Growing up

Fall is my favorite season. Summer this year has been less heinous than most, but still, I can't wait for fall. Labor day is always a happy day.

This Labor Day was particularly happy. I had an Illumination session with a Shamanic healer-in-training and then came home needing access to an open flame for my homework assignment. Lacking a gas stove or fireplace, I did what any reasonable person would do and dug a fire pit in my backyard.

Being as it was Labor Day, and being as I had a newly-dug fire pit, I decided that I had no option but to host a bonfire for the two of us and christen the pit. I went to the store and bought stuff for foil dinners and s'mores, and a pineapple to grill. We built a fire, cooked our food, and it was lovely.

I love campfires. Always have. My freshman year of college, building fires became something of a ritual, and a saving ritual at that. When the homesickness got too much, as it so often did, a group of girlfriends and I would often drive up into a canyon and build a fire. We'd stay up late, talking and laughing about how great all of our homes were. It was a rough year, but those nights out in the cold night around a fire kept me feeling alive, if only barely.

I remember one night in particular. It was late; we were tired. We had talked and laughed ourselves exhausted. Our spirits flagged, unfortunately, before our fire did and we had come unprepared with not a bottle of water among us. It's not responsible to leave a fire pit full of smoldering embers, this much we knew, but, for a moment, we were flummoxed as to how we could leave without potentially burning down all of Utah County.

Never one to shirk an opportunity for heroism, I stepped up to the plate or, in this case, the fire pit. I dropped my pants. And I peed that fire right out. It seemed the only solution.

Little did I know the impact this would have on my comrades. The hysteria that ensued was beyond anything I could have anticipated, to my great delight. The girls whipped themselves into a complete frenzy of gut-splitting laughter and, the greatest moment of all, one girl wet her pants. She just kept squawking about how the firelight was glinting off of the downy fuzz on my behind, and laughing even harder. Gales of laughter. Sobs of laughter. We went home completely rejuvenated, in a way only possible after a fit of hysterics intense enough to nearly hospitalize you.

Last night, as we watched the coals glowing, I thought back on the good old days. I stood up. I gathered my skirt. I looked at Ryan. And I let loose all over that fire.

Ryan didn't laugh until he wet his pants. He just looked on, mystified, and then stood up and gave me a high five.

I guess we are growing up.