Most woodpiles are made of wood, if you think of them that way. Mine is the spaces between: the aisles and runways that are a world for many creatures soft and warm.
from Woodpile by Peter Parnall


It sits out there, reminding us of this insurmountable, it seems right now, task ahead of us of stacking this pile. Which seems like a combination of a burden and a gift.
The other night the kids and Jonathan put on their work gloves and went out and stacked for a bit while I worked on dinner in the house. It was warm outside, and doing this task now, for our benefit in a season that comes long after the spring we are just beginning to glimpse, helps us remember to enjoy the now. I think I may have heard the basketball bouncing from time to time. I was not expecting much to have changed, what with the bouncing ball, waning interests, the likely poorly chosen hour to begin just before dinner. But this morning I noticed this.
I assumed the stacking as it had happened last year had been done by Jonathan or myself with the kids bringing wood from where it was dumped over to us, and soon peeling off to engage in some more interesting hootenanny. But Jonathan reported that no, in fact Nicholas had done the stacking. There is no better sign that he is growing than the carefulness and solidity of this stack of wood. It is small. But it is well done.
And he hopes for monetary reimbursement. See? Growing up.
We are going to stack this wood, over the next few weeks...perhaps months...and create for ourselves all the spaces, stories, and togetherness between. This wood will give us time together now with a common task and then rest here, improving with time, becoming drier and more burnable. And in the winter, we will revisit its pieces, hauling them into the house and be drawn toward their warmth.
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