The Firepit
A friend I've known for more than twenty years is about to turn fifty. We met in our twenties, working with teenagers in social care, and since then we've shared workplaces, a house for a while, weddings, children, businesses, and more conversations than I could count. Some friendships don't need maintaining. They simply continue.
I wanted her to have her birthday present early, before the weather quietly packed summer away — a firepit for her newly decorated garden, along with a handful of bay leaves, pinecones and cinnamon sticks. Not because any of it is expensive. Because it changes the experience. When the fire burns, the cinnamon sweetens the smoke, the pinecones crackle, and the bay leaves let go of their scent into the evening air.
Some presents are really invitations — to slow down, to sit outside a little longer, to gather people.
After we'd finished painting the garden walls, we lit the fire. Each of us wrote something on a bay leaf before dropping it into the flames. I don't know what the others asked for. Mine was simple: a business that encourages people to be themselves. A husband who one day chooses work because he wants to, not because he has to. Good health. A long, happy marriage.
The fire took every wish without judgement.
