The Pseudo-Pyromaniac: Building Fires that Belong

Igniting Stories and Selves

Author’s Note: the following entry is adapted from my book, Controlled Burn. Grab yourself a copy here (affiliate link, plus, you know, I get a cut from the sales of the thing).

I’m one of those people who stands around fires and whom everyone calls a pyromaniac. I am not a pyromaniac, I should note, but I am fascinated and mystified by the process of starting a fire. I should also note I’m a self-trained Midwesterner who sort of stacks the wood only a little neatly and doesn’t mind cheating with some squirts of lighter fluid. I want to see that fire roar. I want to singe my finger hairs but not my facial hairs. I want to burn shit in that fire. I want to see old scripts I’ve printed burn. I want to see tin cans melt. I want to make lava. I want to eat a toasted marshmallow. I do not want to get cute with the s'mores recipe – the ritual and the simplicity of nostalgia do quite enough for me.

I’ve been around enough fires to know there are other people like me, the pseudo-pyromaniacs who also want to burn stuff. These people are useful and necessary. Party planners plan on having them, I promise you. The fire has to get started. It and the pyros are cheap entertainment. The fire entertains for a while and then the pyros take over. At first it’s the easy stuff, the sticks and split wood. But then a scavenger hunt begins, all over the campsite or the yard or the house, pyros looking for the cool stuff to burn. Old dolls. Coke cans. Coke bottles, if you’re lucky. Things that’ll cause little pops and fizzes, but not explosions. Later in the party, when the flames are down and the embers are glowing hot, the shit to burn burns slowly. Those things are the main feature at this point, esthetically speaking. Attendees in camp chairs, beers in hand, watch the slowly dissolving tin cans or whatever-it-is, enthralled. A strange thing happens at this time. The bodies of these humans at this fire are warm and lit on one side, cool and dark on the other, satellites drawn in by the gravity of this thing. The bodies are maybe buzzed or drunk. The bodies are full and fed. The dancing fire is doing its hypnotic work. The bodies are activated and safe, satisfied and occupied. And then the people show up. Their minds and hearts. Their selves. Their stories. Stories and Selves are capitalized here, primary in all senses of that word. The heat of excitement and celebration has slipped into the glow of this new, diaphanous thing. Reality is gauzy here, permeable. Shakespeare, speaking about something similar to this moment, refers to what it is: an insubstantial pageant.

Though you’ll find I constantly talk about bonfires, what I really want to do is help you light your own. This blog and my book is a mess of stuff aimed at helping you do just that. I start by talking about other manners of fire – cautionary tales, perhaps, about how to prevent forest fires and burnout and housefires and all of that. I follow the old logic that in order to understand a thing, it’s helpful to understand what it isn’t. It is about this approach that I need to beg your forgiveness before you go further. You see, I am an expert at bonfires – at least the metaphorical kinds I’ll come to discuss. I am not an expert at the other kinds of figurative fires, even though I have experience with them, sometimes long, deep, hot experiences. There is likely very little I have to say that is new or even terribly insightful about trauma or the ventures into recovery I’ll mention. Even my central image – fire – is not new. Phoenixes have risen from ashes for quite some time. What’s more, if I’m fuel for the bonfires I’ll describe later on, I’m still burning. But here we are. We might as well grab a beer and cook some hotdogs.