White Noise

Words & Photography
by Melissa Cunningham



Running through a downpour with a sweater draped overhead. This is strong rain beating into the ocean. Lightening cracking in the distance. Not every journey unfolds as planned. But when you make a decision to go, to love, to give, to be there…you don’t jump ship just because the waves start crashing.

Early on a Saturday morning I checked the forecast one last time before heading down to the Gulf Coast. For days the prediction was simply rain, with varying percentages throughout the morning. To compensate I stuffed my bag with a sweater, the only beanie I own, and one plastic bag for the camera and headed out into the brightening dawn.

I had a view of a darkening sky, a line of merchant ships heading into port, and a shore full of local fisherman, rods dug deep in the earth, arced with the weight of the current of the sea.

When a storm rolls across the water, it moves like a freight train. Pushing hard and fast and with a force that whips the water into a fury. Standing on the damp sand at the furthest eastern reaches of Galveston Island, I had a view of a darkening sky, a line of merchant ships heading into port, and a shore full of local fisherman, rods dug deep in the earth, arced with the weight of the current of the sea.

Then the rains hit. Strong and sharp.

I stood for 45 seconds in the fierceness, then turned and ran back to the car. Vision blurry, every other person long since hidden in the safety of their cars.

The rains only fell harder as I sat in the front seat. And the decision became to stay and sit or pick up the sweater and run back to the shoreline. Without rationalization or planning or foresight, because sometimes jumping into the unknown is not about planning for every mishap or visualizing each outcome, I threw the sweater over my head, wrapped the camera in the plastic bag, and stepped out into the downpour.

Without rationalization or planning or foresight...I threw the sweater over my head, wrapped the camera in the plastic bag, and stepped out into the downpour.

Quick steps, sunk deep in the sand, three shots with the camera then nothing but the white noise of rain. Those last few minutes standing alone, with the current rushing at my feet, lightening flashing across the water, heavy rain pelting overhead, nothing else existed.

And for that, the drive, the ideas of what the day would have turned out like, the early waking…..for that, the journey is worth the unexpected.