Fire!

...also my bulb list, Van Gogh, violas, social skills, and being a good ancestor

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I adore Andrew Huberman and his long form podcasts. He is obsessed with boiling everything down to practicalities - or what he calls ‘protocols’ or ‘tools’ and I love me a bit of takeaway. It’s all very well being inspired by brilliant people who are making a difference in the world, but I want to know what time they wake up and what they eat for breakfast. His podcast on back pain was almost life-changing to me. His most recent interview is with someone called Ari Wallach who was talking about that well-known idea of ‘Cathedral Mindset’ - the thing where the medieval guy who lays the first foundation stone of the mighty cathedral does so in the certain knowledge that he will not live to see the thing completed. Ditto planting acorns for our great- great - grandchildren. Wallach said that whenever he gets stuck in the weeds of life, he has trained himself to focus on what he calls ‘The Long Path’. I like this idea of aiming towards being a good ancestor; it removes the obsession around getting every decision right and lays emphasis squarely on the handing on of love, joy, wisdom, resilience, critical thinking…whatever you happen to think is important.

I’m an absolute philistine in exhibitions and museums; I dash to the things I want to gawp at, have a close look, and then hightail it out of there to the shop. I LOVE a museum shop. I will tell you what I bought at the shop another time. I’m not good in crowds but happy to loll around behind people and gaze at the things I love from afar…but wow the Van Gogh turned me into a proper, hands-behind-the-back peer-er. I was helpless iron filings. It is perfectly hung and exquisitely lit (I am desperate to know what colours they used on the walls…I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit attempting to find out…who can direct me to this important information???)

You simply can’t get Van Gogh until you’re up close looking at the paint protruding from the canvas. It’s really more like sculpture than painting when it’s in front of you IRL. My photos are humiliatingly bad, but also a case in point, you just need to believe me and go and look yourself:

You can imagine the application of the oily gloop…did he use a knife or a brush? (I am painfully ignorant) but my God it makes you look. Somehow the frenzied obsessiveness, the crazed depth of it all just doesn’t register when you’re looking at them in a book or on a screen. Just not the same. And just so many paintings. The love and the sadness, the inability to do anything else other than to be profoundly himself. I found myself wanting to comfort him, to mother him.

My son started attending a big all-boys secondary school in September. Things were going well until they weren’t. It seems eleven year old boys can be just as mean as eleven year old girls. We’re all just trying to fit in with our tribes aren’t we, driven by that part of our brain created way back when being held safe inside a group was a matter of life and death. It seems that my child, who isn’t one to change his behaviour in order to satisfy a group, would have been left to the wolves, having fallen foul of something or other…anyway, it all got a bit Lord of the Flies. Often when things consume me I start seeing reflections of that thing everywhere. This, despite my loathing of the term ‘mama-bear’ was…fitting,

Interestingly I just pulled this from the internet and realise that in the moment I mis-read ‘beats’ and replaced it with ‘eats’ in my crazed brain. ‘Eats’ would have been a better story.

And then this piece from Tania Edwards, about the skill of reading a room reminded me that rightly or wrongly, we all adopt ways of developing this muscle. I remember vaguely realising rather late, perhaps in my twenties, that it’s all a bit of a game. At 11 you’re just starting that journey of working out how to navigate a group. You can drift around on the sides watching, or you can take a deep breath and dive in. It’s a lot, sending your child into the pool every day…will he sink, or will he swim? After fantasising privately about having certain people put to death, I came to my senses and got him to build a fire.

Unlike many of the Rotter’s ideas, his outdoor fireplace fantasy was one that I shared whole-heartedly. We love a fire, it really is just the best thing, particularly in the coldest months because it is a sure way to get children out of the house and into the garden. For a long time I somehow thought it must be possible to lounge outside in the winter. I think social media is to blame for this misconception - photographs of people sitting on outdoor sofas in winter, under outdoor blankets lit by outdoor fairy lights - it’s an illusion really. Yes you can get all this stuff out for a photoshoot but on a daily basis, you’re going to be hauling giant cushions inside and outside, and there is mud, and there are wet leaves…no, I’m talking about putting on your puffer and plunging your hands in your pockets and standing around a fire, or at a pinch, wiping the wet off some outdoor furniture and perching on it. The point is the warmth, and the sound, and the smell of a real fire, and the joy of keeping it lit, and poking at it and staring into it.

A fire bowl is an easy addition, even to a small space, and you can of course make it double up as a barbecue. I think it’s important for the stand to be quite tall, because we don’t all have loungy seating and sometimes you just want to stand, - something like this, which is made in UK would be what I’d go for if I were buying now.

The other option, is to use a regular fire bin. I am a huge fan of these bins; I used one for years to burn things that wouldn’t compost. They work incredibly well and, again, are hugely useful when you want to enjoy the outdoors with friends on a chilly evening.

Although I fully understand the idea of putting a gas fire outside, I just can’t fully get on board with it…there’s no lovely smell or comforting popping fizzing crackling sounds, and crucially, you don’t get to build it. We used to use a fire-bowl on a table in the garden, but because I didn’t always clean it out between use (if I were buying one now I’d DEFINITLEY get one with a lid) it was often filled with wet yuck at the bottom and that put me off using it. No disrespect to fire bowls - they are epic if you are less of a slattern about storing them away after each use - but now that we have an actual fireplace, with a ‘roof’ to keep it dry, we have fires much more regularly and I can just hand an old newspaper and a lighter to a discombobulated boy and tell him to go make a fire, and everything becomes better, at least for a little while.

I have finally ordered tulips after ruminating for ages. This always happens and then half the ones I want are sold out. Anyway, I did this combination, below, from Farmer Gracy and I’m now fully excited, and as you can see I’ve added some more tinies to satisfy my bulbs-on-a-table ambitions:

I have stopped short of paperwhites because I am unsure of my Christmas moves, and also I have a yearning for amaryllis which are eyewateringly expensive unless you get them from bargain bins after Christmas. I have this hovering in my Sarah Raven basket - how utterly beautiful is she? Should I get her? I’ve also been planting pots of viola, picking away to make sure they keep flowering. The flowers are so sweetly scented and they go beside beds, because I have this rather woo fancy that this will help me to dream about good things.

Thank you for reading this far! Do please ‘like’ this post by clicking on the heart icon if you enjoyed it. I will be back soon (possibly on Tuesday next week rather than Monday because it is half term) with more unimportant things.

x Laetitia