Atop a mountain this past summer, backcountry camping for three nights an eight hour hike from civilization, I spent an hour each day keeping up my writing by scribbling narratives of our daily advenutres into my smartphone. This is one of my entries.
day four
There is something about a campfire that brings people together.
Perhaps it is just a primal urge to gather around a heat source, particularly in the cold, particularly when a second bear has been spotted foraging nearby. But then maybe there is something more to it. The glow of burning logs signals a kind of control over nature. We are sitting atop a mountain, a still lake a dozen paces away, the towering peaks lurking in every direction. Even the sun dips from view earlier up here, and we are all left sitting in the shadows of hulking stone with a million trees, flowers, insects, and animals just out of view. Then we build a fire. We use our big brains to ignite dry wood and hold it captive for our amusement, and in doing so we all are drawn to the light and the heat and the community of it. So around the fire we sit, and strangers sipping tea from tin mugs, eating rehydrated meals from plastic bags, drying their socks, warming their hands, or just sitting, all of us strangers gather and talk. Soon the stories flow with ease, people talking over each other and interrupting to participate the drive to converse is so strong in the flickering glow of the fire.
Together, alone atop a cold mountain.
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