South of Elizabeth City, NC – May 21, 2013

Where do you go three miles from land as storms race toward you on the wind? Where do you go when black sheets of rain devour the sun and make the water pop like oil in a skillet? Where do you go when the world flashes bright and thunder cracks open the sky?

Nowhere. There is nowhere to go. You just feel small and know why people saw gods in storms.

It came over me like an animal. Alive, teeth flashing, vicious. Rain splattered across the ocean. Dark sky. Black waves. Wind rushing over the water.

And the thunder. The thunder roared in my ears. Sharp, snapping cracks that made me cower and try to melt into the sea.

I disappeared to the one place left for me to go, inside myself to throw fear out of my mind, to make peace with with fate, to accept that there is nothing you can do in the middle of an ocean. I’d already made the mistakes. I’d already thrown the dice.

There were no more wrong answers, no more bad decisions. There was nothing for me to do except look up, watch in awe, know I had that moment at least, and damn all the rest.