It was sometime in the middle of the night. The house was dark. We had lost our power and our cable and Internet.

The wind was frightening me for the first time since moving to the country.

It sounded like a jet engine was screaming outside the window; I felt the house trembling and got out of bed to go out onto the back porch and through the wind, snow, and rain.

I looked through the thickening storm to see our trees and bushes lying almost vertical as if they were pleading for mercy.

The day began hard and got more challenging. Our bathtub, which we filled to have water if we needed it for us and the animals, seemed to have frozen; the water would not drain.

Our donkey Lulu was limping badly; we thought we couldn’t go away Monday with her in distress. We are the stewards of our animals; they depend on us for care.

The roads were so slick no one was on them.

I was sick, had some stomach virus, and needed to use the bathroom frequently. I felt weak and old.

I was wondering how I might deal with the bathroom problem. Maria said she would go down the street in this awful storm and haul water up the hill in a bucket.

I did not want that to happen. I couldn’t go out on the slick and thick ice; there was too much risk of a fall. And I was too weak.

I was helpless on my farm. I am older and weaker than I used to be.

The storm was a gradual but relentless thing, a sudden but thorough assault on my identity.

I was beginning to have a panic attack. I was no longer sure who I was or what my purpose was.

I felt cut off from the wider world and surrounded by dangers I couldn’t control. I had lost my voice.

I felt bewildered. And I felt sick. I couldn’t hold food down.

I no longer write books; I chose to write on this blog. I’ve written on the blog since May of 2007, almost every day. It is who I am and how I express myself; it is my living memoir, great work, life and growth, fear and pain, and evolution.

It is Maria, my farm, the animals, my pictures, my search for spiritual life, and my small acts of great kindness. It is the dog who sleeps on my lap when I’m sick.

“Who am I?” now, I kept thinking. I wasn’t sure. It was as if my identity had suddenly vanished, as if I had no way to express myself, after fighting for my purpose and identity for years. Thursday, I knew who I was.

Friday night and Saturday, I had forgotten.

I’m not frontier person like my wife any more.

I was a city boy, and I was feeling overwhelmed, even as she told me this was old panic and trauma, nothing to do with the storm.

I didn’t believe her. The fear was too deep and genuine. The reality wasn’t.

I called the cable company and got a recording saying they couldn’t know when the Internet could be restored. It was serious. I couldn’t even get the weather. I felt sweaty; my stomach was a mess.

I knew I would need a bathroom more than once.

I called the electric company; they estimated three hours before the power would be back. I knew I had to hold on.

But what about my medicine in this awful cold?

What about the animals? What about the water pipes in the bathroom? One of our huge maple trees could fall on the house, as was happening all over town and the country; I saw it on my Iphone before I couldn’t check the weather anymore.

I was flying blind.

Bit by bit, I felt the wind shriek and rage; I was being pecked apart, my world shrinking before me, and the storm wouldn’t let up.

Who was I now? I understand this panic is old and childhood, but that doesn’t make it go away.

Without power, there is no genuine warmth, no protection for my medicine.

We have a generator in the garage, but I suspected we would not need it. We live on a busy highway, and I couldn’t get outside. Even the truths were gone; Maria would have to do it herself.

I wouldn’t say I liked that idea, I was useless mas a partner, and I couldn’t call for help in a storm like this unless there were no choices.

I didn’t accept the fear; a voice inside me said something was wrong. It was a lie, no matter what I felt.

I knew I had to settle, find myself, and figure out who I was. I had to see reality.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and paid less attention to my brain, and more to my stomach, the center of my body.

My original fear comes not only from my childhood but from my own and my ancestor’s fear. I grew up in a sea of fear.

Their fears had all come true.

They suffered from hunger and dread and hatred and cruelty; there were few times when they were not anxious, even terrified.

This kind of fear has been transmitted to me and almost everyone who has the fear so deep inside them.

When this fear threatens to overcome me, I know to stop, go inside of me, and try to wall myself off from the outside, which is triggering my old and inbred fears.

Fears are emotions, not anything real. Dangers are something else.

Emotions are a space to cross, not something to be accepted and believed. Looking out from the porch at our trees bending so profoundly in the wind, I looked at the trunk. The branches were bending in the wind; the trunk was not.

They would withstand the storm.

So would I.

Like the tree, I felt vulnerable, but like the tree, I know I am solid and deeply rooted in the ground and my life, and my faith and purpose. I have so much to do, so much to live for.

I began to get stronger.

I would not break in this storm, not from the power, cable, wind, snow, rain, or ice. I would be here in the morning, and so would almost everything I loved. My life would be waiting for me, just like before the storm.

I just needed to find my trunk and stand my ground. Because I am also firmly rooted in the ground I can’t be blown away or overwhelmed.

When I’m afraid, my dogs stay close to me. They are not bothered by me; they accept that I will return. They know who I am.

But I wasn’t sure. Who am I?

I went with a flashlight to dig out my precious book, “Fear,” by Thich Nhat  Hanh, the Buddhist scholar who died a short time ago. He often wrote about fear.

I remembered his Five Remembrances; they have often brought me to reality when I fall out of it:

1. I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape growing old.
2. 2. I am of the nature to have some ill health; I cannot escape having ill health.
3. I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death.
4. All that is dear to me, and everyone I love, are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
5. I inherit the results of my body, speech, and mind. My actions are my strength, my continuation.

I accept this as my reality, the truth, and not just a wish or another fact. But not today, not now. These are not things to fear or worry about but to know.

When I understand the truth about what I can and can’t control and the reality of my life, the fear – and the wrong things I do to try not to feel it – begin to cease and shrink.

It is emotions that bring fear, not reality. The storm was more evidence of it.

Was I really terrified of not being on the Internet? Of the bathtub not draining? Of a tree falling? Of the wind howling? Of freezing to death in front of two intense wood fires?

And in the presence of my firm and loyal wife? I breathe in the fear and blow it out. There is nothing, in reality, to keep it there. It is false, the way I have been lying to myself all my life.

I was lying to myself again.

Who am I?

I am strong. I love my life. I know in my head what to fear and what not to fear. I’m a scholar and survivor of fear.

I know my purpose. I know who I love.  I have never surrendered, quit, or run away. The wind outside the window is my soul screaming to tell the truth, and be strong. I listened to it.

Emotions are just emotions. Meditation do two things. They stop in the first breath and calm in the second.

Bit by bit, my life resurfaced.

The power came on. The Internet was restored. Lulu’s abscess was lanced. My stomach felt better.

The wind died down; the storm crept away in the night. I dug out my car and drove into town.

And this morning, as I knew it would, the blue sky ended my sinking into despair. It is always there. I always look for it; it always speaks to me and is always waiting for me.

In our world, in the story of my life, there is so much fear, suffering, violence, and despair.

But there is also and always the blue sky. After every storm, it reveals itself, sometimes in tiny peeks, sometimes not at all, sometimes entirely.

I am always there to look at it.

It tells me to begin anew. To bathe myself in the clear waters of my spirit.

To remind me that it is in my nature to be strong. The only thing to fear is fear.