Imagine this: It’s a Thursday morning, unremarkable save for the incessant drizzle outside your window. The weather app on your phone chirps an alert—not for rain, but for something far more ominous. A chemical spill on the outskirts of town, they say. Evacuation orders imminent. The mundane has suddenly become extraordinary, and you’ve got minutes to prepare. 

What now?

Physical:

I grab my “go-bag” from the hall closet, disturbing a small avalanche of motorcycle gloves. The bag’s heavier than I remember. Inside, I find protein bars I bought during a health kick two years ago, a first-aid kit still in its packaging, and inexplicably, a novel I’ve been meaning to read. I add a few essentials—underwear, toothbrush, the good coffee beans. No time to be uncivilized, even in an emergency.

Mental:

My brain kicks into overdrive, a jumble of half-remembered emergency protocols and useless trivia. Did I leave the stove on? Will my birds survive without the feed? I should’ve backed up my hard drive last week. Focus. I make a mental checklist, crossing off items as quickly as they appear. The white noise of panic is there, but it’s more like the hum of a refrigerator—present but ignorable.

Spiritual:

Day 268 of my meditation streak. Who knew it’d be prepping me for this? I close my eyes, syncing my breath with the wail of distant sirens. In for four, hold for four, out for four. My mind quiets, not to zen-like emptiness, but to a laser focus I’ve never quite managed on my yoga mat.

I open my eyes. The world hasn’t changed, but I have. I’m not calm, exactly. More like… ready. All those mornings questioning my sanity as I sat cross-legged on the floor suddenly make sense. This is what I’ve been training for.

Standing in my living room, I take one last look around. The half-empty cup of coffee on the table, the helmet perched on the bookshelf, the bird feeder visible through the window—all of it suddenly precious in its ordinariness. 

My eyes refocus on the blinking cursor on my computer screen. The word document stares back at me, filled with the story I’ve just written. Outside my window, it’s a perfectly ordinary Thursday morning. No sirens, no chemical spill, just the quiet hum of my neighborhood waking up.

I lean back in my chair, chuckling softly. Just a story. But as I reach for my coffee mug, I can’t help but glance at the closet where my never-used “go-bag” sits. Maybe, I think, it’s time to check those expiration dates on those protein bars. Just in case.