It’s natural to mumble nasty things
about the cold weather. We all do it from time to time.
But even the cold has
its merits.
One big plus is that it makes fireplaces a
reasonable addition to our
lives. In cold weather, we can build a fire in our home
with a clear
conscience. This is something that doesn’t translate well
to summer heat, but
when it’s cold, here comes the fire.
Strange, isn’t it, our love affair with a
fireplace? Makes absolutely no
sense. Today, we can make houses so impervious to cold
that every time we light
a candle, the temperature goes up ten degrees. So what do
we do? We cut a hole
in this sealed anti-cold unit so we can sit and look at
the flames, the way our
ancestors have done since they learned to walk upright and
invented kindling.
But we don’t care. We’ll spend a lot of extra money
to buy a house with
a fireplace, and not think a thing about it. Because this
fireplace is the
spiritual center of a home, as it’s always been. It’s the
gathering place. It’s
the place to read, to learn, to meet and tell stories.
It’s the core of our
universe. The fireplace – and those waiting for us there –
is what we dream
about when we’re miles from home in the woods or desert.
It warms us,
inside
and out, cooks our food, and
answers our questions.
Questions? Sure.
When the fire’s burning low, and you can just see
the little blue lickem
flames curling around the glowing embers late at night,
and when we’ve about
talked out the day’s adventures, we can look at those
embers and find answers
to questions we didn’t even know we had.
And we feel sorry for people who don’t have these
advantages.
-------------
Brought
to you by the genuine cowboy music and musings of
Steve Cormier up in New Mexico’s Sandia Mountains. Check
him out at stevecormier.net.