This last day of the performance was one of extremes. I felt the impact of duration most acutely. My body is holding on to that affect still this morning and likely for a good while. The morning's rain super saturated everything making the fire balk at emerging from anything more than an irritating smoke that clung to the air heavily handedly. The pile of firewood gifted to me set a limit, and after last night's bonfire it was more so; only stubby sections remained. The builder-architect in me set up to trial an alternative fire building method adapted from videos I have watched about making fires in the snow. The two hours of tucking kindling between upright logs generated enough heat to forget the cold that was creeping into my shoulders. It was an all or nothing fire, and, so it did burn. For once the flame met the kindling, it reproduced itself tenfold and migrated liberally through out the field of woven forest timbers. It produced a heat so fierce I had to abandon all but one layer of clothing and dance in out out of its thermal reach at least 5 metres, scurrying into prop up a log and dashing back to the sanctuary of the snow field, each time patting my cheeks, breasts and thighs to extinguish a combustive sensation. Such fury was short lived. Within an hour, the fire was reduced to charred and scarred columns. A few embers remained; only enough to boil the kettle upon. And as I sat on the bench sweating profusely, a musky animal, admiring how the event had expanded the zone of mud and grass surrounding the scene, the cold took me and the fire hostage. I had yielded to the heat. I had been tricked. The flesh of my body shivered as it fought off the naggingly persistent grasp of the cold, and so I fought back by drinking hot tea and walking briskly around and around the fire like a border collie herding its flock, encircling my own vitality.
