As fall began to take its final bows this week, winter was waiting in the wings, hastening the old season’s slide into history with sleet, ice, and snow. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, it appeared that someone had run Zambonis over the roads in much of the state, turning the morning rush into a cautious creep. Then snow frosted the landscape again on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Winter asserts itself in this way as no other season does. It imposes itself on our pace, on our schedules, and on our certitude. It threatens to break our appointments with its implicit threat to break our arms and hips by shifting the ground beneath our feet and the road beneath our cars. It loosens the connections we have to make, and, at times, cuts us off one from another.

The traditional flinty disregard for foul weather by our New England ancestors was matched only by their fastidious preparations for winter. Jams and preserves tucked in under their wax seals were put up on pantry shelves. Winter vegetables were swaddled and mangered in cold cellars. And woodsheds were neatly stacked to the rafters with seasoned cordwood. It was a lot of hard work, requiring care and cooperation. People showed up to help out.

Modern conveniences and a robust service economy now allow us to ignore the coming of the winter solstice with a good measure of impunity. Because of our comfort relative to our forebearers, we have become less flinty in our disregard for foul weather and more frustrated in our responses to it. We also rely less on our family and neighbors.

In Newtown, however, adversity — not from natural weather fronts, but from the hideously unnatural affront of gun violence and community tragedy — has tightened up many of the town’s loose connections and has drawn people together in care and cooperation. It has made us more aware of each other. And it is, coincidently, this time of year when this heightened sense of interdependence surges, through remembrance and commitment. This weekend, there are many opportunities to gather and to renew and strengthen those connections that see us through the cold, darkness, and isolation that closes in at this time of year.

Beyond formal observances, however, there remains a need for us to watch out for each other, especially with winter waiting in the wings. Be on the alert for isolation in our families and in our neighborhoods. We need to stay close enough to support each other as winter shifts the world beneath us.