The community was having a barbecue, I was informed, and thus I decided that 2 hours after the start time I would swing by, show my face, see what was going on – and then return to my position in orbit somewhere.

It was a good plan. A solid plan. I had the exit strategy built in too, because I don’t eat heavy meals before bed, and on a Saturday night I generally find my pillow more appealing than most things.

When I got there, I found the guys trying to figure out how to light the barbecue pit. It was just after 7 pm, the barbecued started at 5 pm per the circular, and no one had thought maybe to check the grill first. They thought it would be a simple thing of igniting some gas and starting the grill.

Nobody told them the gas on that grill hadn’t worked in years.

Coal. And coal is something you need to get heated up right for a nice even grill. This is part science and part art, and what surprised me was that the guys there did not know how to do this. I spent about an hour and a half with all the wrong tools getting some of the damp coals going, chasing this drunk guy off more than once who kept fiddling with the gas on the grill while I’m playing with hot coals.

Apparently I hurt his feelings, because as I was explaining the carburetion of the second grill, he informed everyone that, “Taran knows everything.” and an eyeroll. I laughed. Of course I don’t know everything, but so far I was the only one who got the coals to glow.

I can make fire. It was a requirement in my youth. I had been charged to keep the coals hot without an explanation on how to do it, and had to figure it out. Failure does not make one warm.

Then everyone decided to use someone else’s grill. It was brand new and they wanted to christen it.

Then someone unleashed the right tools – self-lighting charcoal and lighter fluid.

One of the ladies wanted to take my picture with the grill, and I said I didn’t want to have my picture taken. I generally don’t. She persisted with her phone, I persisted with not giving a clear shot, then I took a picture of her with my phone, and said, “There, now we’re even.” She looked puzzled. I said, “I don’t know where your picture is going to end up and who will mess with it, and you don’t know where my picture will end up and who will mess with it.” A realization dawned in her eyes. After these few minutes, I said, “When I said I don’t want my picture taken, I mean… I don’t want my picture taken.“

I think she understood.

The whole thing was weird for me. When I think of a barbecue, I think of disposable plates, of the smell of the grill and the wonders sizzling on it, disposable cups and people in shorts. This was quite different. Plates of vegetables done fancy – you know that circle thing that they do so that people can ruin it? Yes, that. there were wine glasses. Wine glasses! And people were dressed up!

My life has been very different from theirs. A barbecue was not managed, and it was not managed poorly – very basic things had to happen.

It started with lighting the grill and getting the heat even.

For me, it is that blissful solitude of a man and fire, the meditation, the silent moments away from everyone while staring into the grill and watching the coals begin to glow. As it warms, it’s a little hard not to smile, understanding at a more and more miniscule level over the decades of how it was happening.

But to them, I suppose, it’s just fire.

Where they see flowers, I see complex interactions and an evolution that attracted what pollenates, each flower telling us more about the pollenator species than itself in it’s aesthetics. Millenia of evolution culminating in something we ourselves find aesthetically pleasing. We’re pollenators too.

But to them, they’re just flowers.