Story Break
Doing Without Fire Or Stove
I’ve gone without a fire or stove, but it hasn’t always been easy. Maybe it was the thought of it. The thought of my abandoned stove following me around like a puppy I was trying to ignore. I couldn’t help it. It was like I’d left something that needed me. Doing without a stove wasn’t so bad in itself, but it was like I was somehow shirking my responsibility to myself.
Whenever I sat down to eat, I missed my stove. There was some kind of hole in the day. I stopped to eat, but then again, all I did was stop and eat. There was no little pause to get organized, to pull out the stove and assemble all the pieces and twiddle with them. I didn’t get to pour in the fuel and fill the pot and set it up and know that the familiar hot little fingers of flame were bringing me a meal. I just sat down and ate, and then pushed on again. No ceremony at all. No break, really.
Breakfast was especially bleak. Chilly breakfasts would come and go without ceremony. Mornings are always cold. Sometimes morning is the coldest, most difficult part of the day.
When the sun goes down at night the sky dims like a giant eye closing, and the warmth that has lain comfortably in the earth’s body throughout the day begins to lift up and rise toward the stars. Finally the whole world goes dark, and like a corpse the earth ceases to be alive, and little by little grows colder as it passes farther and farther into the lands of night.
When I got up the morning was there, but no happy little friend, no stove, no glow, no hot coffee, nothing to warm me, nothing to get me started. Other than willpower, of course. There was no reason to sit and wait, no small bright nugget of heat to wrap myself around while breakfast cooked. There was just me and the chilly, still silent morning air. It was like my puppy had died. Mornings can be lonely and sad.
I would walk all day, and stop once or twice to eat. I had good food. I brought things I’d prepared at home. One favorite was a batch of brownies with lots of chocolate and peanut butter in them, for energy. A few bites could keep you moving for hours, but it still wasn’t enough somehow. It was good, it was great in itself, but it was only food, you know?
I wanted my friend. I wanted to sit alongside the trail in the cool shade of a tree, looking out over a long warm valley bathed in noonday sun, and eat something spicy and hot that I had just cooked. I wanted to but I couldn’t. No chance of it. There was no bubbling little pot serenading me, promising me a rich, hot lunch. I wanted it but it wasn’t there. I missed it.
When evening came then just one more day was just over one more time. You know how it goes. You’ve put in a good day and you’re proud of it, and tired. You’re dusty. You’ve been walking all day. You want to relax a little, but the hour is getting late. If you don’t keep on top of things the night will be coming down on you, and you don’t want to be stuck bathing in cold water, and then setting up camp in the dark.
But there isn’t much joy in finishing off a bag of dry crunchy things at dusk, then washing it down with cold water. You can get the calories you need and be well fed. Nutrition isn’t the issue. You can eat enough to make it through the night without any problem. That’s all right. But without a stove there’s still something missing.
It’s a little too wild out there, a little too rocky, a little too lonely. You’ve put the day behind you and you’re about to change phase. You’re going to go into hibernation for a few hours. Become a chrysalis. Transform yourself into tomorrow’s person.
You need a wedge to create a little space for you between the day and the night, a small private space put down right there where you can sit with your guard down for a few minutes, safe with your own thoughts and at peace. And eat something warm in complete comfort.
Without a stove and some hot food and hot drinks you feel a little too far from home. You’re totally on the outside of everything.
You’re way out there, and maybe you feel like you don’t quite have enough to hang on to. You’re traveling lighter and leaner, that’s true, and that’s good, as far as it goes. You spend less time fussing and organizing things, all right. (There are no dishes to wash for one thing.) But still you can feel like you’re both a little too close to and a little too far from the landscape somehow, like you’re not really there at all.
Something like being in a new car showroom surrounded by perfectly-polished sheet metal that has never been touched by human hands, sitting expectantly on top of those squeaky clean tires on a linoleum floor, waiting.
That new car smell all around, and you don’t need a new car, you don’t want a new car, you don’t care. What you want is to feel real, like being somewhere with someone you belong with, being welcome, and you can just never get that feeling in a showroom. A showroom never feels like home.
Maybe I’m just not as adventurous as I’d like to be. Maybe I need that puppy to come home to. Is any of this making sense? Am I all alone?
Maybe not. I go lighter than 99% of everyone out there, and I don’t build big scary wood fires. A small wood fire can be nice when you need smoke to confuse mosquitoes. But I don’t like to build fires. Most people think being outdoors means burning things. I’m off in the fringe, I’ll admit, but perhaps not too different from everybody else.
I don’t go outdoors so I can just sit and burn things. But I still like a hot cup of something, and the idea that I’m in control of my world. And the feeling that I’ve done well and can relax every now and then and have a decent meal. In peace. And feel at home on the trail.
That’s what a stove is good for, and why I almost always carry one.