The temperature in my apartment hasn't reached 65 degrees in five days. I'm practicing mid-winter rituals in early September.

Tonight I struck a match to light a candle to write by. I heard the scratch and moved the match to the wick, but no light. Just as I began to lift it for another strike, the match burst into flame and the stinging odor of the burning phosphorus filled my nose. I lit the candle and shook out the match, though hesitantly, wondering if I should let such hard won fire go. Then I looked down at the box in my hand, a square box fully the size of my palm, bifurcated by a fold of cardboard that kept the matches stowed neatly. The matches themselves were tendrils of fir or pine or other light young wood, tipped with a black nib of reactive material. So many left yet in the box.

I thought of all the matches in the world to be pocketed, brought home, and struck, practicing the strike against the odd shape of the novelty box and, for the favorites, savoring the distinctive burn of each. You can keep the box, but not the matches, and striking Diamonds against the rough square on the end of a brick-shaped, brightly colored box isn't the same. The weight of the box and the weight of the match must, er, match, or it doesn't feel right. Thus, I tend to guard the boxes found in places I doubt I'll visit again, and ration and rotate their use. But as I looked into the wide, double-barreled box, teeming with matches, its robin-egg casing a curiosity, I felt sudden delight at the potential to burn them all—even the matches in boxes from places I'll never return to—to make room for colorful matchboxes I have yet to collect and the dazzle of new flames.