Written by J. Mitchell Brown
t’s hard to believe as I sit here in the middle of November, in shorts, barefooted, with the office door open, and the squeals and laughter of the children across the cove at May River Montessori, that I’m about to pen an article on fire pits. Just the thought of a fire right now makes me break out in a sweat. But, alas, this is wintertime, and I’ve been hanging on this article idea since May, so regardless of my perspiration, I’m going to dive right in.
This is a wonderful time of year in Bluffton. Eightydegree weather not withstanding, you can feel the energy of the holidays begin to build. The river begins clearing up as the water temperature drops to that magic number where we can begin to enjoy oysters in earnest. The Home Depots and Lowes and Targets around town begin piping in holiday music and you drive down 46 eagerly awaiting the Cahills to have a stand of Christmas trees in front of their market.
The sun sets earlier and earlier, but instead of giving up and going to bed, we find ourselves running drop cords and spotlights to our oyster tables and playgrounds so we can extend our time outdoors. Event planning moves away from sandbar days and boat rides and towards horseshoe pits and backyards.
It’s a good time of year, indeed.
Back when I added on to our home to give my daughters a bedroom, I had my “Rock Star” architect make me an outdoor living area, complete with a fireplace constructed with Savannah Grey bricks. I had envisioned posh gatherings on a sprawling porch, maybe a buffet set up along the house wall, and an open bar near the bandstand. My friends, dressed in finery, would swirl and twirl to the music, clink glasses in merriment, and toast me as the quintessential host with lavish thanks for opening and sharing my home.
As it is, I can barely get two rocking chairs in front of the fireplace, and even then, whoever is sitting in one rocker needs to be rocking back at the same speed the other is rocking forward, lest they bump heads. It is a quaint porch, to say the least, and is more suited to quiet book reading and one-on-one visiting than any real crowd gathering. During our first post-construction party, I commented, in fact, that I found it odd that a majority of my guests were congregating in my workshop when I had a cheery little fire going on in my outdoor fireplace.
“It’s a little too... a little too... familiar,” is how one polite guest explained why I’d never see more than two or three people in front of the fireplace at once.
Well, so far this year, I’ve been blessed with friends who want me at their homes, and if I’ve been to one backyard gathering this fall, I’ve been to two dozen. And every single one of them, bar none, has had some type of fire feature.
We’d go over to The Berm where the fire pit is large and inviting and has chairs all around it so everyone can see everyone else. My brother-in-law’s family has a great bricked in oyster cooking spot, with another quaint fire pit nearby where people keep warm until the next batch is ready. There are two pits I frequent on Heyward Cove, one a small scratched out spot in the dirt where people stand around and chat, and then a true bon-fire at the Crack Shack that lights up the sky when fully engulfed.
I walk away with great memories every time I attend a function at one of these homes. And that’s what I want my friends to feel when they leave my home.
So one day I was walking around behind my house, scouting out a good location for my fire pit. I had a stack of one-man-boulders near my back fence that were left over from some construction work. I began schlepping them across through the woods and plopped them down near the bluff on Huger Cove, not so much because I thought that was a great place for a fire pit, but because I was winded by the time I got them there. I arranged them in a circle and stood back, expecting something great. What I had was just a circle of rocks with scrub oaks growing in the middle like some sort of defunct miniature Stonehenge.
Nonetheless, I got a couple of chairs and an old dock piling or two to sit on, built me a little flickering flame and grew it and fueled it until it was a big fire. The sun set at its appointed time, and the guests I had invited over for the Inaugural Burning were extremely punctual. As the last of the light settled in the sky, I overheard my friend’s wife say, “Isn’t the sunlight off the water in the cove spectacular?” I beamed with pride, as though I had planned the pit location with lasers and survey equipment, though I’ve learned long ago that the best things in life aren’t planned at all; they just happen.
For the evening, this small group of friends enjoyed easy laughter and warm banter. The worries of the world melted away in the flame that was like a hub in the center of these friendships. All was good for the evening and I was proud of my new fire pit, though I could feel the sad yearnings of my pretty fireplace up alongside the house.
Yesterday, my friend Adam called me after lunch with an invitation: “We’re doing an impromptu horseshoe tournament at our house at 3.” Enough said.
While there, Adam asked if I’d accompany him and Pep on the golf cart as we rode over to his parent’s house and raided their firewood pile. On the ride back, as we crossed over the Myrtle Island Bridge, the three of us remarked in awe at the burning crimson of the dusk sky over the motionless waters of the May. Picking up a dried out palm frond to use as kindling, Adam put into words what I’ve been trying to say all fall: “You know, you just can’t buy what we have here. While the river is good, and the sunsets are good, and the Lowcountry is good...none of it would be if it wasn’t for the very real friendships that we all share with one another.”
Pep concurred, adding, “Yep. There’s no doubt that we were all meant to be here together.”
Holding on to the golf cart as we bumped down the dirt lane back towards Adam’s house, I smiled, knowing he hit the nail on the head.
We returned to the house, loaded down with stolen wood, and started a fire in the chimenea. With the palm fronds so dry and hot, he literally got so much fire going that it sounded like the thrust of a jet engine coming out of the top of the flue.
“You just ain’t got a fire until you see flames coming out of the top,” Adam said, as he put up the blower he used to “stoke” the flames into a tempest.
I laughed and burrowed deeper into my Adirondack chair, my bare feet in front of the flames, and the friends of a lifetime surrounding me.
May you enjoy all the blessings of Bluffton this Christmas... and may there be many friends and fire pits in 2010.
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