After the Storm

Please note, there might be exaggerations to the actuality of this story, however in the moment, it is what I felt…and so that is what I will write. 

It was a gorgeous summer weekend.  Jon, Rosie, Mikey and I had decided to hide out at a yacht club on the boats in Rockport.  We spent two days lounging in the sun, swimming, tooling around in the skiff, sipping on cocktails, reading, napping, laughing…being.  Although we were only a matter of miles from home, it felt like we were a million miles away.  For a moment, life was quiet and perfect and peaceful.

As Sunday began to come to a close, Mikey and I decided to head back.  Leaving the placid waters of the inlet that had protected us for two days, everything turned.

When we got out into the open ocean, there was no peace.  There was no calm.  The ocean had turned.  A southeasterly wind kicked in, slamming 6-foot swells sideways against the boat.  There was no choice but to get across, unprotected in an open Sea Vee.  We were too far out to turn around and ultimately, what was the point, we were already too deep in.  It felt as if we were in a fucking tornado spinning us sideways.

For anyone who has ever been on the boat with Mikey, you know that he is the most solid and safe of sailors.  Nobody knows or interprets the sea or the land better than him.  I have always had the ultimate faith that he will protect me.  But in that moment, with the boat flying in the air, with water filling and covering the boat sideways, I was terrified.  My hands were melting from gripping the bars of the boat so intensely to stay grounded.  Tears were streaming down my cheeks and for a moment, I believed the one thing that I have always loved the most, the ocean, was going to be the one thing that would destroy me. 

For the first time in all of these years on the water together, Mikey turned around and looked at me and said, “T, I think you should put a life jacket on.”  My heart stopped.  So this is it….I thought.  This is how it all ends.  “If you aren’t going to put one on, neither am I,” I said back.  And so I sat there, gripping, holding on for dear life as the boat was throttled from side to side being pounded and assaulted by waves. 

Mikey has always been an anchor for me since I met him.  A source of calm and peace.  The intensity of which he was navigating us through this moment and his silence more than anything was all too telling of the severity of it.  His normal sense of humor and ease was lost and I felt nothing short of complete dread. 

And then, there was strange peace.  In ultimate fear, I found this ironic peace.  I looked around me.  Sailboats toppling on their sides, the Sea Vee crashing against waves, my skin and body drenched, and I felt peace.  There was nothing I could do but hold on.  And when you have nothing else, that’s what’s you do.  Hold on. 

Every minute or two Mikey would shout out how many minutes more we had to go through this to get across and so I counted minutes and held on.  I had to have faith in something so I had faith in minutes.  After all, anyone can get through a minute.  So each minute we got through. 

About 40 minutes later, we had made it across.  We waited for a bridge to open across the other side of Gloucester Harbor - the boat still being slammed but closer to shore I had found grounding. And then the bridge opened and we crossed. 

What happened next, seemed almost surreal.

We crossed underneath this bridge.  This seemingly simple understated, quiet, small bridge and there, the water was placid, quiet.  The sun was shining and there wasn’t an inkling of evidence that there had ever been even a remote wake.  All was calm.  In my mind, we had almost died and then there was this?  How could this even be?  I looked at Mikey, and all I knew to say was, “Drinks?” and I turned to the cooler to grab anything that would imbibe me with a sense of calm.

We traveled quietly through the waters of the Annisquam and said nothing.  Each of us I believe unraveling from the chaos.  At times, there are no words, when you feel such intensity and come down to realize that you had in fact survived. 

Once we passed through the river, we had one more pass of open ocean to find our way home.  I was afraid, and Mikey looked at me and promised it would be easier.  And it was.

We drove home across the ocean with the sun setting in the West and Mikey did something he never does.  He left his Captain’s stance.  He sat beside me and drove the boat with his feet.  And we laughed.  A delirious, holy shit we made it laugh.  The ocean was calm again and we were silly and insane and we toasted to our survival and we mocked my fear and breathed sighs of relief.  We had made it and the sun was guiding us home.

For all of the chaos in life over the past many months I think of this moment often.  Making it through the storm.  Finding calm, the sun shining on my face.  Isn’t it so symbolic?  This is life.  Terrifying, confusing, breakable, but then you have these glimpses of placidity. 

Isn’t this the past many months?  A tornado that we’ve all been flying and spun in?  And here we are, waiting for the bridge to open, to bring us to the other side.  To calm, quiet waters and sun shining on our face…..isn’t it?  You just have to hold on.  Grip as hard as you can.  But don’t let go. Because there is another side.  Promise.  The waves will calm and the sun will always guide you home.