The temperature is one degree above zero in the little northern city by the sea, so in celebration I lit the wood stove. Now, in the murky dawn, the flames glow and dance, the cast iron ticks . . . just the cat and me, awake and purring in the luxury of firelight.

So many scenes in Dickens's novels take place around firelight. Bachelor lawyers grill chops and salute their friendship with hot gin punch. Pickpockets rub cracked hands over a scant few sticks. Old men in nightcaps prop their slippers on the fender and become greasy with buttered toast. Prostitutes stare into the flames, decoding a dire future.

Here, in late February in the year 2023, the frost is deep. Down by the cove, salt ice crackles in the tidal marshes, but the winter ducks--the eiders and the buffleheads--paddle serenely, indifferent to their cold feet. Houses climb the hill, a clutter of roofs. Smoke threads from the chimneys into a flat pink sky. Railroad tracks hum; a short passenger train coils by, then vanishes. A walker in a parka, as puffy as a manatee, butts his head into a brief wind, trudges around a snowy corner.

In the houses children tangle with sheets; lovers collide, half-asleep; a dog whines to go out. Meanwhile, my little wood fire mutters and laughs behind its window. The wood box is full. The hearth is swept. It is one degree above zero in the little northern city by the sea.

Last night, for dinner, we ate lamb patties filled with red onion, garlic, parsley, and ginger; sautéed red and yellow peppers; mashed sweet potato with lime; roasted eggplant and spinach salad; a blueberry clafoutis for dessert. On a plate this looked miraculous, and I thought, as I have been thinking so often lately, of luck and happiness. How things shake out in this life, for better, for worse. How little control we have over fortune. How grateful I am for a meal, and candlelight, and a beloved face across a table. How, one day, things will go terribly wrong. But, for now, sweetness.

I think I was more jaded when I was young. I expected the worst. I was frustrated and dissatisfied. Those reactions haven't vanished. In the public forum they've increased; of course they have. Which may be why my private life sometimes feels like a soap-bubble Arcadia. In this cottage, with this partner, we light candles every night at dinner. We play card games and read aloud from Sherlock Holmes stories and talk to each other in the voice of the cat. It is spitting into the wind. It is singing into the wind.