Fire is cathartic. It crackles and spits and heats and whatever shame you are carrying can be tossed into the flame, figuratively or really. I have tossed empty liquor bottles into bon fires on camping trips and then retrieved the molten, brittle art form out of the ash the next day thinking it made the coolest souvenir. Letters from old lovers, the cigarettes you didn't want your mom to find, an ill-gotten candy wrapper.

Yes, the fire is good. It warms and it is a labor of love. I live in a small apartment which boasts a "fireplace" as one of it's amenities. My fireplace is about the size of a microwave oven. An average split log if placed perpendicular to the back wall will jut out into the living room. I put them at slants or stack them against the back, where on a good day, they will stay precariously tilted amongst one another and burn peacefully. On other days, the wads of newspaper I used to ignite them will burn down and the whole stack will tumble onto the tile narrowly missing the highly flammable carpet which is undoubtedly spun from some ill-begotten petroleum product.

My friend is kind enough to bring the splitting maul his mother gave him and make kindling and other pieces that actually fit. When I come home from work, when the apartment is frigid and my mind is spent, the siren song of the fire is palpable. I want to be warm and bask in the pale amber light. We are beautiful by firelight. The dirtiest most disheveled people huddled around the most robust of camp fires are like small demi-gods with glowing gorgeous faces. Fire is life, the miracle of cooked food, warmth, resurrection, and purification. I want it - every spitting ember, the prickling heat, the thrust of the flame searching every crevice for air and fuel.

Next comes my own personal game of Jenga Inferno. I have watched my friend (same with maul) wad up most of the Sunday paper into tidy little grenades and criss-cross kindling over them. With one match, the flame erupts across the foot of the pile. In moments the fire is alive and the cat is happy (more on this later).

I come home to an empty apartment and I meticulously wad up the paper and weave the kindling into a leaning tower. I light it. In about 90 seconds, the newspaper vaporizes and wood is tumbling onto the carpet and my apartment is filling with smoke. The cat has joined me on my knees but he has an entirely different agenda. He wants the fire too because he is old and skinny and his bones no doubt, ache. He is ardently waiting for there to be heat and the fact that his intrusion prohibits me from effective fire management is of little consequence to him. He vocalizes his disapproval.

Now all the paper is twirling bits of flat ash and none of the kindling is alight. Plenty of it is smoking and it occurs to me that I will have to open at least two windows to start venting the soot which will, of course, let in the cold air. So much for my economic green solution to turning on the baseboard heater. I decide that the best solution is wad up more paper and use my barbecue tongs to reconfigure the singed kindling for another pass at ignition. This routine goes on until I get frustrated enough to open a bottle of wine. But not to be out done by my houseguest who shows up and seemingly ignites piles of damp logs with magical fairy sparks out the end of his fingers, I blow and pant and keep lighting wads of paper until the right chemical configuration of fuel-heat-oxygen is produced. Jenga be dammed, my helter skelter throw of sticks is now burning adequately enough to consider tossing on an actual piece of firewood.

The cat is laying 18 inches from the flame. Air pockets collapse and explode and projectiles of coal rocket out between the gnarled (and useless) mesh screen. The cat is on fire but barely notices. I brush the embers from his long fur, noting that it is too hot to touch. I wonder if he will die happily here, driven by a primal mad instinct to be comfortable. The fire is his love language, he requires nothing further in the way of consolation at this moment. I want to be him, singularly driven by the consummation of one desire.

To be warm, content, sleeping; blissfully unaware that bills will arrive, lovers will leave, jobs will be lost, friends will die. At that moment, all of his worldly needs are met. The flame has chased off discomfort, doubt and despair.

I am the cat or the flame or both or none. I am grateful that the fire burns. Friends brought me the wood, God the flame. Tonight I will be content in the burning…