Tapestry

art by Stephanie Ann Farra

by Seth Kaplan

Let’s play a game. Imagine it’s the depths of winter. You wake from deep sleep to find your dwelling is burning. The fire rages. You have time to grab only three things. What would they be? 

This game has rules, but because this game is a figment of my imagination, I make the rules, and the rules are, everybody in the end, is safe.

First: Family/pets don’t count toward your list. But if you have a cat (or a son that’s dragging you down) by all means, go ahead and leave ‘em.  

Second: Hurry. Your walls, ceilings, and furniture are kindling. It’s go time. Therefore, “all framed photos” or “my grandmother’s china” aren’t acceptable choices, unless they’re already packed up and by the door ready to go. It’s going to get hot, soon. If you own a Banksy, snag it, quick. 

Third: Forget about insurance. You’ll be carbonized before you can figure out which jewelry has been appraised and which has not. Plus, precious metals and stones melt at ~2,000 degrees, so they’ll survive the common house fire. Assume nothing is covered. If the inferno (or Allstate’s paperwork) doesn’t entomb you, perhaps you’ll be reimbursed for your Louis Vuitton skateboard and Harry Winston ruby slippers. Wink. 

So, what’s it gonna be? Hello? Didn’t you agree to play the game?

Perhaps you’re immobilized by the decisions. 

Fine. I’ll go first. 

*

Since I’m upstairs, perhaps I grab each of my kid’s main stuffed animals, the bears. The ones, over the years, that have been most snotted and barfed on, covered in Cheerios and applesauce, dragged through oil rainbow puddles, and buried in the snow. And oh how many times lost! The mall . . . the park . . . we left it on the plannnneeeeee! Stuffed animals worn to the seams, odorous, and coated with bacterium and protozoa.

Nanichy (na-knee-chee) & Nene have been ever-present from birth to college. The kids can be miscreants and angels contemporaneously (and probably started this fire; “Dad, we learned how to make bacon!”), but I gotta watch out for them. They’re my lifeblood. They cause the painfullest pains and the joyest joys. But this is a story for another time because smoke is accumulating, and my feet are getting hot. Oh, the bears are one item because–kids. Everything must be fair.

My eyes burn. Perhaps charred air burns my throat. Heat whooshes. I can’t believe I’m doing this but I leave upstairs behind. This is partially because I’m afraid I might soon combust, but also because trophies, clothes, photos, children’s art, and other bedroomy type things are meaningful but lack true importance. I’m figuring this out, now. What’s truly irreplaceable vs. what’s fleeting. What makes a difference? What’s true? I think about what’s meaningful, not what’s valuable. And about being able to breathe. 

Choices like this and their repercussions must be dealt with. No doubt, it’s hard. Especially when fire personnel forcibly storm your home screaming “Water on!” . . . “Clear the top!” while forked tongues lash from every opening. The crackles and pops of what my life was startle and deafen. 

I commando crawl down the hall and stairs; the smoke billows dark and water cascades down on me. Perhaps I enter the kitchen and cover my mouth with our Paris Metro dishtowel.

I grab our recipe binder. We have one hundred and eight other cookbooks to feed the flames. Let them burn. The French Laundry book with the signed menu from our night there on a trip paid for fully on credit (which we may still be paying it off). We were the last to leave; we asked for a tour. We sat with Thomas Keller in his kitchen when he was just a guy, not a brand. We talked while his chefs scrubbed the floors on their hands and knees. It smelled of bleach and sweat. That night is emblazoned in our memory. No one can take it away. We don’t need the book and the menu to memorialize it. Plus, the thing weighs about 75 lbs. 

This binder, though, is history. I mean, I don’t want it to be history. My grandmother’s Sunday gravy. Banana bread from my wife’s grandmother, who I never knew, on a handwritten note card. My Mom’s brisket, two ways. Elizabeth’s insane creamy Bolognese, our family’s go-to comfort meal, and her chicken soup, which is un-fucking-rivaled (it’s the saffron!). Gefilte fish (never made, but historical). My guacamole recipe, stained with avocado, wine, and other blotches dating to 1996, the year we met. I’ve made the guac a thousand times, but it’s elevated, always, when that recipe sits on the counter, watching me chop and smash. If I get out alive, these dishes will take me back. 

*

I’m down to one more choice. I, now, am the one immobilized. Perhaps I am also realizing that this is not a fun game. I consider the sculpture we bought in Peru. Often, I examine it, rotate it, see how the light glances and the changes in the shadows that make its meaning. I think about the two terracotta pots we brought home from a trip to Oaxaca. They’re worthless (not fine art, not unique) but they’re everything. The brittle red clay cracks and chips each time we move them, but they carry our memories, just as they were designed to carry water and grains and beans and rice for the Oaxacans. They are our Fabergé eggs and they’ve seen everything. 

In life, I try to be fair, calculating, rational, and prepared to stand by my choices. I make a right decision (happy!), or a wrong decision (sad!) and many that fall between. Standing amidst the flames, I’m reminded that, right or wrong, all choices can be conundrums that burn. 

Speaking of burning, the hair on my arms singes. I stand between the kitchen and the living room. I hold the recipe binder, Nanichy & Nene. The London Tube towel covers my mouth. I’m frozen and burning simultaneously. A vase of crepe paper flowers on the mantle ignites and then crashes to the floor. It startles me into a decision. 

I scamper to the kitchen. I grab marshmallows, Hershey bars, and graham crackers from the cabinet left of the stove. The stove is the only item in the house not aflame. I sprint out the front door. I drop the dishcloth, even though I love that dishcloth. I don’t want to break the rules. 

I try to catch my breath. I hold a recipe binder, two stuffed bears, and s’mores materials (which is one item–do not fuck with me here). The fire lashes out of windows and the chimney. Glass shatters. My dwelling, a full-fledged conflagration. 

Unsteady but focused, I go to the side yard and find a safe place for the binder and the animals. I spot a thin but sturdy stick, carefully peel the bark off the end. Perhaps I load it with four marshmallows. I unwrap a Hershey bar, lay it on a graham cracker, and rest it on the limestone sill of a window where the flames are calmer. They’re muted, but the heat radiates. I roast carefully, slowly, golden brown all around. Patience. I’m laser focused on the marshmallows. They must be perfect. Warm enough to melt to the core, brown enough to crunch, caramelized and smoky, but not burnt. Enough of my life is charred, now. Not these. 

When it’s time, I grab the graham cracker off the sill. I sit beneath a dogwood tree that blooms each spring, filling the air with honeysuckle notes. I lay the marshmallows atop the melted chocolate, add another graham cracker and smoothly slide out the stick. I take a bite. I melt down to earth. 

Remembrances flood into, onto, over, and through me: my wife’s laugh, the kids celebrating, a dog near death, pillow fights. Graduations, birthday parties. Sleepovers. Making love. Feeling loved. Giving love. Anger. Glee. Fear. Pride. Memories flow from the flames, rise from the smoke, and make their way to me clear of the sirens, the guttural yells of fire fighters, the gathering crowd of concerned neighbors. The s’mores leak and run down my palm, drip onto my pjs. The air smells like Gary, Indiana and I’m asphyxiating, but nothing could move me from here. 

*

After reading all of this I wonder if you want to play the game with me. Have you thought about your choices? Clearly, I have. 

Will I miss the kids’ fourth grade art, our amazing carrot peeler, my face wash, Emma’s ballet slippers, Jack’s jerseys, our photo albums? Without a doubt. But I’m sitting here, nibbling s’mores, awash in reminiscences. Reminiscences that appear atop, besides, under, and next to each other, that rise together above and around the flames and spread across the night sky. Indeed, the flames are burning the physical objects, but the memories that the tapestry reveals further sears them into my mind. That is real—perhaps nothing—and that tapestry will last a lifetime. 

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