Moon Bolt

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Summer nights are my favorite. There are so many more olfactory offerings in the summer than in the sterile atmosphere of winter. This night was no exception.

It had been a long week. Stressful and unnecessarily so. Stress wears me out so much faster than standard, run-of-the-mill stress. The quest for power, real or perceived, was apparent everywhere I looked. Sometimes even where I didn't. Weak people crave power. Their quest is draining on those of us who have to get shit done. I was drained by both and feeling lazy. I was also restless. Stuck in limbo between too tired to accomplish anything and too early to go to bed. The witching hours? The wandering hours? Whatever I choose to call them, they were wasted hours when I turned on the TV. I might as well go to bed and get up at 3am if I'm going to burn from the stack of hours I have remaining in this life. After proofreading that statement, I realized how ridiculous it must sound. The stack is burning regardless of my activity, might as well decide whether to poke at the fire with a really good stick or toss another log on and let it blaze up for a bit. I chose to add fuel.

There was a destructive but fast-moving storm to the east of me. It was full of sound and fury-and hail. Unusual for where we live. The hail, not the fury. I live on Lake Michigan, while my sailboat resides on Lake Huron, a hundred miles away, in the path of the storm.

Sailors are weather nerds. Some obsess, some predict; I am good at explaining the weather after it has passed. Hence the title of this post. Yes, I am qualified to judge which is more powerful, a lightning bolt or a moon bolt. My PhD in post-weather description was achieved on Lake Huron during a direct lightning strike to the mast of the sailboat I was at the helm of. Thesis approved.

This night was one of finding something mentally stimulating as well as mentally familiar. Mac n cheese for the brain. The solid green LEDs on my drone battery charger couldn’t have been more desperate for attention. “Hey big fella’…you know us…we won’t hurt you…let’s go for a ride.”

One little ride won’t hurt. Low visibility due to darkness, compounded by smoke from Canadian wildfires and an exhausted pilot. What could go wrong?

The first goal was to achieve maximum legal altitude. This model of drone gets there quickly. Rotate one hundred and eighty degrees, and OH MY GOD…the sunset over Lake Michigan was epic. The sun wasn’t just a round orange circle in the sky for once in a very long time. The clouds were allowed to show off and be themselves, basking in the perfectly angled late-day sunlight. Everything was flowing and beautiful. Streaks of purple wove their way through the reds and the oranges. It was a solar masterpiece. The ice cream swirliness would be called “Sunset Scoop” and taste like magic. Some vanilla cream, a hint of orange, maybe some cinnamon or some sort of heat from a nondescript pepper, just so you could feel the heat of the sun as well as taste it

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I marveled at that sky until my battery meter indicate sixty eight percent. It was time for another 180-degree maneuver. Two completely different experiences from the slightest manipulation of the joystick. Aerial voyeurism at its finest.

The ice cream flavor changed as the breeze went from being at my back to in my face. It was cool and delicious. It was blueberry with streaks of lemon and tiny bits of chocolate. Dark, of course. I could smell the leaves of the trees just as intensely as I could hear them. The blue, almost black water of Lake Charlevoix allowed a hint of its enchanting scent to waft up the hill. The synthetic “boards” of my deck were still warmer than my bare feet. Everything changed after the storm that never blew through. No rain, no hail, just a few clouds, but the storm, racing to the east side of the state, left a vacuum in its wake. I’m glad it chose a northerly path.

The drone was still at maximum allowable altitude. I was hovering right next to it, or so I felt. The storm was so far away that it was losing its impact on us here. I could see the lightning in the clouds, but the hoped-for thunder never arrived. Watching a beautiful movie while the audio just wouldn’t perform. My ears aren’t perfect anymore, but I will always try to hear. Reading Mother Nature’s lips would have to do for tonight.

The lightning was fading as was the battery in the drone. Nature and technology conspiring to end the feast for my tiring brain. I was starting to feel like the child who wasn’t tired and didn’t need a nap, but would go lights out the second their head touched the pillow.

I started to calculate my flight path home when I saw the bolt of energy the moon sent out. It blazed its way across the lake in a fiery fashion but with no sound or heat. It drew the sailboat at anchor closer to it but made no movement. There was no fury, no performance, just power. A magnetism that didn’t demand but just irresistibly drew.

I flew the gravity be damned camera toward the boat and the lunar source that pulled us both toward it. The view surpassed the sunset and the lightning, both in strength and beauty, and perhaps even in ice cream flavor. I wanted to stay.

The drone initiated its own flight home. Thankfully, it is brighter than me and monitors its own position relative to its battery-limited-ability to make it back in one piece.

I didn’t think I was done with that moment and thanks to the flying camera, I never will be. Writing this down ensures that. I hope you enjoy a sliver of it as well.