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Writer’s block sniffs out bad end to year
Kootenay Crust
By Ian Cobb
Carrie feverishly cleans the house; Swiffering and sweeping and wiping and vacuuming; polishing and dusting and stowing and stashing.
I am slumped in my office chair glaring at my Mac, feeling off-put by its insistence in me paying attention to it, like a too-oft concussed blue heeler with a stick in its mouth.
One last thing to write this year… I harken back and forward and sideways, searching my brain for a shred of an idea. The Mac stares back at me, cold and baleful.
Swiff…Swiff…Swiff… Swiff…
I start to think about the year that was.
Swifffffff… Swifffffff… Swifffffff…
This past year was one of big changes for Carrie and I.
The big personal change was a move to a new home during the summer. After a myriad of renovation projects, including the stripping and re-modeling of the interior of our new home and office, we moved to Gold Creek to provide care for Carrie’s Pa.
Upheaval and challenge was the tone for the year as we balanced our personal lives and tried to make a living. As Carrie joked the other day, “When the time comes that we tell our inspiring story, this year will be a popular chapter.”
This year was life. Life happens; simple as that. As Hunter S said, “No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well… maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”
Swiff…Swiff…Swiff… Swiff…
I pause before my computer, which smirks unsympathetically at me.
Sniff… sniff… sniff… smoke. Icky smoke; non-firewood in a woodstove smoke.
EEEEraagghhhh! (A vacuum starts)
Sniff… sniff… Step outside and take a look at the chimney. Black flakes, paper-like but more fibrous, puff out of the chimney cap. Hmmm, I declare deeply and step back inside, my brain grappling with the last image of the chimney – a distinct orange glow.
The smoke inside is thicker and ickier. I step back outside onto the deck and look at the chimney cap. Dancing flames; surrealism; vooof! The chimney cap looks like a fresh-lit match.
I calmly walk inside and bellow to Carrie, “Better go tell Pa the chimney is on fire!”
I step back out onto the deck just outside my office, only 10 or so feet from the top of the chimney, and accessible via a ladder already in place. Hmmm. I try to make a snowball out of the powdery cold snow. It breaks into a million pieces before reaching the flames.
That’s when the panic began. Seized with a shiver of “this is happening ahhhh,” I burst inside to find a bucket or fire extinguisher or… and I can’t even find a glass or cup; Carrie’s obsessive year-end cleaning binge is going to be the end of us, I wither and freak. I run back outside, deciding to go up the ladder and shovel snow from the roof onto the fire but it is now out. Carrie’s Dad is outside, below the deck, looking up. “She’s out now right?” He asks.
I nod and shout “yes.” When alerted to the fire he blasted a fire extinguisher up into the woodstove and that blasted the chimney fire up and out.
The incredible thing is he told Carrie that morning that he was going to let the fire die out to clean the stove and chimney; like her, he wanted to do a post-Christmas clean.
Shortly afterward, we looked up the chimney and it was bare and clean. We reckon the flare-up had something to do with the stove cooling down after burning so hot during this cold snap. When the fire began, Carrie’s Pa said he heard “the jet roar up,” a sign that a stovepipe or chimney is afire.
I mention this not just allegorically, but with a message of safety, too.
Carrie’s Pa is meticulous with his wood heat. From the wood used to the condition of the stove and accessories to having fire extinguishers handy. It is proof that such fires can happen to anyone.
It is also proof that writer’s block isn’t as bad as it sounds. Normally, on a day like today, sunny and crisp and glorious, writer’s block would send me scrambling forth, camera in hand and exploration flag flying. But this being the last day of 2014, I HAD to write a final column. I was nose-up-against my deadline and it smelled like smoke!
Oh how life’s passage so oft comes with intense meaning; actions taken, or not taken, leading to profound outcomes.
To all of you, may 2015 be a year of intense meaning and profound outcomes and may you and yours be carried along on a positive and uplifting current.
Love and Wombat Fritters (with shallots and a nice white wine sauce), Happy New Year! And Go Canada go!
