Surviving the Storm

I've always loved snowstorms. There's something wonderful about hunkering down next to a crackling fire with the ones you love. The world goes quiet, winnowing out things we think are important but aren't. Baking pans slide into the oven, cups of cocoa are delivered to the man with the shovel and frozen cheeks, and if you're lucky enough to score a power outage, you'll spend evenings playing board games by candlelight.

Historically, I'm the person who jumps into action during a crisis. I have Plans A-G sorted out. I suppose I have Hurricane Agnes to thank for that. When she left us in the dark in 1972, my parents didn't panic. They met the challenge and gave me the best weeks of my life.

This past snowstorm was different. I was afraid, and that troubled me. I'm used to spending weekends at my cabin without electricity. I have shelves of canned food and plenty of stored water. The research I did for THE UNMAKING OF CALISTA MCTAVISH left me well educated on how to survive just about anything. So my anxiety had nothing to do with preparedness: it was about facing the storm alone.

As predicted, the house went quiet -- too quiet. As the snow fell, flames licked at the logs in the woodstove. I dug deep and baked brownies. Brewed coffee and made soup. But with nobody to share them with, my tiny rituals felt as empty as they were.

We aren't meant to be alone. And yet we are these days, even in crowded rooms. So many things vie for our time, mostly because we let them. At one time, we might have spent evenings watching a movie together or taking a long walk. Now, we collapse on couches and recliners, and although a movie is playing, our faces glow from the screens in our hands. We're together, yet far apart.

That phone you carry everywhere? The one that dings and gnaws at your conscience and raises your anxiety until you look at it? It isn't as necessary as you think it is. My late husband spent countless hours staring at his, just like the rest of us. He panicked when he couldn't find it, same as we do. Much of his world was in that thing, same as yours, same as mine.

Now it sits on the shelf where I placed it the day he died. That supremely important device couldn't save him, and I can't retrieve the hours he spent looking at it--hours that we could have enjoyed together, hours that might have become memories I could hold now.

Put the phone down. Engage with your family. Be present, not just in body. Weather the storm together. It matters more than you think.