Storm Home
When I walked out on my porch to take a photo of the red barn in the snow-covered valley the morning after Winter Storm Gianna passed through the Carolinas, the picturesque view sparked an auditory memory. During the years when my family was doggedly pursuing our goal of visiting all fifty states, we listened to audiobooks on our summer driving vacations. In those days of yore, audiobooks were only available on cassette tapes, so we always traveled with a bag filled with cassettes housed in vinyl cases. For several consecutive summers, collections of Garrison Keillor’s “News from Lake Wobegon” monologues were included in our mobile listening library.
The sight of the barn reminded me of Keillor’s story “Storm Home,” which was included on the “Winter” cassette tape, released in 1997.* I could not begin to count how many of Keillor’s stories I have listened to, either live on “A Prairie Home Companion” radio broadcast or on audio recordings, but “Storm Home” is the story that has been a strange source of comfort for me for nearly 30 years.
According to the story, on the first day of school, all bus-riding children in Lake Wobegon were handed slips of paper that read: “Your storm home is __________________.” In the event a blizzard beset the town during a school day, the children who lived in the country were instructed to walk to their assigned storm home near the school where they would shelter until it was safe to return to their families. Keillor’s childhood storm home was a green cottage by the lake, a place he never had the occasion to visit, but a hypothetical refuge he nevertheless cherished.
Through the years, I have wondered why I found the notion of a storm home to be so compelling. I grew up in Tennessee, a state where (prior to climate change) we rarely experienced winter storms. Tornados were our primary meteorological threat, and unless someone nearby had a storm cellar - which were rare - you hunkered down wherever you were until the twister blew through town.
A few hours after I took the photo of the barn, I read the latest newsletter from The Belonging Workshop. The timely theme for the third week of their Wintering Series is “Shelter.”
Image created by Rachel Eleanor of The Belonging Workshop
Every weekly email from The Belonging Workshop includes a Sabbath Practice, and the practice of the week was “Mutual Aid.” The introduction to the practice began with these thoughtful words: “Winter has a way of reminding us that survival is rarely an individual effort. Shelter is not just walls and a roof - it’s the conditions that make rest feasible. And shelter requires coordination. We must know what we need and how to ask for it. We must recognize what others need and how to offer it.”
As I read Mariko Clark’s and Rachel Eleanor’s suggestions for rendering mutual aid – defined as “the practice of caring for one another in practical, organized ways” – I suddenly realized why “Storm Home” had resonated with me for years. At its essence, this is a story about mutual aid. The knowledge that there are people in the world who are actively preparing to help others when storms arrive comforts me and inspires me to do likewise.
Later in the day, when I watched the shadows stretch across the red barn in the snowy field as sunset approached, I reflected on the prompts that accompanied the Sabbath practice of mutual aid. Who are the people in my Winter circle – the folks with whom I am weathering life? How am I already practicing mutual aid? What else might I do?
From my frigid perch on my porch, I looked at the house across the street where my family sought assistance in the days after Hurricane Helene hit. When our home lacked power and water, our good neighbors with a generator invited us over to take showers, charge our phones, and share a hot meal. As January’s back-to-back winter storms approached, I knew if things got bad at my house, my neighbors would certainly render aid.
Reviewing the first month of the year, I reflected on the communities where I have witnessed mutual aid at work. I thought about the people who have helped me physically, emotionally, and spiritually in recent weeks. I recalled the compassionate examples of folks who are actively working to identify and meet needs, creating spaces where rest is feasible. With cold hands and a warm heart, I said goodnight to the red barn and returned to the shelter of my home.
Where is your storm home? Who is in your Winter circle? May you find the shelter you seek. May you be the shelter someone else needs.
While searching online for an easy way to listen to this story, I discovered a wonderful website called Internet Archive, a non-profit library of free texts, movies, software, music, and websites. In October 2025, Internet Archive marked an impressive milestone – over 1 trillion webpages archived. On their website, I was able to listen to “Storm Home” free of charge. Perhaps you would like to listen to the story, too.
