family

By Lisa Scottoline

You may have heard that I’m single, and I like being single, because after two marriages and two divorces, I’m finally the boss of me.

What a great boss I am! 

And what a great employee!

In both capacities, I’m easy and fun to work with.  I never dock my pay and I always do my best.  I give myself great performance reviews, and now I’m thinking about eliminating performance reviews altogether.  Who’s to stop me?

Nobody!

Yay!

And going along my merry single way, I’ve learned to do many of the tasks that Thing One and Thing Two used to do.

There weren’t that many.

And to tell the truth, there was something that both Thing One and Thing Two could do very well. 

Make a fire.

Whether it was in the fireplace or the grill, they were good at fire.

I’m not.  

I try not to think that this is gender-related, but men have made fire since caveman days, while women stayed inside, swept the cave, and plotted divorce.

Anyway, since I’ve gotten single, I’ve cleaned gutters, taken out trash, painted walls and windowsills, and even hammered something. 

I pretty sure I did that, once.

Or, again, to tell the truth, I’ve hired somebody to do all of the above.  So I have all the same things I had before, except the fire part, which I have done without, to date.

But now, ages later, I’m missing fire. 

Not the barbeque.  I’m single enough without smelling like lighter fluid. 

But I do miss a fire in the fireplace.  I liked having a homey family hearth, even though I’m a family of one.

I count!

That’s the trick to single living.  Don’t do less for yourself just because you’re the only one around.  Don’t discount yourself.  It’s no way to live, with the idea that your wishes don’t matter. 

And this is true, whether you’re married or not. 

I think it happens a lot around the holidays.  We go on discount, selling ourselves cheap, like a January white sale.  It might happen because we do Norman Rockwell math, namely that ten people around the table = family. 

But family can be you, alone. 

After all, this is a country founded on the notion that one person matters.  Think of one man, one vote.  If you matter on Election Day, you matter the rest of the year.  So make yourself a nice lasagna and pour yourself a glass of Chianti.

You get the leftovers, too.

Back to the story.  I was missing a fire in the fireplace, but I’d never done it myself and I found it mystifying.  Again, the caveman thing.  Ooga booga.  Fire is magic!

But I decided to give it a whirl.  I remembered something about kindling, so I went outside and picked up sticks, then I remembered something about rolled up newspapers, so I did that, too.  Next, I found some old logs and stacked them up in some sensible manner.  And thanks to Bruce Springsteen, I knew I needed a spark.

Then I lit the mess.

Well. 

You know the expression, where there’s smoke, there’s fire?

It’s not true. 

I had smoke, but no fire.  And furthermore, I had a family room full of thick gray clouds, smoke alarms blaring, dogs barking, cats scooting, then phones ringing, and burglar alarm people calling, which ended in me giving them my password.

Which is HELP!

I called Daughter Francesca and told her what happened, and she said: “I’ll be home next week.  I’ll teach you how to make a fire.  It can be done, and by a girl.”

And one week later, she came home, piled the kindling, rolled the newspaper, stacked the logs, and made a perfect fire.  The cats, dogs, and I stood in an awed and happy circle. 

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“You gotta warm the chimney first.  Hold the roll of newspaper up, like this.”  Francesca hoisted a flaming torch of newspaper, like the Statue of Liberty.  “See?  You can do this.”

“Sure I can,” I said, inspired. 

I count! 

I vote! 

I’m American! 

So I can be the Statue of Liberty. 

She’s a girl, too.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline