This is the first time I’ve seen someone else come to the same conclusion about fire and smoking that I arrived at myself some time ago:

A flame will help take away the distress. That idea seems to be universal. It is why they light candles in church. And why there are small tea flames on Buddhist altars and incense.
Unaccountably, I have also heard it suggested by British artist and architecture professor Keith Critchlow, when talking about why people smoke, that it is not the act of smoking the cigarette that is the important thing. The important thing is striking the flame that will light the cigarette. It is the flame we are after: we need to see a flame much more often than we do.
-Kristjana Gunnars, The Silence of Falling Snow

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When Kathy was here, I gave her a manila envelope containing letters her dad had sent me and drawings she and her siblings had made for me. I mentioned that I’m working my way through old handwritten journals and hope to have them “done and dusted” before I die (in my mid-to-late eighties, if even then; such is my expectation). She remarked, once I showed her the cabinet and bags full of journals, that I probably wouldn’t manage it. I’ve raised my daily quota to two pages instead of the one.

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Journal, January 1999:
I turned 40 the other day and it was the lousiest birthday imaginable. I haven’t been so sick in years. My Neck Thing meds didn’t work — that was horrid — and a cold attacked, and I got my period. If it don’t rain it pours, is right. Gord remarked, “You just said it had been almost a  year since you caught a cold, too” and I had to admit that whenever I say something like that out loud, I get a friggin’ cold almost right away, never fails.
My little boys had to eat chocolate birthday cake without me, though Everett did come to the door singing Happy Birthday until Gord dragged him off so I could sleep. I missed, apparently, about 10 phone calls from friends and family. Gord has learned over the years not to wake me up, no matter what, if I have the Neck Thing and manage to avoid the pain by falling asleep. It’d be his neck, if he does.
In our town we have a community calendar that has residents’ birthdays and anniversaries on it, so yesterday when I was out and around, several people wished me a belated Happy Birthday and of course asked how old I was. When I said 40 they seemed genuinely surprised, though one was a teenage girl to whom 40 looks like 80, I suppose. “No way! You don’t look 40!” they said, and I borrowed Gloria Steinem’s too-true reply: “This is what 40 looks like.”
Mom and Dad phoned from Phoenix to tease me, and Mom said, “You’re sick? Must be the stress of turning FORTY.”
I dreamed Cathy and I were struggling to ride our small, heavy, Ski-doo-like vehicle along dark winter city streets, and it was frustrating. Came across a gang of people walking in the middle of the street, led by a man who was accosting and humiliating all women who were walking alone. When he turned his attention on us, I threatened him. “Just try it, Asshole,” I said. “You’re the one who’s going to be embarrassed” and I grabbed the soft spot at the base of his big toe and squeezed till he howled. “You sure you wanna mess with me?” I growled menacingly. He didn’t. Ooh, the power …
Maybe 40-year-olds take no prisoners.

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