In case of emergency, clouds

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about backup plans. 

If you’ve listened to me before you know I live in Mexico and drive a car I got here that my kids named Hot Dog and he’s a piece of junk. 

Because he’s a piece of junk I always need to be prepared for him to break down. I’ve stowed a battery-operated car jumper with cables that is also a flashlight and phone charger–the best $45 I have ever spent. I’ve also got a hi-viz vest. I don’t currently have collapsable traffic cones but imma get some after getting a flat yesterday between an onramp and an exit and nearly getting hit almost sixty times. Let’s see, what else? Water, ibuprofen, lip balm, sunscreen, ideally a couple of protein bars and a little cash. 

That being said, it’s not just Hot Dog I’ve outfitted in case of emergency. When I lived in Maine, I drove the most solid car ever, a Volvo SUV we called “Mjolner,” so named because of his structural resemblance to Thor’s hammer. In his capacious trunk, I kept a bin of survival gear suited to protecting a family with young children from the eventuality of snow, ice, moose, and more. Gloves, hats, multiple ice scrapers, a portable shovel, cat litter to gain traction in case of ice, sweaters for every member of the family and blankets in case we didn’t get traction on the ice, and a couple of flares.

Mjolner’s kit paled in comparison to what I had stashed away in my house. In the basement, I kept enormous drums of fresh water, and I had an entire second pantry dedicated to non-perishables: peanut butter, coffee, cooking oil, canned vegetables, dried fruits, and so on. What’s more, in addition to the everyday first aid kit I stored in our family bathroom, I had a fully stocked extra first aid kit with full bottles of hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, bandages, medicines, gloves, masks, bleach wipes, hand sanitizer, and more. There was also a backpack of clothes that I would change out every six months or so with outfits for every member of the family. In addition to dual smoke and carbon monoxide detectors I’ve installed in every room of the house, I have mounted fire extinguishers and fire blankets in multiple parts of my house. That being said, I still kick myself for not having bought a fire ladder in the event that we need to escape directly out the window. 

In case you’re wondering, this is not a post-Covid thing. Nor am I an avid watcher of The Walking Dead or others in the post-apocalyptic survival genre. I have never lived in an off-grid cabin in the woods waiting for doomsday, and I am not a gun owner or ammo stockpiler. 

But I am a worrier. 

I can pinpoint the start of my worrying to fourth grade. I remember one day had a substitute teacher who was tasked with showing the class a video about high-rise hotel fire safety. I was always fairly attentive in class, but I couldn’t stop becoming absorbed in this video. I can still summon a picture of the woman recounting how she barely survived a fire in her high-rise hotel. I can still recall the instructional portion advising travelers to bring duct tape with them to seal off doors to prevent smoke from entering a room. Most of all, I can remember going home that day and packing a go bag. That bag–a small, cylindrical green duffle I had sewed myself and decorated with an iron-on smiley face patch–held some clothes, shoes, a book, and my stuffed animal Mumm. I stored it under my bed, a location I favored because of its proximity to a window I could climb out of and down to safety. 

A few days later my mother noticed Mumm was missing. Mumm had been lost a few times and typically his disappearance caused me great panic, but when my mother noticed his absence and my lack of panic she took me aside. “Where’s Mumm,” she asked. “Is something going on?” “Oh, he’s ok. He’s in my emergency bag under my bed in case there’s a fire.” I remember going upstairs with her to my room, and showing her the green duffle bag with its extra clothes, shoes, book, and Mumm. I explained to her the great peril of high-rise hotel fires, and the relative peril of regular house fires. We must have been up there a while because I remember my godmother, who was visiting, wondering where we were and joining us upstairs in my room. The three of us must have discussed this for quite a little while–me talking about fire safety and preparedness and them trying to reassure me. I was reassured, I said, because I had my go bag. “But fires are really rare,” I remember them saying. And then–and this I remember so well because it was that perfect mixture of sensory memory and vindication and irony–I smelled smoke. I am not making this up. As the three of us sat upstairs on my bed, plumes of smoke rose up the stairs to my bedroom from the kitchen below: bread forgotten in the toaster oven as they tried to talk me down about fire safety. 

Around the same age, I remember having dreams in which I learned I was about to lose my eyesight or my sense of hearing. I vividly recall my reaction in one such dream and mourning that I would never be able to listen to the Star Wars theme music ever again. As I say, I was in like fourth grade, and that was a big deal for me then. 

But in fact, I have never lost my senses of hearing or sight. If anything as I’ve gotten older, and especially since becoming a mother, they have gotten keener. I joke with my husband that I’d like to write a TV show about a woman who is an excellent detective simply by applying to perps the strategies of heightened observation and deduction developed as a parent, such as knowing what had happened in another room by seeing a reflection in the windows or smelling faint traces of food on the breath or perceiving microexpressions that betray veracity (or not). I’d call it Mom Detective and it would be on ABC and it would be terrible unless you watched it with a couple of glasses of wine while texting with other moms complaining about the dumb stuff we caught our kids doing in which case it would be must see TV. And don’t get me started on how GIF-able it would be.

I have, however, lost my sense of smell. (But thanks autofill for anticipating I was going to write “humor.”)

As an adult, I’ve come to treasure my heightened sense of smell (again, autofill is suggesting “humor,” thanks for that.) Like the mom detective I am, I can perceive so much just by smelling. Early on I could tell immediately when a diaper needed changing. In the years since I’ve learned to sense when my kids have and haven’t brushed their teeth, when they have and haven’t just eaten candy or chocolate or their broccoli, when they have opened a bottle of forbidden nail polish in the dark of their closet, when they have woken up at 4 am to cook bacon or popcorn or both. As a parent, I wouldn’t trade my sense of smell for anything, even though my spouse would probably prefer if my reaction to his flatulence and foot odor was less intense. 

As much as my sense of smell has a utilitarian aspect, I delight in fine perfumes and high-quality scented candles. Many of my favorite memories have a perfume associated with them, and I choose a perfume every day with more thought than just about anything else I wear. 

One day, just before Christmas 2020, FedEx delivered three ginormous millennial pink packages to my house–gifts for my closest friends and family from a luxury beauty company I adore. Even through the layers of shipping materials, I could perceive the exquisite scent of the candles I had ordered and I set aside the package in hopes of finding a quiet moment to plan which scent would suit which recipient best. A few hours later with the kids in front of the TV, I opened the first of the boxes, only to be disappointed that the smells of the expensive, french-perfumed candles had faded completely. How strange, I thought, before taking a sip of the cup of mulled wine I’d brought to savor while wrapping. It too was strangely impercetible. I couldn’t smell or really even taste any of the sweetened spiced wine, its only sensory impact was warmth, and worry. 

Of course, it turns out I had contracted COVID. I spent the next five days in that room alone. I could hear some of what was going on in the rest of the house–kids fighting, more TV than normal being watched, more fighting–but I had no idea what else was happening. I couldn’t tell if anything was cooking, or if anything was burning, or if kids were lying about eating their broccoli and brushing their teeth. Worst of all, I couldn’t smell Christmas. There was no cinnamon or peppermint or gingerbread. It was all nothingness. Cardboard without even the smell of cardboard. 

I felt a little crummy those five days, but never feared I would die. 

But fears find a way in. I must have dreamed a dozen times that my house was on fire. But in my dream, just as in my days, I couldn’t smell anything. Suddenly my room filled with smoke and it was too late. 

Too late. The worst possible outcome for a worrier and a prepper. I can stock up on water, on food, and on firewood. I can buy bulk packs of toilet paper and bleach and bandaids and anti-radiation potassium iodide pills because Trump called Kim Jong Un “Little Rocketman.” I can chide my husband for spending the emergency $20 and not refilling the car water bottles. I can replace the crackers that mice got into and adapt my emergency kits from protection against cold to protection against heat. All that I can do, but I can’t do anything if I lose my sense (....“of humor”--thanks autofill.)

//

A few summers ago, my husband and I took our kids to one of the most glorious spots I know, the village of Five Islands, in Georgetown, Maine. By village, I actually mean a couple of houses situated around a wharf with a lobster shack with an ice cream parlor. 

Lobster would be wasted on my kids, but ice cream sure isn’t. 

Scoops in hand we took over a table facing the water. (I should add that the brilliance of Five Islands is all the tables face the water.) The toddler had his eyes fixated on his cone, eating with intense concentration, willing his hands not to let go the cone. My younger daughter looked up at the clouds squinting the way little kids can only do, with the chub of her upper cheeks shielding her deep blue eyes from the blue above. 

My eldest daughter’s gaze meanwhile passed over the deck to the rock ledge beach below, scored and gouged from the most recent retreating glacier, and softened somewhat by the cold Atlantic repeating itself. 

She paused her licking. “Mama?” Lick. “Has there always been,” lick, “water there?”

I let my cone sink down from my mouth. “Well, over time, what is water and what is land changes.”

“Mama?” Lick. “Will the water take over this land someday?” Lick.

My cone sank further and rested above my knee. “Some grown-ups are actually worried about that,” I replied.

Her cone had now likewise sunk to her knee. “What will we do if that happens?”

“You just need to follow me, and I’ll keep you safe,” I said. She considered this. The toddler seemed indifferent. My younger daughter kept licking and looking up. 

“Or, you can follow me,” the younger girl interjected. 

“What’s your plan?” I queried. 

“Well,” lick, “I’ll buy a rope,” lick, “the longest rope at the store,” lick, “and I’ll throw it up to that cloud there,” lick, “and there on that cloud we’ll be safe until we can come down again.” And she went back to her ice cream, catching up on lost licks someone catching their breath after an intense run. Her eyes stayed sky ward. 

“That cloud there looks good to me, I think,” she said and licked again.

//

This piece doesn’t have some masterful resolution to broken cars, high rise hotel fires, or the chaotic impact of COVID on the senses, or least of all sea level rise. I still worry. I have said in all seriousness to my husband, “I worry I worry too much.” But I have my sense of smell back, and pretty soon my car will be back from the mechanic with three new tires, and I’ll replace the water bottle and protein bars I used the other day sitting by the highway for over two hours while waiting for the tow truck. 

Because I suppose, that is to say, the masterful resolution is accepting that’s all you can do. You can pack your go bag and keep a few extra bottles of water. You can get vaccinated and wear a mask. You can put on a nice perfume and take your kids out for an ice cream and tell them that they don’t need to worry. That all they need to do is to look to you and you’ll take care of it as best you can and keep them safe and give them an education and then set them out into the world to take care of each other, and hopefully innovate some climate change resistant cloud village. 

And that’s the plan.