warming both hands by the fire of life

i find myself recalling this image on this very grey beijing day. not a flame (or a glimmer of sunlight) in sight. it is one of those days when the pollution is so think you could stick a spoon in it and i imagine it would stay suspended in the sky. ick. in this unwarm environment, i am feeling warmth in life. although the line comes from a poem about death. (landor's "on his seventy-fifth birthday": nature i loved, and next to nature, art; i warmed both hands before the fire of life, it sinks, and i am ready to depart.)

that's all any of us can ever do, really. warm our hands by the fire of life and marvel at it. getting burned is unavoidable. but better than being cold.

i am glad to be in this space again, despite my promised six months of silence. even at the time, i admitted the six months was arbitrary. a friend visiting in january and listening to all of my elaborate constructs sagely observed that you can't place a timeline on your emotional life. i told him i love plans. and i needed an infrastructure of some sort at that point. i needed momentum, marking points, something. i acknowledge now, though, that my need was misplaced. really i just needed (and need) to marvel at the fire of it all. warm my hands.