The second hardest thing in the days leading up to a major hurricane is figuring out what things to take that will contribute to your happiness in the new home you’ll undoubtedly have to build. On Thursday, I thought hard about what I wanted that home to look like. Instead of the current three story Colonial, I imagined a home that filled a single floor, complete with a massive front porch, an enormous screened room, and a loggia wrapping around a small pool and hot tub. If the insurance money held, there would be an outdoor shower and a treehouse. Other than the realization that I intended to live almost entirely outdoors in my new home, I had no idea what that house would look like. I suppose there would need to be a kitchen, some bathrooms, and living space, but my mind did not go there. As a result, the bare necessities that I needed for Home Version 2.0 amounted to this list:

a few photographs of the children

my grandmother’s sterling (because my mother would never forgive me otherwise)

a lot of clean underwear

a few books on my nightstand

my knitting

a couple of canvases, brushes, and my toolbox full of paint and

my Hermes scarves (which felt entirely frivolous, yes, but was entirely non-negotiable).

With those things, I could begin anew in the company of Chris, our daughter, and Buddy.

Buddy necessitated his own brand of hurricane preparation, which led to an appointment with the vet on Thursday. Storms are hard on the old man, and bespoke Thundershirts aside, he engages in behavior that I would not wish on anyone. This includes my in-laws, to whose house we intended to evacuate. (This even includes me, but as his person, I have no choice.) After discussing his litany of issues with the vet, I asked if there was a sedative or tranquilizer that he could prescribe for Buddy. As I asked this question, I flashed to “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” a staple of 70s TV.

Did anyone actually like that show? Or was it just that television was so meager that we had no other choice? I watched it faithfully, never entirely convinced that it was good, which may explain why my only real memory of it seemed to be Jim’s firing tranquilizer darts at large animals.

You know that Buddy’s situation is bad if I was willing to fire a tranquilizer dart at him as he roamed the savana.

But veterinary medicine has advanced, and Buddy walked out with a prescription for Xanax. We had a discussion about it on the car ride home, Buddy’s head lolling out the back window. “Don’t go engaging in drug-seeking behavior,” I warned. “And if you’re asking to chase it with a bourbon back, I’m cutting you off.” As I had images of Buddy in mirrored sunglasses, going down a slippery slope that ended with his becoming a cooperating witness in a federal pill mill investigation and intermittently unsuccessful stints at rehab, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that Buddy was ignoring me. And I caught my own eyes on the mirror and realized a fundamental truth about myself: I worry too much.

The hardest thing in the days leading up to the hurricane was the anxiety, coupled with a need for patience and flexibility. I have tried to tune out The Sensational Weather Media and focus instead on the dry, matter of fact predictions of NOAA. In the days that Irma gathered force in the Caribbean, there were times that she seemed to be marching straight for Savannah. It was hard not to go into full-on panic mode. It was hard to watch and wait. As someone who adores established plans, firm itineraries, and lists, it was nearly impossible to roll with it. Patience may be a virtue. It just isn’t one of mine.

The Governor declared a mandatory evacuation, and around the time that our area had been scheduled to leave, we were demoted to a voluntary evacuation.

So we stayed. Which (if I’m being honest here) we had intended to do once it became apparent that the brunt of the hurricane would miss our area and offer instead tropical storm conditions.

If you live in Savannah, you are used to storms. The first few took me by surprise. But 25 years later, I know which roads to avoid and when not to drive. I know that the house is on one of the highest points in the city. I know that high winds will drop branches from the enormous pecan tree in the backyard and onto the roof, and that the noise will terrify me every single time.

So it was on Monday. With the dining room table stacked with bottled water, flashlights, batteries, candles, and matches, the storm began. As predicted, it scared me.

It did not scare Buddy. Empowered by Xanax, he barked at the back door, insistent on using the bathroom outside four times in driving rain and gale force winds.

Perhaps some fear is good.

I did not know what to do, so I grabbed my easel and paints. In the dark, I set up the easel by the back door. I chose a very small canvas (it is six inches square) and started to paint. I approached it like a child, not mixing colors and painting straight from the tube. For an hour or so, I attacked, asking myself repeatedly what I saw and what I felt.

When I could do no more damage, I took it into a room with light and saw this:

The muted colors, the bits of light, the red door, the fountain. The garage standing where the pool and hot tub would be in the new house. The bird house, the plants, the ivy covered fence. Cloistered and waiting for me, all still there. It overwhelmed me with gratitude, and l said a prayer for those whose homes and communities had not been spared. For that is another hard thing about hurricanes: not everyone makes it through unscathed.

Something small and red caught my eye. It was the male cardinal sitting with his mate, both birds getting shellacked by the rain yet waiting expectantly for the return of the feeder. This couple chirps at me loudly every morning as if to say feed me, feed me, feed me. So braving the rain, with an unusually courageous Buddy by my side, I scattered bird seed on the ground under where they usually ate. Cold and wet and back inside, I saw a group of squirrels sitting on the amputated spikes of a palm tree trunk, tails hovering over their heads like a mohawk, waiting for the storm to pass. I waited, too — safe, dry, and slightly scared — the rain and wind punctuated by the sound of Buddy’s snoring.

ALC