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Campfire © 1999 Jim Lemire ♦ Zinzio
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The ants came in droves. Not like a sea or a carpet as one might think, but more like a mass or a tumor.
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This month my anxiety and anger have been a runaway fire razing my equanimity, wreaking a dark vengeance on all the structures I carefully built since my divorce. It seemed that all I could do was tie a moistened cloth over my face and beat out each flame that encroached, licking at my door in the high winds of hysteria, the bluster of fundamentalism.
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However canny we humans may think we are when it comes to controlling the forces around us, we do not know everything. We can’t foresee every twist, or figure out every variable. When we start to play with fire, maybe it will just clear out the undergrowth, or maybe it will go on to destroy the very things we care about and on which we depend.
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The Dwarf Pine Barrens is now recognized as a fragile and rare habitat in need of protection. Organizations have formed, laws have been passed and I like to think more people accept that a forest of quirky little trees has its place and value. The Dwarf Pine Barrens might not seem to have much in common with representative democracy, but the more I think about it, the more I believe it's all pinecones.
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Women need to learn from this Australian experiment—planned destruction can be productive, and lighting a fire under old wood can produce new growth. We don’t have to burn up alongside our creativity. Fire is just a tool—we can use it to help us be more creative, and I don’t just mean in the kitchen. From the ashes of our wasteland we can grow a thousand flowers.
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On one of my last days as a high school student, I visited Mr. Taguchi to say goodbye. He hugged me and said he was glad to see my name on the graduation list. He also told me he was glad that I wasn’t lurking in the bushes any more, playing with fire and smoking cigarettes. I realized then that I’d traded matches for poetry—one passion, one obsession for another.
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