Walking through my neighborhood as it gradually comes back to life from last week’s storm-induced slumber, I recall a time when I harshly judged anyone who didn’t clear their sidewalk after a big snow.

In the deep of winter, sometimes the only sign of our feathered friends is the nest they left behind, revealed when the shelter of leaves fell away, well before the first snowfall conceals the nest once again.

The world is loud right now. It is hard to imagine that our nervous systems were built to sustain the levels of outrage, fear, and grief coursing through our collective bloodstream; it does not seem we were meant for this degree of exposure to violence and human disregard that floods our news feeds.