The First Fire of the Season
· Connection
One tired evening, a backyard fire I almost skipped, and a reminder that the life we long for is usually hiding in the moments we are most tempted to miss.
[quote:People are drawn to warmth.]
The other night, Sarah and Ava wanted to build a fire. I didn't.
Not because I had anything against fires, I love fires. I was just tired. It had been one of those days where my brain felt completely full. Full of meetings, conversations, decisions, responsibilities, and all the little things that seem to follow us around long after the workday ends. All I wanted to do was sit on the couch, turn on a show, and let my brain take the night off.
So that's exactly what I did.
I sat down, grabbed the remote, and committed to spending the rest of the evening inside. Then I smelled the smoke. A few moments later, I looked out the window and saw the glow from the fire pit in the backyard.
Almost instantly, I found myself thinking, What am I doing in here? Because the truth is, these are the moments I dream about all winter long.
When it's ten degrees outside and the wind feels like it's trying to remove your face, I imagine evenings exactly like this one. Sitting outside with Sarah. Listening to the kids talk about whatever happens to be on their minds that day. Watching the dog patrol the backyard as if he's responsible for security. Feeling the warmth of a fire while the air cools around us.
Those are the moments I want. Those are the moments I hope my kids remember. Those are the moments I imagine when I think about what being a dad looks like. And somehow, there I was, voluntarily missing one.
So I put down the remote, walked outside, and pulled up a chair. At first, I just sat there quietly. I wasn't trying to have some profound experience. I wasn't looking for inspiration. Honestly, I was still carrying a lot of the day with me. But as the fire crackled and the conversations drifted from one topic to another, I noticed something happening. I started to decompress.
The tension I didn't realize I was carrying began to loosen. The constant mental chatter that had occupied my attention all day slowly faded into the background. The emails, the deadlines, the unfinished projects, and all the things that had felt so important a few hours earlier suddenly seemed willing to wait until tomorrow.
For the first time all day, I wasn't producing, solving, responding, fixing, or planning. I was simply present. And I've been thinking about that ever since.
The Things We Say We Want
A few days after that evening, I found myself reflecting on how easy it is to miss the very things we claim to value most. Ask almost any parent what matters most, and you'll hear some version of the same answer. Family. Time together. Relationships. Memories. Presence.
Ask people what they hope they'll remember twenty years from now, and very few will mention a perfectly managed inbox, another episode of a show they barely remember watching, or an extra hour spent scrolling through their phone. Yet somehow, despite knowing what matters, we often drift toward what is easy.
I know I do.
The couch is easy. The television is easy. Checking out is easy. Showing up can be harder. Not because it's difficult, but because it requires intention.
It requires us to recognize that the moments we long for rarely announce themselves as important while they're happening. They often look ordinary.
A backyard fire. A conversation. A walk. A meal around the table. An hour spent doing absolutely nothing productive. The irony is that these ordinary moments often become the memories we treasure most.
What Fire Has Always Given Us
The more I thought about that evening, the more curious I became about why it felt so restorative. It turns out there may be a reason.
Anthropologist Polly Wiessner spent years studying communities in the Kalahari Desert and discovered that conversations around evening fires were remarkably different from conversations that happened during the day. Daytime discussions focused primarily on work, responsibilities, and survival. But after sunset, when people gathered around the fire, conversations shifted toward storytelling, relationships, values, dreams, and the bigger questions of life.
That fascinated me because it feels exactly right.
For thousands of years, before there were living rooms, televisions, podcasts, and smartphones, there were campfires. Human beings gathered around them not only for warmth but for connection. Stories were shared. Wisdom was passed down. Relationships were strengthened. Communities were formed.
The fire wasn't simply providing heat. It was creating space. Space to slow down. Space to listen. Space to remember what mattered.
The Irish poet John O'Donohue once wrote, "One of the deepest longings of the human soul is to be seen." Maybe that's part of what happens around a fire. We see each other. Not through profiles, posts, or perfectly curated updates. But as people.
As I've been thinking about all this, I keep coming back to my friend Bob Hursthouse. Bob spends his days creating and maintaining incredible outdoor living spaces. Most people would say he builds patios, fire pits, outdoor kitchens, and beautiful backyards. I don't think that's what he builds at all. Bob builds gathering places.
Every time I think about campfires, I think about him. And every time I've sat around a fire with Bob, I've laughed, left a little happier, a little wiser, and a little more grateful. He's like a kid in a candy store around a campfire. You can almost see his excitement because he understands what most people miss.
The patio isn't the point. The fire pit isn't the point. The backyard isn't the point. The moments with your people is the point.
What Bob understands is that nobody remembers the retaining wall or the pavers twenty years later. They remember who was sitting there. They remember the laughter. They remember the stories. They remember how they felt. The space matters because of what it makes possible.
And that's what campfires have always been about. Not the fire itself. What happens around it.
More Connected, Less Connected
This feels particularly important right now. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has described loneliness as one of the greatest public health challenges facing our country. Despite having more ways to communicate than any generation in human history, many people report feeling increasingly isolated and disconnected.
That contradiction fascinates me. How can we be more connected than ever and yet feel more disconnected than ever? Maybe because communication and connection are not the same thing. Communication exchanges information. Connection exchanges humanity.
One can happen instantly. The other takes time. One can happen while multitasking. The other requires presence.
I wonder sometimes if what many of us are missing isn't another productivity tool, another streaming service, another social platform, or another life hack. Maybe we're simply missing more campfires. Not literal campfires necessarily, although those certainly help.
I mean places where we can slow down long enough to actually see one another.
The Warmest People I Know
As I thought about all this, I found myself reflecting on the people who have had the greatest impact on my life. Interestingly, they aren't necessarily the most successful people I've known. They aren't the wealthiest. They aren't always the smartest.
What they share is something far more memorable. Warmth.
Maya Angelou once said, "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." The older I get, the more convinced I become that she's right. When I think about mentors, friends, teachers, leaders, and family members who shaped my life, I rarely remember their accomplishments first.