"Fireplace"—few nouns are so melodious. A phrase such as "Come and sit by the fireplace" evokes the magical sense that one of barbaric earth’s elements can have a genteel, eminently approachable home.
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All right, so if the mere idea of a fireplace can make me swoon, why don’t I live in a house that has one? True, they’re not that common anymore, which restricts one’s home-buying choices, and true, the notion of adding a fireplace to a fireplace-less house seems like a whole mess of trouble. But c’mon, desiring one isn’t tantamount to an actor boarding a Greyhound bus to Hollywood with 50 bucks and a dream.
Perhaps, for me, the answer begins with Santa Claus.
I grew up in a house designed by my hip architect father. Incorporating a traditional fireplace into its ultramodern design would have been like painting a 16th-century Florentine prince onto one side of a Jackson Pollock. And so, after the myth of the portly, gift-wielding Santa was planted in my brain, confusion set in: With no chimney to clamber down through, how would he get inside? My parents’ answer was ingeniously uncomplicated: They would leave the front door open and he would just waltz right in. This made not having a fireplace seem like a perfectly rational choice, which may explain why as an adult my burning desire for one isn’t accompanied by a burning desire to fulfill that desire.
True, I did once rent a house whose main "selling" point for me was that it had a fireplace. But then, after I was all moved in, I learned that the landlord didn’t want me to use it. At first I took the blow in stride, but things changed as winter grew from a few early morning frosts on the front lawn to icicles hanging from the gutters. I decided to lobby the landlord, assuring him over and over that by using the fireplace I wouldn’t accidentally turn his whole property to ashes. My landlord relented. I was ecstatic.
But then….
No, there was no accident. Just the sound of an idea colliding with reality. After a month or so of acting like an 18th-century peasant and making fires as if my life depended upon it, I began to resent the fireplace. A steam engine that needed constant stoking, I felt, would take up less of my time. I couldn’t leave the fireplace be. It was like a dog always looking at me with cow eyes and whimpering for me to build it back to life. It took on a kind of negative magic. While the word for it continued to sound melodious, the actual thing no longer made my heart sing. I wanted a more simple life—why clamber down a chimney when you can just open an unlocked door?
And yet….
I know it’s crazy given my track record, but I still have visions of cozy times inside by a fire. I hear newspaper crumpling, the snap as a piece of kindling breaks across my knees, and the whoosh as I add the first big log to the equation. I sit back and drink in the crackling of the raging end product. And even though in these visions the flames never die, and I’m never forced to disturb my statuesque position and do the work of building up coals again, I still think I might possibly one day maybe again have a fireplace.
After all, the whole idea of it is just so cool.