I like to build fires.

When it's chilly but not bitter, overcast but not raining, there's nothing more satisfying than dragging out our rusty, hand-me-down fire pit and making a blaze.

I gather armfuls of twigs, grab a couple of large logs from the garage and twist up some newspaper. I use an old blue lighter that I keep on the back porch for just such occasions, and after I start the fire up, I like to toss in another handful of newspaper or leaves to get it really roaring.

From time to time, I use a wide stick I've saved to remove the fire pit's cage, then stir the ashes or poke the burning logs.

I might sit nearby, pulling the tape off a cardboard box, tearing it into strips and feed those in, too.

I watch the fire, move my chair out of the smoke if the wind direction changes and think about nothing, everything.

My kids have dispersed long ago, bored of collecting sticks from the yard, but I can still see them inside, through the windows. They watch TV or play in the living room, and occasionally, I scroll aimlessly through my phone, but more often, I put it in my pocket and leave it there.

I start to smell the smoke on my clothes, in my hair, and it smells like my childhood, like bonfires on the beach and a taverna's souvlaki grill.

It's the same fire my ancestors have sat in front of for hundreds, thousands, millions of years.

It's reality and yet it's relaxing. It feels like doing something but isn't.

"What are you doing back there?" my husband might ask if I've been outside for a particularly long time.

"Nothing," I answer, the truth. "Just building a fire."

I hate camping, but I love fires. Camping is work, and once you're out there, you're stuck. You can't just get up and walk inside when you get too cold or make a cup of hot tea in your own kitchen just because you had a hankering for it.

But with a fire, I'm still there, sort of, in nature, and there are trees and grass and there's the slight discomfort of "outdoors" in the cold weather.

Like a meditation, it's immediate.

More and more these days, I try to find that "now," remind myself that places like Instagram and Netflix and Twitter aren't my life.

Because those places can touch me — maybe I've seen a show or read a story that makes me angry or jealous or sad — but they touch me from somewhere else, move me from outside and reveal events happening in another place or time.

No matter how important, no matter how real, they're not right now, right here, where I am.

And that's all I'm guaranteed: right now.

I may be able to take action, create art, show my love, but if I don't find joy in the now, I am missing my life's true purpose.

Everything changes.

We grow old; we die. Our friends can drift away, and our family can disappear and change.

We're under constant threat from life's ugliness, from the coldness. There's war. There's suffering. There's hatred and pettiness and mean-spirited politics.

And no matter what we do with our lives, we can never eliminate that ugliness entirely. The coldness will come, every year.

But it's not always bad, is it, to be caught in the cold?

Because when it seems like the outdoors are barren and cruel, when I'm shivering my way through the long, harsh spring that stretches out for miles, there's something I can do.

I can always build a fire.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

Photo credit: LAWJR at Pixabay