I walked to the grocery store this morning to pick up some fruit and vegetables, with the aim of laying in provisions for the next couple of days—before the winter storm arrives? I lugged home my groceries, grateful for the proximity of the store to my house.

Later in the morning, the dentist office called, offering my husband an earlier appointment—tomorrow at 10:00 AM. When he got off the phone, I reminded him of the impending storm. He thought better of accepting the new appointment and called the dentist office back. We're retired. We have no commitments tomorrow. Why go out when we don't absolutely need to? Instead, we'll stay home, in our cosy house, sipping mocha coffees and making lentil soup.

I drove to the park-and-ride this evening to pick up my daughter after work. The storm had already brought several hours of snow, and the winds had blown it around in haphazard fashion. The roads were slippery. I took my time, grateful that my route meandered along quiet city streets. "I'm in no rush," I told myself. I had no impatient driver on my bumper, wondering why I was doing only 30 km an hour. In fairness, the speed limit on the street is 40 km, so perhaps it's not so strange to drop my speed by a paltry 10 km, under the circumstances. On the way home from the park-and-ride, I said again, "I'm in no rush. I haven't left anything burning on the stove."

Two years ago, when I had radiation therapy every weekday for five weeks, I didn't have the luxury of staying home during a snowstorm. I was always afraid that if I deviated from the schedule at all, something bad would happen. So on one snowy day in January 2022, Chris and I headed out early to the Irving Greenberg Family Cancer Centre. A round trip that would typically have taken 20 minutes stretched to an hour. When we returned home, I crawled back into bed—an antidote to the early start to my day, the fatigue brought on by cancer treatment and the stress of fighting the snowstorm.

As I sit typing this post—wrapped in an oversized hoodie, sipping hot coffee, listening to instrumental jazz—I am grateful to have a warm home, people I love and food in my fridge. It can storm outside, for I have no place to be, no commitment to honour, no treatment to undergo.