The Bullet Hole Chair

I looked around for something to sit on while I wrote and tended a flaming burn pile. It was a fine sunny morning at the sanctuary, the dogs were in the back yard, and I was giddy at the prospect of my first burn pile in over a decade. Over the years I’ve spent my good long hours around burn piles, alone, with friends, dates, dogs, but the habit got away from me. That was a mistake.

A bald eagle circled overhead. I heard geese upriver. I heard a logging operation and the distinctive toot of the of the horn that signaled a fallen tree was ready to be hauled up the hill and later loaded on a truck and sent to a mill or China. I’m glad I knew what that toot meant. That knowledge comes in handy when writing about Oregon and clearcut metaphors.

The fire was ripping and the scent delighted me; the manual labor delighted me.

A rusted metal chair near the house caught my eye. I went over to inspect it as a possible chair candidate. It looked as if it had absorbed a million gallons of Oregon rain the last 30 years and its sturdiness seemed dubious.

I examined the chair. It had a bullet hole through its back. Someone had shot the chair! It had survived.

Now that really delighted me!

I picked up the chair and brought it over to the burn pile. I sat on it. Rock solid. I knew I was going to write a letter to a friend from this chair while tending the fire and hanging out with the dogs. I also knew I had just commenced a new chapter in my writing life because I would be taking the rusted bullet-hole chair home with me and write everything while sitting in it.

Where will the writing go from this chair? Or should I say, where will the chair lead the writing?

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