As
I watched the fire in our fireplace yesterday afternoon, flowing and flaring
and sending up sparks, I thought it looked a lot like my life. There was a sort
of waywardness in the flames, a beautiful disorderliness that seemed similar to
what I sometimes see in my days. There was no pattern in the way the flames
moved, just as there is often no noticeable pattern in the comings and goings
of my life. Flames flared and fizzled down again in random ways, just as good
and not-so-good things in my life flow in and flicker out with perfect casualness.
Occasionally, some glowing logs collapsed with a soft explosion, just as
carefully proposed plans of mine have sometimes quietly crumbled. But not to
worry – when I put some new logs on, the flames quickly curled up around them,
just as, in my life, the fires of new plans are always ready to unfurl. It’s
interesting that the flames in the fireplace seemed almost irrepressible, as if
they were managing themselves and making their own rules, springing up and
sparking just as they wished. My life often looks a lot like that, like a strange
and astonishing assembly of flaring and flashing happenings. It occurs to me
that I should perhaps watch my life with as much fascination as I watched the
fire yesterday.
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