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The shark was directly beneath me. I knew if it saw me, it could certainly out-swim me, and although my rational side had allowed me to get in the water in the first place, the emotional area of my brain, (the one that played back every horrifying scene from “Jaws,”) instructed me to flee. The shark could have hurt me if it wanted to, but it was laughter that wound up being the greater threat that day. The summer of 2005, working in St. John USVI with my friend JoJo charted the new trajectory of my life. I realized a blessing there: to have what you need and nothing more. Simplicity, equilibrium with nature, they were the salves that smoothed this city girl’s edges. We lived on the side of a hill overlooking the Caribbean Ocean in huts connected by narrow stairs and walkways, we caught rainwater for bathing, used composting toilets; the hut wasn’t more than a screened in frame, the security on the screen door wasn’t more than a hook and eye lock, and therefore I slept with a hammer hidden next to my mattress and a screw driver underneath my pillow because hell if I wasn’t going down without a fight if… I wasn’t used to this. Where I come from the apartments are secured like Fort Knox with four locks on the doors, metal bars on the windows, and here I was, a fish out of water, slowly realizing we were surrounded by more hermit crabs than people, and I started looking forward to their nightly coups at our screen door at supper time. Hundreds of them would gather, a rainbow of colors and sizes, all ready with claws up demanding to know what was on the evening’s menu. On one of our days off, JoJo and I were snorkeling off of a beach on a remote, unvisited part of the island, far out, just past the bay when about six meters directly below us I spotted the shark. Naturally I started swimming backwards, looking like what JoJo could only describe as a sea lion clapping in slow motion. In the seconds it took us to decide what to do I never said more than two words in a row without putting my masked face back into the water to check on the shark’s whereabouts, (the flashbacks of Steven Spielberg’s split screen terrorizing me.) JoJo, aware of my paralyzing fear of sharks, thought the best course of action was to use her waterproof camera for an impromptu photo-op. “Are you. Out of. Your freaking. Mind?!” I exclaimed, while JoJo started taking on water from laughing so hard. In those tentative seconds I could only surmise that she was unafraid because the shark hadn’t seen us yet, and that JoJo has a penchant for doing what she maybe shouldn’t be doing. It’s one of her qualities I love best. I begged her to swim back to shore with me; had it been anyone else I’d probably have already been back on the sweet, safe sand without a word, but she's a treasured friend and deserved at least an attempt to be reasoned with despite her insistence on taking this picture. She later joked that she almost drowned from laughter watching me swim away, rather fly; she reported having seen daylight between my body and the surface of the water. I am fairly certain now, in hindsight, that I was in no danger. I only learned after my ordeal that it was a harmless nurse shark, (not as if I learned the difference growing up in the Bronx,) and that everything viewed through a snorkel mask looks 25% bigger; (seriously, look at a Coke can underwater!) The stress of fleeing those razor sharp teeth that I was certain were chasing me and then the terror of thinking JoJo was still in there with that shark, either being eaten alive or drowning from amusement, may have shaved years off my life, but I’ll take it, because not only has that memory had us dissolving into laughter for over a decade, it taught me that being out of your element is the very best place to be.