December 7, 2019

I love a fire in winter. The crackling of the logs, the smoke going up the chimney, the smell that brings back so many memories of winters long ago.

I grew up with a fireplace straight out of "The Brady Bunch" school of design, in 1960s multi-colored slate. But when you lit the fire, you didn’t see the ugly design, just the colors of the fire burning bright.

With four kids and two careers, my parents were often too busy to take the time to make a fire. So when they did, it was usually for a party or on a holiday.

Later in life, my parents purchased their own little “On Golden Pond” in the Poconos with a beautiful, stone, floor-to-ceiling fireplace. When my dad passed away, my mom insisted that the house and that fireplace had added years to his life.

It was the place where he slowed down and allowed himself to just be. He would build a crackling fire and listen to classical music, watching the flames for hours. It was his place of pure relaxation, and I loved to watch him just watch that fire.

His joy in front of that country fire stirred my quest for my own fireplace. To me it was a symbol of complete respite from the world, requiring that you take the time to build it, stoke it and then just stop everything to enjoy it.

When we were buying our first home in Washington, D.C., we looked at a house with the fireplace in the bedroom. The idea of waking up to the embers of a smoldering fire truly lit up my imagination. But apparently it could have actually lit us up — the inspector told us the flue didn’t work properly. We ended up buying a house without a fireplace.

But after a harsh winter (In D.C., that means two inches of snow), I began to dream of cozy nights around the fire again. And then I saw it, on a nearby street: a house under construction that had a real chimney.

Just like Natalie Wood did in "Miracle on 34th Street," I told my husband to stop the car, and I ran into that half-built house and stopped in my tracks. There, as the centerpiece of the family room, was a real, floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace. The only thing that could have made the moment better was if Santa’s cane was leaning against it.

We made an offer on that house the next day.

But we only enjoyed that fireplace for a few years when we made the move to Rochester, where our house had a gas fireplace. So much easier, they told me. You just flip a switch and there you have it — instant fire. No kindling to gather, no newspapers to save, no logs to dry. Of course they forgot to tell me that all the fun would go out of having a fire. No effort means no satisfaction at having built it.

If you own a gas fireplace, I get why you love it. It is easier. But I’d rather have difficult, earning the right to sit and ponder the flames you just made. With a gas fireplace, I only pondered whether the flames were real and actually hot.

This past week, in our new home in downtown Rochester, we built our first fire in the epically old and huge stone fireplace. We opened the flue and crossed our fingers that our fire-making skills still existed. After a few attempts, it stuck.

Now, all I have to do is practice the sitting-still-and-staring-at-the-fire part.

As first published in the Democrat + Chronicle and on the USA Today Network