A Chair at the Fire

There are people who know how to tend a situation. They notice who has not been introduced. They move a chair before anyone has to ask. They keep an eye on the potatoes while listening to the conversation. When somebody goes quiet, they make a little more room.

I know something about this.

For a long time I thought good tending meant keeping my attention on everyone else. My part was to notice what the situation required and, where I could, provide it.

There is generosity in that. There is also a curious geometry.

Everyone is inside the circle except the person tending it.

Not deliberately. No one has been excluded. The person moving the chairs simply hasn’t thought to sit down.

I have been wondering what happens if I redraw the circle.

Not by putting myself in the middle. Not by deciding that, after years of looking after other people, it is finally my turn to come first.

Nothing I was doing needs to have been wrong.

Perhaps the circle simply wasn’t quite complete.

If I belong to the situation I am tending, then what happens to me belongs to it too. If I am tired, that is part of the situation. If I am curious, that is information. If something costs me more than I can comfortably carry, the cost doesn’t disappear because I am good at carrying it.

And if I would like to stay by the fire and hear how the story ends, perhaps that matters as well.

This is such a small adjustment that it can be difficult to see.

Someone still notices when the fire is getting low and fetches another log. Someone shifts it when the smoke blows into another person’s face. Someone notices the newcomer standing at the edge and brings another chair.

The tending continues.

Only now the person tending the fire is not standing outside the scene.

The smoke gets in his eyes too. Someone passes him a cup. He hears the stories. Something another person says may change what he thought he knew.

He belongs to the situation he is tending.

I don’t particularly want to become less attentive to other people. I don’t want to stop bringing the extra chair. There are worse ways to spend a life than noticing what might help an Us continue.

But lately I have begun to notice one more person in the gathering.

It is almost embarrassing how long I overlooked him.

Not self-care as compensation for caring.

Not withdrawal from responsibility.

The same gesture, extended just a little further.

There is room at the fire.

I bring another chair.

This time, I sit in it.