After making my morning rounds, I trekked up the hill to the house, and when I pushed the door closed against the will of the wind, I noticed that the fire needed stoking to keep from dying, just like the light that exists within each of us. There is something soulful about a fire – some ineffable thing that makes me feel alive in the face of such destruction. Fully alive. Alive enough to not care about the inevitability of my own demise.