Gas Explosions

I was 19 when a gas stove threw a fire ball in my face.

The last thing I remember was a big ball of fire racing toward me. I came to several feet away from the large camp stove I just attempted to light to make breakfast for 100 people as the camp cook. My heart raced and I smelled lots of burnt hair.

I was alone. I had no idea how burnt I was. I walked in slow motion over to the trash can and began touching my face and hair. Burnt pieces flaked off and didn’t seem to stop.

There was no one in the kitchen with me that morning as usual and there was no mirror in the bathroom. I did not know if I had major burns all over my body or if I had just singed a few hairs. The adrenaline was still coursing through my veins as I tried to decide what to do next. 100 hungry campers and staff would be coming through for food in just a little over an hour – what was I going to serve? 

At first I was planning on making the original menu. I mean, the gas stove was already lit and ready to go. But my shaking hands and the stench of burnt hair quelled that idea. I carefully turned off the stove, decided on another menu item, and ran across camp to shower and assess the damage to my own body.

You can imagine the relief I felt when, upon looking in the mirror, I realized that I suffered no major burns, in fact, no burns that I could find. I lost half of an eyebrow and in the years since, that eyebrow has never behaved. I lost some hair at my hairline. I also lost some hair on a digit but since I wasn’t too fond of hairy knuckles, there was no need to grieve.

I returned to the kitchen and my morning volunteers had arrived. I don’t recall the meal that we were scheduled to make nor the meal that we produced that day, only deep, deep gratitude. 

You see, the incident was entirely my fault. I had not grown up around gas appliances. When I hit the button for the gas, I reached up for where we kept the matches. They were not there. I went to the pantry for some more. Instead of turning off the gas, I thought – how much gas could have been released? – I lit the match and was pushed back by a ball of fire. 

Apparently, that much gas. 

I had done a very stupid thing. And it could have had consequences that were much more far reaching than what happened that day. Grateful was an understatement.

Like most people who experience something of that magnitude, I spent the day like I had a new prescription for my glasses. Everything seemed a bit sharper, a bit brighter, a bit more beautiful. With the exception of my left eyebrow, may it rest in peace.

Although I made myself relight the stove when I got back to the kitchen so I would face my fear, I still, thirty years later, avoid lighting gas stoves. I don’t mind using them, just lighting them. 

Today, given the charged events of the week that included an attempted coup in the United States, this memory hits me in the same place, an anxiety burning deep in my chest.  There is way too much gas in the air. All that is needed is some friction to create a ball of fire that may merely singe some hair or destroy life and property. The issues underneath the unrest, the hatred, the fear, float heavy in the air, seemingly unseen but easily detected by anyone who knows it’s properties.

And the horrifying part of this is that it is our making. We have released horror, ignored it’s presence, stoked hate, and hoped it had dissipated while we went about our daily lives. There is no excuse for such behavior, no reason for the surprise expressed by so many. 

I’m holding on to hope – hope that the clarity, the brightness, the sharpness, so many of us saw on Thursday morning will be the next step in the guide to change. Hope that this is not the end. Hope that the dream of a nation such as ours might have a place in the world, where everyone has a chance and everyone can pursue their dream. 

And yet the anxiety persists, knowing what the gas is capable of, wondering what relationships or structures might be left in the wake of destruction.