Magical

It was in celebration of Kristina's birthday. She did not say as much but her birthday is near, so why wouldn't it be? Amber and I decided at some point that she was our family--possibly our beloved adopted daughter--and required gentle doting whenever possible. (Though family, it is family with whom Amber and I have decided it is fun to flirt. Kristina is not, to my knowledge, bothered by this.) Amber ordered various small gifts to present to Kristina in the parking lot of Ferncliff Forest, where we waited only a few minutes for Aaron and Amanda (escorted by Robot, the Good Dog) to arrive.

Kristina sorts through the bag, blushing into her hands at some organic, random candle Amber had bought her. Kristina, without need, brings us a variety of presents on occasions such as Christmas and our anniversary. It is difficult to predict what these will be--most recently, there was a pair of wheels that one can tie to one's shoes to cause sparks--but there is a joy in them existing at all.

Aaron and Amanda pull into the overfull parking lot a few minutes after Kristina arrives. (When one must socially distance, those who might otherwise be better occupied at a movie or restaurant decide instead to patronize a public park.) Aaron apologizes on arrival that he was late owing to being anxious or sad. All of us were also late. I considered minor mental healthcare as a fine reason to be other than punctual, having no doubt subjected others to this and worse.

We walk to the site to give it a going over. It is a far better one with a more enclosed (but still open enough) shack in which to rest for the night if one were in need. I do not understand, knowing this is here, how one would choose something else.

I had purloined a few logs from the remains of a tree that fell on my apartment's property over the summer, assuming that they would not be missed. I had thought that the campsite we would be occupying for a few hours was closer. When Kristina shows me the spot, far away from any other site, I pronounce that we will just have to scavenge sticks. I am not about to haul them all, but Aaron offers to help, and I let him. Kristina, who had accidentally left a cooler full of vegetables and was having her family bring them, joined us as well to wait in the parking lot.

She is one with the fire

Kristina, for the most part, gets along with people. I have yet to meet the person whom she detests, but I still appreciate how comfortably Aaron and Amanda slotted into this aspect of my life. I have, as well chronicled here, tried to make other friends, but none have fit as well as these two. The five of us get along as a unit in a way that is startling and so appreciated. I have managed individual friends, couple friends briefly, but it has been a good long while since I have had a proper friend group. I wouldn't be too eager trying to squish others into this coterie.

Kristina had also forgotten the scaffolding for the cast iron pan and wasn't going to summon her family back with it, so we placed it directly on the fire. Much as Amber offers herself to tend fires as a matter of course, I assume the role of the cook, having brought seasoned chicken, potatoes, and sliced summer squash. Kristina brought other vegetables, as I've noted, and smore fixings. Everything else being well-covered, I told Aaron to bring only their beautiful selves, which they did with gusto.

I have not cooked with cast iron, but it is a tool that best fits a campfire. It would seem almost ridiculous on a modern oven, though perhaps one of those antique stoves fed by wood. Kristina offered a plastic spatula, which Amber knew on sight was a bad idea, but it survives until after the potatoes were cooked, after which I did my best with a wooden spoon that had a much higher melting point.

When I add more olive oil, the fire catches it, resulting in a second flame contained within the pan. I wonder aloud if I couldn't simply cook with it like this, since I have no means to cut off its oxygen. Amber wraps her sweatshirt around her fist and yanks it off the campfire and into the dirt, which it flares until its fuel is exhausted.

I like cooking now. I didn't before, but I've grown fond as I've become more adept and like especially cooking for friends. This year has not been generous in giving opportunities.

Socially distances

I ask my friends around the fire, growing hungrier as I learn my way around cast iron, if they have read the His Dark Materials series. Aaron says that he has barely read ten books. (Since when? Ever? I did not ask.) Kristina has a hard time reading, so I don't press her.

I explain instead, likely doing The Subtle Knife a disservice, that a character can use a knife that can cut holes between dimensions, but only after having cut off several of his fingers with it. Though to a far smaller degree, I feel that I only became a cook after having badly sliced the tip of my left middle finger when preparing chicken.

Amber pronounces that it wasn't as bad as I am making it seem. It bled for hours, through three bandages, despite the pressure I placed on it. When I did manage to look at it while changing the Band-Aid days later, the tip had been half severed. Wasn't as bad as I am making it seem, indeed.

After this injury, I became more adept and enthusiastic about cooking, possibly because I better respected and understood my tools. Still, I tell Amber that she is to give me a wide berth when I am in the kitchen, as seconds matter when we are dealing with heat and, with some recipes, I have three timers counting down in my head. She is a creature in constant need of tea, though, and so she will interrupt my cooking at least once per meal to slake her thirst.

Cooking for others, aside from being a way in which I can make myself useful and being something that I have grown to enjoy doing, feels like a form of love. "Here. This was a raw, dead bird with some weeds, but now it is a delicious lemon sage chicken."

With the remnants of garlic from cooking asparagus and mushrooms, the influence of an open fire, and the cast iron, the subtleties of the dish are lost. Faintly ferrous forest chicken is worth the experience no matter.

As is the nature of this, our COVID Year, we begin masked but, as the night and meal progresses (it is but one pan and food for us and more, so it cannot be cooked all at once), we grow laxer. If we keep to appropriate distance, it doesn't seem as onerous in the open air. The masks are a constant on our persons, around necks or on wrists. As I am cooking, I do not want the mask compounding the wafts of smoke soaking into all the fabric on my body and assume either the heat or smoke is disinfectant enough.

I feel newer in their company, in the night, beside this fire as I rattle off about arcane scientific history disasters and the trickiness of nuclear semiotics. I am so accustomed only to Amber's company that I forget having other wells of knowledge. She has heard all my anecdotes enough.

I have in the past tried to urge along a connection because I was bored, lonely, and hungry. It results in dissatisfaction with the new associates because they could not be more. Even at its best, the tentative friendship put me on edge. I was not truly safe with them. Not physically unsafe, but more an annoyance that I knew this was not what I needed, which transmuted to a subtle vexation with people who had done nothing more wrong than not being my tribe.

Too, I don't feel an urge to worry or overanalyze with the four of them. They like me, I know on a level deeper than conscious thought and do not question that I am worthy of it.

Even doing little, my time is not wasted with them, nor my energy misspent. Even if I didn't like these people--which I conspicuously do--I would like them better for sharing this. I absorb as much of this night as possible, knowing the possibility of these is dwindling. Soon, it will be next to impossible to enjoy the company of others and I know better than to try. (Amber has said of the COVID restrictions that she "wins," by which she means that she is not pulled away from her studying and pets so that I can force her to go to restaurants, concerts, and movies.) I can cherish these nights in the living of them and record my pale shadow of them in my writing so that, in darkest February, I can be reminded of the light of this fire on this night.

We summoned a fire spirit

Kristina tosses packets into the fire. I expect a few moments of color, but the effect lasts (and even improves) until Amber puts out the fire nearly an hour later. Well worth the money, though I decide that I wouldn't trust the smores this rainbow fire might produce.

We are back in the parking lot by nine, though Amber had hoped for eight. Given that she kept feeding the fire, this was not a possibility. This was the end time Kristina had given and that I had related to Amber, so I tell her that I am impressed at our punctuality.

last watched: Samurai Champloo
reading: Aleister Crowley: Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World