My sister and I walk into a little building that is identical to the dozen colorful shacks that it is surrounded by. 

It holds numerous canvas paintings rolled up, stacked on tables, and pinned up on the wall. Besides the chair he sits in, and the space we stand in, almost all of the space inside is taken up by paintings. 

He says, “Hi, how are you?” And we begin our formal small talk and we praise him on how beautiful his paintings are. I see turtles, boats, sunsets, rock formations, and dark figures in fields holding baskets. 

Once the small talk is over, I ask, “How were you affected by Irma?” 

He points to well above our heads on the wall, almost at the ceiling, and says, “After the hurricane the walls were marked all the way up to there with moisture. I had stayed here until the winds and water really started getting strong. I had no plans on really leaving, but eventually I did.”

Hurricane Irma is the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and we had previously heard of islanders’ big catamarans being flipped upside down and destroyed by the waves. There are still piles of wreckage in the marinas where boats and trees are hauntingly mangled together in the water. I can’t imagine what those forces could do to this man and his little cottage. 

My sister asks, “What were you doing in here while the storm started picking up?”

He chuckles a bit and answers, “I was painting… but eventually I knew I couldn’t stay here without dying, so I walked to the hospital.” 

We can see the hospital from his studio, it’s maybe a half mile the road, across the street. One of the biggest buildings on the island. 

He says, “You saw the hospital out there right? It took me four hours to get there.” 

My eyes widen at his remark and I say, “How is that possible?” 

“There was everything you could imagine thrown on the road. The wind picked up anything it could. I had to get around cars and parts of buildings to get there. There were others trying to get to the hospital, so I was helping others get there as well.” 

Not even two years after Irma, the islanders have done their best at rebuilding and cleaning up. The locals’ chilling and daunting stories paint the rest of the picture that the left over debris only hints at. 

I ask him, “Why did you even consider staying in here during the hurricane?”

He gestures to the paintings piled around him and says, “These are my life.”