Fiya

“I was on fire” (Walls).

 Being on fire doesn’t seem enticing at all, and it would pretty normal to develop a tendency to avoid fire in the future… right? Jeannette Walls can prove us wrong. Her burn seemed very intense if she had to get “skin grafts”. This intense injury could have caused a trauma but instead made Jeannette attracted to the very thing that caused her pain. From a personal experience, I can somehow relate to her but not to the extent of her interest in fire.

When I was elementary school, I had a confrontation with fire. I was reaching for the pot on the stove and my sleeve must have touched the flames because the next thing I knew, a saw a flash of flames lick up my arms. I immediately reacted and the thought “stop, drop, and roll” procedure flashed in my mind, but in the end, I just furiously patted my whole body. The only thing harmed from this incident was my hair. To be honest, I think I cried over my burnt ends and made my mom take me to a hair salon the next day. I was lucky that I had only felt the breath of danger and not experienced any injuries. After that, however, it did not waver my feelings of fire but actually possibly, made me more interested in this idea of creating something so destructive. I remember a 4^th of July party and I put my sparkler close to a dry leaf. I watched as leaf burst into a small flame. There were many examples to follow like how I would always be the one who sat the closest to a bonfire, or how I would be that person who would set hand sanitizer on fire. This interest is still with me today. Recently, I set a piece of insulator foam on fire for uh...science J

 Is this what Jeannette felt? This satisfaction of watching the flames become a destructive force, eating away the material it was fed. Also, man-made fire gives a sense of control to the user. Who has power to light that campfire? You do. Who has power to extinguish it? You do. Of course, some fires are rouge and spontaneous. Those are generally negative and cause more harm than good.