingle within the flames…how, just like the moments in my life…no two campfires are the same. Perhaps the true beauty of a campfire is how it invites us to slow down in a world that’s moving much too fast… and how like magic each new campfire rekindles campfires from our past…. Faces illuminated by the light…feeling the warmth…giving the fire a poke… telling stories…smiling…laughing as we share a story, a memory…a joke. Remembering when our children and grandchildren ran around the fire… watching sparks float to the stars up in the sky… chasing fireflies, making s’mores… trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid the smoke getting in our eyes…. Toasting marshmallows on a stick… how some of the marshmallow always sticks to our hands like glue…. remembering back to when that child running around the campfire… was a younger version of you. Moments of quiet reflection…shedding a tear…saying a prayer as we remember faces around the campfire…no longer sitting there… The smell of smoke on our clothes…in our hair…as we wake up and greet the next day… Smiling and hoping, at least for a little while, we don’t wash that aroma away. I think what I love most about a campfire however…. Is how its flames help me rediscover my truth…. how in its glow I can alway find a glimmer…a gleam…a twinkle of my innocence and youth.