There’s a blizzard outside, and it’s my fault.

Well, not completely; but I am the girl who was heard to remark sometime last fall that Cape Cod doesn’t get the kind of snowfall it used to, even just eight or ten years ago. And if the weather gods were listening, they were probably rubbing their hands in ecstatic anticipation, because this winter we’ve been walloped. This is the third major storm of 2026, and it’s bar far the worst: a nor’easter with winds that drive the snow and rattle the windows and have one wondering if one ought to have verified that one’s insurance premiums have all been paid. We lost electricity in the small hours of the morning and I’m leaving my cottage every twenty minutes or so to clear out my front step so my (only) door will continue to function.

But there’s a kind of peace here, too. I cannot go online, so there’s no working or checking emails or reading websites; I’ll only continue to write this as long as my MacBook’s battery holds out. So I spent most of the morning sitting in an armchair, reading. No one’s calling—I expect people are too absorbed in merely coping—and the one ancient radio I’ve kept from the Before Times is getting nothing but static, so here I am in silence… except, of course, for the wind. Reminded, naturally, of all the wonderful mystery novels where murders take place in isolated, snowbound houses and communities.

I’m going to try and refrain from becoming a part of one of them.

It might be too obvious a metaphor, but I’m going for it anyway: the last few weeks and months, we’ve all been inundated with the daily rapid-fire shocking news that comes out of a regime whose principal goal appears to be creating chaos. The storm is shielding me from all that today: Washington DC could be in a different solar system for all I’m experiencing it. And being forced to take a step back is not a bad thing at all.

So many things jostle for space in our brains and hearts—the abject cruelty of the regime, and the selfless fierceness of those standing up to it; the grief over those killed, those deported, those held in concentration camps, and the pride and solidarity of people all over trying to make a difference in the face of it all… and once in a while we need to take a step back and re-orient ourselves. Remember that it wasn’t always like this, and it will not be this way forever. Say a prayer. Light a candle. Read a book.

Shovel some snow.

It’s not a permanent solution, of course, and I have no illusions that tomorrow or the next day when power is back on, sanity will be as well. It won’t; we’re in this for a long time, perhaps for a very long time indeed. But that is, perhaps, all the more reason to pace ourselves. To find some moments where we can breathe, and reflect, and remind ourselves of who we are—not “us” as part of a movement, going on marches, recording illegal police actions, writing letters, making phone calls, donating to organizations, volunteering, but “us” as individuals, persons, who like to cook or read or go for walks. Because it seems to me that if we lose that, then we’re not going to be of much use to anyone.

One of my friends keeps reminding me that “joy is resistance.” But I find it difficult to experience when so many people—not just in this country, God knows, but in the world as a whole—are in so much pain, so much turmoil, people who don’t have the options and resources I have. Feeling joy feels, sometimes, like betrayal. Today has taught me otherwise.

I’ll do more writing soon. But for today, I’m going to keep the snow off my front steps and light my candles and even, perhaps, find some peace in the midst of this wind and snow.

There will be time for the rest of it tomorrow.

It’s All About the Storms

Television to the Rescue!