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I traveled this month to Lithuania with my wife to see her ancestral country and visit her relatives. We sat in a kitchen drinking wine with an uncle, an aunt and a grandmother. Not understanding a lick of Lithuanian, I smiled and nodded. I got the gist of what they were saying. When Putin sent a military invasion into nearby Ukraine last winter, the Lithuanian government put out warnings for citizens to be prepared in case war turned on this small country, once part of the USSR and now a member of the European Union. The warnings included detailed instructions for what to have ready in case people needed to flee into the woods: drinking water, food, lights, batteries, matches, records, deeds, birth control and a wire saw for cutting wood.

What I learned here is that people are prepared. They or their relatives have been through this before. A relative of my wife, a young man in the Lithuanian military, built a small forge in his garage, and his hobby is making knives. It seems everyone has hands-on skills.

Being prepared is not a foreign concept. What did you do when Norwood town water dried up for a few days because pipes under the streets burst from a recent surge? It doesn’t take much before you realize you have to depend on what you’ve got.

Before leaving the country, my wife and I prepared go boxes that could be grabbed by a friend in case a wildfire came through. Sometimes all you have is an hour or two, or less, before everything you own goes up in smoke. I loaded journals and pictures into one box, thinking it wouldn’t be that bad to lose these. Tragic, but we’d survive.

What’s more important in the moment is the go bag, what you’d need if you had to run out the door. It’s probably the same as what is advised in wartime: cash, ID, knife, headlamp, warm hat, raincoat. I make sure I’ve got twine in a little pocket in my go bag. Don’t underestimate the utility of twine, good for tying anything broken back together.

Think of what you’d need if you had to stay with friends for a few weeks or in a motel. Printed list of phone numbers, and chargers, laptop, extra underwear.

Some people keep a checklist of what to grab, so they don’t have to decide in a panic. Duct tape, wind-up radio, medicines, bandages, antibiotic ointment. Depending on where you live, the cause could be earthquake, hurricane, flood, or just a phone call from someone who needs help and you have to make a long drive and stay overnight. Socks, toothbrush, wallet, jacket, snacks.

While hiking in the desert in Utah, I came upon an abandoned prepper cache. Maybe it wasn’t abandoned, it’s just that the anticipated apocalypse never came. Someone had carefully prepared a desert lifeboat for themselves. Tucked behind a boulder were matches in a jar, blankets and tarps bundled up, fishing poles, and lures at the ready. These looked to be a couple decades old, rotted and half buried in red blow sand, little of the cache useful anymore. I was glad to see it had never been needed.

The daypack I’m carrying in Lithuania is my go bag. It’s what I need for hiking in deep woods or on the streets in the city. It’s what I don’t have to think about every time I saddle-up at the door, what frees my mind so I can move at will. I’ve got a compass, because directions are sometimes hard to tell in unfamiliar places. A bandanna is ready for tending a wound, improvised sunshade for my bald spot, or wiping up spilled wine. A slim volume of poetry is good should I find myself waiting.

The family around the table seemed to take it in stride. Have something ready in case you need it. They talked about what they’d carry mostly with smiles, everyday thoughts. It’s not the end of the world.

Craig Childs is a Norwood author who has published more than a dozen books on nature, science and exploration, including “The Secret Knowledge of Water.”

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