Growing up I spent a lot of time in my teens burning off energy splitting wood. In part this may have been because the wood was in the driveway in the way of the basketball net. In retrospect that may have been a clever parental ploy to encourage the splitting of wood.

During the pandemic, with indoor gatherings not allowed. I would gather wood in my urban forest to burn in the cold night air with socially distanced friends. That included large unsplit tree trunks, that at first were to wet to split.

After a wet winter and seven months they are now ready to split. I watch myself with sledge hammer and wedge, and wonder what that young man would think of this now grey haired man splitting wood. I know that If I could say something to him, I would tell him “ a life isn’t a life if you don’t live it, so live it as if each day is a gift, because it is.”

© words and picture Dan DeMarle 7/22/21