Even though it’s mid June, the days are cold and wet. I built a small fire just to take the chill off, and thought about the sense of contentment that comes with sitting around a campfire and watching the flames. I’m sure you can remember something similar. The dark night, the cold air at your back, the heat on your face. The sparks hitting the tent roof…I wonder if we feel that because of an inherited memory of prehistory when fire meant safety, security, survival.

And not only that. While we enjoy quiet times sitting like that, listening to the flames eat firewood, most of the time we tell stories. It’s almost a cliché because it’s so common. Why? What is it about that atmosphere that makes us talk in low voices about childhood memories? Or huddle together glancing over shoulders while we listen to a scary tale? Maybe it’s the intimacy, the cloak of darkness.

We all become storytellers sitting near the fire. There’s some odd bond between flames and words. It’s almost spiritual.

Next Friday I am going to join a circle of women around a fire next to the river, for a ceremony of transitions for a few girls I care deeply about and have watched grow and become wonderful young women. I know we are going to tell stories about their childhood, about change, about life. And the fire will sanctify those stories like it has done for thousands of years.

I still want to know why though.

When I first moved to the woods, I lived in a rustic cabin with no running water or electricity. It was summer and beautiful. I would eat breakfast on the old wood beams of a dilapidated deck, basking in sunshine, wind, scents of forest, sounds of the creek. I carried water from the creek, and learned about wildlife. One night I roamed with a flashlight trying to find the woman I’d heard screaming, only to learn later that cougars sound like women screaming…

And then winter came. I learned that it takes a huge amount of snow melting in a stock pan on the wood stove to make an inch of warm water. I learned that what looks like a huge amount of firewood when chopping it, shrinks to a tiny pile when stacked and needed. I learned a whitewater river can freeze if it gets cold enough. Those reading this that are locals will remember that winter of 1988 when the river froze. I quickly figured out that an outhouse in the summer, with the door open to mountain views, is much less romantic when the seat is covered with frost. The infamous words I said to my father still haunt me: “I’m not going to spend $200 on a heater that I’m only going to use a couple months a year!”

Remember leg warmers? An elderly woman made me a pair and she struggled with knitting so they reached from ankle to crotch. Picture that as you read on because this is what I wore, layered, to bed that first winter: heavy wool socks over two other pairs of socks, leg warmers, sweat pants, tee-shirt, flannel nightgown heavy sweater, robe, mittens, scarf, a cat under a big pile of blankets (living hot water bottle) and a dog on my feet, under her own blanket.

I woke up each morning with the blankets frozen to the walls and my breath turned into frost on the blankets. The cat’s water was frozen and the windows had a thick layer of ice on them, on the inside.

I bought a propane heater.

It worked really good, creating a glow that looked warm at the far end of my tiny trailer. It kept the cat’s water from freezing if I put the dish next to it. But it did nothing for the blankets frozen to the wall. I got used to that ripping sound when I got out of bed in the morning.

My parents retired and moved into the tiny cabin that I have been restoring recently, and have posted pictures of on this blog. My father, being a genius, built a water wheel out of pulleys and pipe caps and old single cell batteries, creating electricity. My brother, father, and I, put in 1500 feet of pipe down the ridge to get the flow of water needed to generate the electricity. We still used kerosene lanterns, but the electricity powered a refrigerator (in the summer I had used a small cooler powered by a car battery), and my father’s television. Reception was terrible, and he swore shows came in better when there was snow on the mountain.

And now, many years later, I have come full circle in a way, living there again with my husband and son. I know to stack lots of firewood. I know to have a supply of kerosene. I know to can and preserve and freeze to fill the shelves for winter. I know not to yell at cougars or to look for them with a flashlight alone in the dark. I know when the bears are in my compost. I know the haunting sounds of owls hunting at night, and the sight of stars not dimmed by city light pollution.

But sometimes I miss those days of self-reliance, of knowing how to live without. Well, I don’t miss the frozen blankets.

Here’s a link of last winter, on the road I live on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB9eN5SCoO0&feature=plcp I’m giving my son a lesson on driving in the snow, and the snow was actually deeper than it looks here. We were driving from our place into town in our big red diesel truck.

Every time I talk to friends they tell me, ‘oh you should write that down!’ and I think, why? It’s funny in the moment of oral storytelling but would that translate to the written word? I’ve decided to find out. Every so often I am going to digress from writing, and share a story. Let me know if you find this a stupid idea.

Back in the 1970’s we were madly in love with the Bay City Rollers, a pop band from Scotland. Last week while driving one of their songs played. I was instantly grinning and happy and started telling my patient teenage son stories.

The Bay City Roller conventions in Seattle where we would bum rides from parents or take the bus into the city, gather at the Seattle Center with lots of other crazy teen girls, and immerse ourselves in Roller fandom. We wore the required uniform of short pants with tartan trim and striped socks, and carried long tartan scarves with the name of our favorite Roller on it. We formed huge human pyramids for some reason. We trekked to Pike Place Market, clutching our dollar bills to buy black and white photographs. We came home blissed out.

The hundreds of letters we mailed out. Keep in mind this was before the internet, social platforms, and cell phones. We had pen pals. Not only did we write letters we highly decorated the envelopes. Stickers of our favorite Roller, labels of the same, with lines of songs or poems. Stamps that we put on upside down, and then wrote, around the stamp, ‘Roller fans stompin’ round, put their stamps on upside down’. Must have driven the post offices crazy trying to find the addresses.

Then there was The Trip, still talked about stridently, by my brother. A camping trip back to Montana, where us kids rode in the camper (allowed at the time). My sister and I were riding high because the Rollers were coming fora  concert. We had their new release ‘You Made Me Believe in Magic’ on a cassette tape that we had recorded off the radio station. During hours and hours of driving time, we played that one song over and over, while my brother suffered. And threatened to throw the recorder out the back. And then threatened to throw us out the back.

And of course the concert itself, arriving outside the Paramount theater in the wee hours of the morning, standing in line all day, and then standing on the arms of the chairs inside, during the concert, absolutely convinced that your Roller looked right at you and your madly waving scarf.

My son said it sounded like Justin Bieber and girls right now. Who? I told my son that it wasn’t the song making me smile, it was all the memories associated with it. Those giggly days of making new friends and innocent fun. Well, innocent for the most part. Slumber parties and posters on the wall.

About half an hour later a song came on that made my son laugh. It reminded him of when he was little and seriously believed he had super hero powers. I told him he’d just had a Bay City Roller moment.

I think every generation has females out there who can point to similar moments, and who still smile when a certain song plays.