Yes, it’s snowing here. The media makes it sound as if the blizzard hitting our Northeast is the biggest news in the universe. Never mind the fear and panic of a probable war with Iran (never declared by our Congress, naturally). Never mind the horrific winter the Ukrainians are undergoing (our house is warm). Sometimes it seems as if the news is always about us. And honestly—I mean, be honest—doesn’t that give you some feeling of security, even comfort?

On Friday evening I watched Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus as presented by England’s National Theater’s rent-a-movie-of-a-play program. I loved it, including the stage setting, in which four large, vertical panels hung from ceiling to floor, and depending on the scene, one of the panels would come up to reveal the scene. Sometimes the actors would come front stage, sometimes not. In the theater of life, it’s always the same panel rising and showing me, and I usually come right out front.

Briefly, we’re not being hit like the eastern or southern parts of the state. So far, I see some 7-8 inches of snow, not the 20 in New York. The winds are more concerning because of the very real possibility of losing electricity, which essentially shuts down the house. Which doesn’t bother Aussie in the least, who’s sitting outside between tall snowbanks, getting white, on the eternal hunt for squirrels.

Ahead of me is shoveling the long trench in the back (Henry calls it his latrine), filling birdfeeders (very busy today), and taking up the trash and recyclables bin up the driveway, which has already been plowed once and will be again, from the looks of it.

At night I’m reading Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, considered one of the great novels of the early 20^th century. It’s immaculate writing even as the characters seem dated, but the issues that come up—how familiar they seem!

“Supposing that you should come upon us sitting together at one of the little tables in front of the club house, let us say, at Homburg, taking tea of the afternoon and watching the miniature golf, you would have said that, as human affairs go, we were an extraordinarily safe castle. We were, of you will, one of those tall ships with the white sails upon a blue sea, one of those things that seem the proudest and the safest of all the beautiful and safe things that God has permitted the mind of men to frame. Where better could one take refuge? Where better?”

I paused when I read this because I remembered how, shortly after joining the Zen Community of New York (precursor to the Zen Peacemakers) and its socio-economic projects in Yonkers, on a rare weekend day off, I sat with a friend on a small hilltop looking over the Hudson River and espying a sailboat. It was a gorgeous summer day and looked just like how Ford described it, white sails upon a blue sea, almost proud of its remote peacefulness on those quiet waters.

My friend had moved into the Community at the same time I did, but he disliked the long, stressful days of work and would soon leave. He preferred the 9-5 jobs {which sounds a little quaint now) and the evenings off for a beer at the local bar, dating, watching TV.

I just said two words in reply: “I’m happy.”

My life was way more manic than that sailboat—and I was happy. Not because I loved to do things; I never envied the folks in the speeding Metro North trains hurrying back and forth to New York City, while I walked down the streets of southwest Yonkers littered with white, plastic shopping bags buffeted by winds and the red vials of crack on the pavement.

No, I knew that sailboat had it good on a Sunday summer afternoon. But Monday morning? And the mornings after that? Whoever was on board that boat was not impervious to change, accidents, medical emergencies, disappointments, death. As the writer George Saunders said in his terrific interview with Ezra Klein, The New York Times opinion writer:

“I think everybody, to a greater or lesser extent, is involved in trying to get over in some way, trying to push back on the natural fear that we have of being out of control. But I think what should be becoming clear to us is that if you say power is everything — that if I get that power, I’m safe — that’s completely B.S. There’s not a world where one person could have so much power as to be above suffering. There just isn’t.”

I intuited that moment, looking down at the peaceful sailboat on the river, that the choice I’d made about joining a spiritual community was slowly steering me away from that delusion. At the age of 35, it was a very different decision than that made by my New York City peers, marrying a first or second time, buying condos, having children. And it didn’t mean I wouldn’t suffer, because that’s not possible.

Ford continued in his book: “Permanence? Stability!  I can’t believe it’s gone. I can’t believe that that long, tranquil life, which was just stepping a minuet, vanished …

“Our intimacy was like a minuet, simply because on every possible occasion and in every possible circumstance we knew where to go, where to sit, which table we unanimously should choose; and we would rise and go, all four together … always in the temperate sunshine, or, if it rained, in discreet shelters.”

You could have as prosperous and pleasant life as that, and nothing would prevent it from crashing, the minuet at a standstill, the dancers looking around them in befuddlement.

Outside this winter stormy day, the birds have to be concerned with the polar cold, the need for food to stay warm and alive, the young hawk circling out front, and even Aussie, who prefers squirrels but will take whatever’s on the menu. The cardinal arrives and kicks everybody off the feeder, but always they come back, trying this feeder, then another, usually singing.