Fuego, Valentía y Locura Equina

In this AP Photo by Manu Fernandez, a man rides a horse through a bonfire as part of a ritual in honor of Saint Anthony the Abbot, the patron saint of domestic animals, in San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain, Friday, January 16, 2026. The image draws me in. I felt a need to capture it, in tribute to the man, the horse, and the reverence it illustrates for a concept that’s entirely foreign to me. The photographer’s comments, at this link, give some insight into what the image, from the “Las Luminarias” festival, captures. No doubt anticipating viewer reactions to the photograph, AP accompanies the image with these words: “Horses are protected before passing through the fire with precautions such as wrapping their tails and braiding their manes, applying protective substances and dampening their hair to reduce heat and the risk of burns.” My curiosity about this photo led me to explore and appreciate other AP photos on the AP website

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Once again, the morning temperature outside my windows is inappropriately low. Not as low as yesterday morning, but low enough  (at 16°F) to warrant the loathing I feel at this moment for ice, snow, frostbite, inadequate insulation, fireplaces struggling to add just a tiny thread of heat to their host domiciles, and all manner of discomfort that can be traced back to temperatures unsuitable for human beings and other life forms. My fingers, hair, and teeth feel brittle. Even my eyes seem covered in a thin, fragile, frozen film. Times like these cause me to wonder: which would be more painful, two minutes in a slushy, frigid pool of ice water or two minutes in an oven set at 500°F? My curiosity does not even begin to approach the point at which I would consider seeking the answer through experience.

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I think it was between 4 and 5 yesterday afternoon that I decided to recline and relax for a while. Between that time period and the point at which I got up this morning, my sleep was interrupted only a few times, off and on. Even after that extensive period of rest, the idea of falling gently to sleep in a warm bed is appealing. The allure of comfort beckons. The possibility that my coiled tangle of jagged, tight, compressed thoughts might loosen and unwind is seductive. Sleep can be addictive, but it does not always deliver on its promise of serenity. That being the case, maybe what I am after is not simple sleep. Maybe, instead, a controlled coma is what I seek—programmable unconsciousness, without the subconscious thoughts. Time during which the brain’s only obligations are to keep me alive and unaware, so I can rest and be prepared for consciousness.

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Kleenex® is a federally registered trademark owned by owned by Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. On occasion, I try to avoid using the trademarked name, but “facial tissue” does not spill effortlessly from my lips the way Kleenex® does. So, those occasions are few and far between. My frequent use of them to cope with a runny nose is the reason “facial tissues” are on my mind this morning. Actually, it’s not just that I use them so frequently, it’s that I notice that the box they come in claims the tissues are 3 layers thick. And I notice, when I pull a tissue from the box, that it is folded very precisely; not in half, but close to it. Why, I wonder, is it folded in that way, each tissue so deliberately creased? I think the fold must have something to do with its placement in its cardboard container…and/or that the fold was determined to contribute to the ease of pulling the tissue from the box. Yes, the fold must have some connection to ease of access. Someone, sometime, somewhere—perhaps as part of a team—has given deliberate, focused consideration to ways in which the product is stored and delivered to users. Similarly, somebody or somebodies decided on the content of multi-ply facial tissues and how the ingredients should be mixed or treated or placed in cardboard boxes or…much, much more. when I look at items on my desk, questions and curiosity sprout like kudzu vines in a fertilizer factory. The container for pills, for example, and the way the top was designed to make opening the bottle difficult for children and arthritis sufferers. Staplers, too, are objects that must have an interesting history, along with their “fuel,” the staples we load into them in order to enable us to attach multiple pieces of paper together. As I think about staplers and staples, it seems obvious that they were created at the same time…because, if not, what value does either of them have? Can the same thought process be applied to nails and hammers? Bullets and firearms? Marinara sauce and pasta? Liver and onions? Of course, at some point along the spectrum of “paired items,” the “pairings” must be completely unrelated, at least with respect to their genesis. Thinking of these relationship couplings visually, one might imagine large number of thin copper filaments twisted tightly together to form wire for a lamp. Now, as the filaments begin to unwind, those tight embraces relax; the wires loosen their grips on one another, transforming thick twisted strips into tangled threads. The relaxed spectra become suspect…can a loosely-knitted rope be as productive as a tightly woven cable? Do these concepts bear any relationship to one another? Or have we constructed a motorboat out of orange peels?

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On one end of my spectrum of thoughts, I seek shelter from the chaos. On the other, I feel cabin fever, urging me to leap from the window. From there, the universe invites me to carjack an armored vehicle loaded with whiskey, money, guns, and loud music. At that point, the sky’s the limit.