Drawing the Circle

In her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion writes beautifully and sparely about an essential ritual, drawing the circle. "I grew up in California, John and I had lived there for twenty-four years, in California we heated our houses by building fires. We built fires even on summer evenings, because the fog came in. Fires said we were home, we had drawn the circle, we we were safe through the night."