Flaming Ottoman

by Valerie Anne Burns

     It was in early spring when an unusual weather system produced one of the windiest and coldest days and nights I’d ever experienced. Living in Santa Barbara—or as I like to call it, living on a cruise ship that is called Santa Barbara—doesn’t offer much in the way of severe weather. But the cold conditions entered my bone marrow. 

     One thing I’d become keenly aware of while on my breast cancer adventure was how important it is to be kind to myself with small rituals like sipping steaming tea with my hummingbirds. I also found if I could keep moving there was a chance of chasing away the blues—if only temporarily. There were plenty of times where a walk down the long driveway to the mailbox was all I could muster, but enough time in between surgeries and recovering got me back to power walking.

     After a power walk late in the day that created extra energy for me as I fought the chill, I returned home to discover the electrical power was off. What transpired and unfolded from dusk to sun-up became another metaphor in my more-than-colorful and challenging life. It was the metaphor of fire. 

     As light faded, the temperature dropped, and when I saw the sun melt into the ocean, I realized that I was going to deal with darkness. Where I lived, the wind blew with fury through the canyon and created an eerie sensation. After checking with the surly landlord who considered any inquiry (or even a civil hello) a burden, I learned that all residents were without power. 

     I gathered votive candles, warm and comfy clothes, Ugg slippers. As someone who grew up on an island off Miami, the balmy temperature, and tropical waters inspired a wounded five-year-old to become a devoted mermaid, which was as natural as breathing and has remained forever in my being. For the moment, I had no choice but to be resolved to the cold and being in the place of my distant ancestors who lived by the glow of candlelight, unplugged from the world. The batteries of my phone and computer had faded with the last of sunset’s color. 

     Power was out all over the hills. The night grew darker and darker. I lit every candle. Since there wasn’t a movie or any sound to distract from the howling wind that sounded like an intense catfight, my surroundings seemed spookier. A substantial ottoman, upholstered in a stylish and subtle baby cheetah print, served as both footrest and coffee table. A lovely tray passed to me from my mother who passed at such a young age, sat atop it, and that was where I’d set most of the lit votive candles. My small living space was illuminated with the glow of tiny flames.

     Satisfied that I had enough light to move about, I stirred together a yogurt-based dinner concoction of flax, nuts, and berries. In the kitchen area, my back was turned for a minute at most when I noticed a brighter glow in the room…and the smell of smoke. 

     The middle of the ottoman had ignited. Running towards the fire, I knocked everything about, stomping on a favorite knit hat that was now ablaze. A votive fell to the tile floor and spilled its wax while I smothered its fire. I burned my hand slightly and thought that it was over. I even thought that perhaps later, I could use the tray to cover the hole that had burned into the center of the ottoman because I couldn’t afford a new piece of furniture. Saving that ottoman was forefront in my mind since I’d been living in a sparse way for a few years.

     As I sat on my large and overused sofa wondering how the hell the votive had tipped, thinking I had avoided a major disaster, I also felt a piercing realization in my tired mind. Once again, I’d managed a crisis by myself. It dawned on me that I should’ve owned a fire extinguisher, living way up in the hills as isolated woman in a cabin. I’d been putting out one critical life fire after another, but this was the first actual fire I’d stamped out. Where was that competent good-looking fireman when I needed him?

     All kinds of thoughts circled my head as I sat alone in utter quiet with the votive candles now safely placed on the desk and counter. The temperature continued to drop as I felt my heart sink further into an isolated sadness. The ripple effect from the medical path I’d been on was unavoidable.

     The ripple turned into waves of change and repercussions. The big waves swept over me. I felt as though I would drown, without ever finding the ability to surface back to air. The intensity of a severe undertow had swallowed up parts of my life through desertion by many friends; my livelihood, my happiness, and my confidence. 

     I was far out to sea with only the tiniest glimpse of a mermaid fin from my frolicking days as an island girl on Key Biscayne.

     An hour or so later, still in a cloud of contemplation fostered by the glow of candlelight and stillness, I realized that my place was filled with smoke. It wasn’t leftover smoke, it was a continual, smoldering. By no means am I a fire expert and without battery in my phone to reach out for consultation, I had to make the quick decision to solve the problem by rolling the ottoman onto the balcony. I kept the glass doors open for an hour to chase the smoke out of my place. 

     I learned that rolling away a problem to a place where it’s out of sight doesn’t always solve it. The strong smoke smell persisted. The fierce sixty-mile-an-hour wind and cold temperature held their ground. Everything was mixing—fear, fire, wind, cold—inside my place and on the balcony.

     As the night wore on, my energy wore out. All I could think about was getting warmer. My best plan of action was to get cozy under the covers. I knew I would have to go out and check the ottoman fire victim before climbing into the island of my bed. The wind pushed so hard against the door that I had to use all my muscle to get out to the balcony. As the wind whipped through my hair, I discovered that the entire top of the ottoman was coal black. My first thought was that any hope of salvaging and hiding what use to be a smallish hole was now lost. I touched it. It was piping hot. I filled up a large saucepan and poured pots full of water a few times until it felt cold. Leaving the pan just inside the door I shuffled off to bed, reeking of smoke.

     I fell asleep for a few hours and woke with a start. My mind woke up, but my body felt heavy with only one desire—to escape back into the peace of deep sleep and stay warm. But something in my head kept saying: “Get up, get up!” Drowsy, I pushed the covers off and got up to a frosty room. I walked out the bedroom door wondering if the power had come back on since the room was bright. When I looked out the glass picture window, to my horror, I saw the ottoman at the center of towering high flames reaching out to the hills and up in the sky. Those red flames threw a light in my space that the small candles could not achieve.

     I ran to the saucepan I’d left at the door, filled it, and pushed the door against howling wind in my flannel pajamas. Against the wind, it was as if I weighed nothing. I was up against nature’s power. I doused and doused the searing hot ottoman with cold water, but like the constant fires in my life, it felt as if the fire would never truly go out. After several douses of water, I noticed embers deep down through the ottoman’s springs. They’d been re-ignited by the power of the whipping wind. I continued the saturation, unsure of my ability to succeed. I forged ahead back and forth to the sink all the while fearing waking up my landlord who would finally have a legitimate reason to evict me. Assured there were no more embers, I let go of my efforts. 

     By 3:30 a.m. I lay back down on my bed. I was not able to fully relax. I drifted off to a semi-sleep state and woke with a start again as the sun was just making its way over the dry hills. I ran to the living room and looked out, relieved to see that there were no more flames—just a dead and toasted ottoman that I’d need to hide and bury. 

     I noticed my hummingbirds were back at the feeder as if nothing had happened. I marveled at their incredible resilience. Nature’s harsh elements never stop their quest for a fortified life. How did they hold on in those torrential winds? Did the flames near the feeder alarm them? 

     I collapsed on the bed once again, staring at the ceiling as I came to the significant conclusion that the flaming ottoman episode was an appropriate metaphor.

     The initial flame, like the initial news of hearing that there may be something concerning in an annual breast exam, started out small. As one who practices holistic lifestyle, I was convinced that a little flame of illness would remain nothing more than a cyst, I’d walked into a four-hour long appointment filled with examinations and pictures that turned out to be a surface fire—something deadly lurked deeper within. The smoldering ottoman was like the news that there was a cancerous tumor in each breast—a smoldering five percent chance. 

     A bit later, like the flames that got me out of bed, the MRI lit up showing an inch and a half area as pre-cancerous. All hope of ottoman and breast conservation was lost. I, myself was like the ottoman that morphed into a raging fire because all my complications grew and grew bigger over time. Even a team of doctors couldn’t foresee the fires they’d have to put out to keep me upright. 

     Unlike that ottoman on fire in the wind, the fire in me found a way to take off and turn into a crisis comparable to a forest fire. My physical fire raged to its peak when I finally got to the day of completing reconstruction, the day that would balance me and be the movement towards making me feel whole again. No. I woke up to a frightening shock of the ottoman in full flames that seems comparable to my breasts that had been on fire with infection causing a high fever.

     Just as I’d addressed the ottoman’s high reaching flames with saucepans of water, my raging staph infections were addressed by emergency surgery and high doses of antibiotics. My wish for a strong fireman in my life makes sense for this metaphor. 

     Somehow, indomitability reigns in my life. Perhaps my mother, who didn’t have a chance to survive breast cancer in 1958, wanted me to carry on, to see the fires of meaning in all this.

      What people are capable of in high-adrenalin circumstances is awe-inspiring. As each fire came at me, I felt it improbable that I’d survive even one more critical challenge. I was proven wrong again and again. Like my spirited hummingbirds, I carried on and am here to tell the story—a story where the mermaid fighter spirit continues to surprise in its fiery adrenaline-fueled strength. 

     The black skeleton of springs that was once an ottoman was dumped into a waste container, just like my breasts were dumped into a medical waste bin. But the true miracle is resilience and that I’m still alive on this spec of a planet while the memories are still hot.