When Nature Calls

It is another cold day today. In the tiny cabin I call home, built in 1905, the fireplace caved in, imploded into itself after the mortar failed, I am told, around 30 years ago. The hearth and firebox are now hidden behind a 4x4 sheet of plywood. As legend has it, an oil burning furnace was installed sometime during the Truman administration. When asked I like to say that builders in 1905 were not prone to the overuse of insulation, newspaper being the fiber of choice. The owners of the cabin, now a million dollar beach-front tear-down, lived here for three years during the construction of the ‘big house’ where they currently reside awaiting demolition of the cabin, the footprint of which is to become the foundation of their dream home. During their stay in the cabin they used the oil burning furnace for heat.

I choose not to, citing mostly environmental reasons, although the financial is a close second. I simply cannot justify spending my hard earned cash to burn oil for heat and contribute to the pollution of our fragile eco-system while doing so. So I resort to the silly and hypocritical use of electric heat. I use two DeLonghi portable heaters, one beneath my work station, pointing directly at my knees, and the other upstairs aimed at my bed. The bed also sports an ingenious technological device known as the heated fitted sheet. With its warmth coming from below and my oversized down comforter above, it is like sleeping in a bakery. It is between these two sites that I spend the bulk of my time. While in the kitchen I sometimes turn on the stove (to bake) and leave the oven door slightly ajar, although I consider this cheating. What causes me great pervasive joy is when I use the toilet. I say joy because it produces ironic and paradoxical laughter when I try to conjure a sentence, some appropriate literary application, with which to use the imagery of sitting on a frozen toilet seat. Yesterday, while addressing the daily biological emergency, I thought maybe The Bane of Thrones would be a clever play on words but immediately dismissed it as too overtly gauche. I did however, chuckle at the attempt. I may suffer from chronic warped humor syndrome but I find laughing at this self-created circumstance to be nothing short of hysterical. I read yesterday that nothing happens ‘to’ us everything happens ‘for’ us, a quote I take to be the spiritual equivalent of that which does not kill, strengthens.

But when the power goes out all this changes. There is nothing funny about having no juice when temperatures are below freezing. I miss my axe, my maul, the custom hatchet I built for kindling, my chainsaw and the stacks of dry firewood awaiting emergency use. There is nothing like a good fire in an efficient wood stove. I think it was Twain who astutely noted that the man who cuts his own firewood heats himself twice. I can remember boiling water for coffee and heating burritos atop my old stove in the cabin, warm and cozy from its fire and light. Good old days. Heating and building strong character. 

Now I meekly rely on two electric heaters while working and sleeping. Should the power go I’ll be down to candles, propane and the steel outdoor fire pit I bought last year for just these code-red situations. Some might call this dire. I do not.

I can always get in a good laugh when nature calls. And laughter seems to warm us from the inside.