The Life and Times of the Plume

I married a man.  Or, I thought I married a man.  It’s more complex than that.  I married fire.  I married the smoke of burning forests and grasslands, the hiss of singed deer as they drop down into lakes and streams, the billowing black that stains lungs and stings eyes, the rasping cough of tall flame.  I married lightning strikes, the violent explosions of tree trunks,  yellow shirts and green pants filthy with ash and sweat, the buzz of chainsaws, the danger of hovering helicopters, the maniacal purr of bulldozers and the crimson stripes of retardant turning mountain slopes to checkerboards.  I married the long, hot kisses of homecoming.  I  married cooking for one.  I married the blown out knees, the compressed vertebrae, the broken bones that come with too many hard landings.  I married the whispering silk of parachutes and the hum of industrial sewing machines.  I married a new lexicon; now I speak Canadian, American and fire.  I married childbearing in my late thirties, or early forties, or not at all.  Maybe I married lonesomeness in old age.  Maybe I married freedom and adventure for all my life.  I married the eternal wait for permanent positions, the bureaucratic crap that comes with federal employment, the tangle of job applications, the hope for interviews, the joy of reunions with our fire family at the start of the season and throughout winter.  I married missing Idaho and all her wild lands and all her dizzy skies.  For now, I am married to the Methow Valley.  I married summers alone but thank God for those short nights and long lasting sunsets and my little cabin in the woods.  I married winters of leisure, with just him and I.  I love winter.  I married the bros.  Then I married all their wives.  I married the last minute work details, the wilderness areas without cell service, the breakdown in communication after too many weeks apart.  I married trying not to cry on the phone.  After all, what can he do about it when he is so far away?  I married the black soot that rims the shower after he washes up.  I married stinky boots.  I married Pendleton whisky in a little green flask — his, not mine.   I married chewing tobacco — not his, theirs.  I married all of these things, but there are things I did not marry.  I did not marry fear, too stillness, evaporation of dreams.  I did not marry resentment.  I did not marry charcoaled wastelands, only clean slates and bald openness which green will velvet and the fuzz of fireweed blossoms will paint magenta.  There is the blessing and curse of opposites, bumping and whirling like magnets at play: I did not marry water, I married flame, though water I may be.  Perhaps this is pure spring creek flowing through me, water siphoned through steady bedrock, filtered with diamonds; a cool, melodic laugh rising up as I trip my way down mountain slopes and cascade in clouds from the razor edges of slate.  Perhaps I am the thing to soften, the thing to wear away the weary skin of tired things, the thing to make room for newness, the thing to quench all of these flames, the thing to unlock the trap of heat, to weight the power of the wind.  Perhaps I am the thing to calm and gently quell, to put out the smoulder of red where it licks against the black of night.  Perhaps, in the end, the true job of a fire wife is to provide for the ache of thirst, to be the small rain when it’s wild flame as far as a man can see.  If so, it’s a good thing I married fire.  I think I’m just what it needs.