Posted by Shane Becker on
<p>right before that holiday at the end of november where most people celebrate the wholesale slaughter of millions of indigenous peoples of the americas, this band called <a href="http://www.buyolympia.com/crimethinc/sid=344569896/plastic.html">requiem</a> played a show in provo. so a bunch of us salt lake kids that basically all live at the same intersection [some people have started calling this intersection 'revolution square', but i digress] went up there for the house show. it was a couple of provo bands, requiem and greyskull from tacoma, washington. i haven't had that much fun at a house show or a hardcore show in a long long time. it was good to see brian from requiem again. and what's his face from greyskull. he's so freaking posi, its great. the tacoma kids are also big proponents of the game where one person makes a circle fingers [like the a-ok sign] below someone else's waste. if person #2 looks at it then person #1 gets to punch person #2. except with the caveat that we don't play with punching, just humiliation and ridicule. good times. good times. </p>
<p>after the show, most of the salt lake kids went up to the spanish fork area to some hot springs. apparently, everyone was supposed to know about the plan for doing this ahead of time. i didn't, neither did shawn, neither did a bunch of people. so we ended up with some people not quite properly prepared in the clothing, lights, and towel departments; namely we hade 2 towels for 14 people. ugh. oh yeh. there was snow on the ground, you could see your breath and it was a two mile hike into the mountains to get to the hot spring.</p>
<p>now, when i say 'hot spring', that's more of a figure of speech than a statement of fact. first off, somewhere up the mountain from us was a spring. from there someone had run a long rubber hose to some rock formations that would make for good soaking. it also wasn't 'hot' so much as luke warm. and jesus christ, the sulfur stink was unbearable.</p>
<p>so as everyone is getting nekkid and dipping into the luke warm springs, shawn and i sit there, share a look at each that says "you're not really getting in there are you?" "who me? hell no."</p>
<p><em>plan b.</em> we saw some orange fire looking flashes down the hill a bit that we decided to explore further. turns out someone did not heed warnings of smokey the bear about putting camp fires out <em>completely.</em> so what we have here is a burning ember poking out of the middle of the creek/small river running through it all. </p>
<p>just so we're clear, let me repeat that:</p>
<blockquote><strong>we found fire in the water.</strong></blockquote>
<p>this is too good to pass up. shawn pulls it out. we find little bits of tinder and nurse it back to a small campfire. when we're out scouting out more firewood to keep it going, we stumble across a bunch of dry branches clearly already pulled by someone for just this purpose. oh, right next to it is a fire pit that someone already made. jesus. we're just finding everything. if post crash was only this easy. we proceed to transplant the fire from the first spot [in the middle of the trail] to the fire pit and build it up right big like. we also found a candle in a jar lying around that we used as a kind of flashlight for finding more wood.</p>
<p>everyone heckled us for not getting in and basking in the stinky luke warmness, but then everyone enjoyed the fire when they were wet in the god forsaken cold with two towels for the 12 of them. score another down for pragmatism.</p>
<p>yes, we found fire in water. yes, we found a fire pit. yes, we found a candle and firewood ready to go. but the really amazing thing was the time spent with my friend shawn. maybe its something primal about building a fire. maybe it was because it was dark and it was hard to see each other so much. maybe the universe stepped back and took notice of us that night. but something happened out there. 'male bonding', 'good talk, see you out there' and 'building kinship' all do a grave injustice in describing the closeness and openness we shared that night.</p>
<p>we both said things that we needed to, that were important and weren't easy to say. we made ourselves vulnerable like when orca whales float on their backs showing the tender underbelly. we showed our weaknesses hoped for the best and were received by a friend who cared.</p>
<p>thank you, shawn. i won't soon forget that night.</p>
<p>Currently playing in iTunes: <i>November's Lie</i> by By The Grace Of God</p>