The road back

Everyone has always said in some way or another, that when you make your love your work, everything changes.

It is not easy for me to remember back to about 18 months ago. It was a time when I didn’t want to even go to see the aurora. Yet the aurora has represented the strongest love in my life for almost 15 years.

A few weeks after this government locked down, I went to see the aurora, to see if I could find any internal peace, to just take my mind away from constant worry, anxiety and frustration in every moment.

But I couldn’t even do that.

Every moment for that couple hours was just a reminder of everything I was losing. The aurora became a representation of my vulnerability, my loss, my heartbreak, my loneliness both as a business and as a person, a representation of how in the blink of an eye, I could have everything taken away. The pure love, peace and wonder it had represented, the dream it had given me, for over a decade before, all of it, was gone.

Insecurity - if it is deep within ourself, our relationships, our financial picture, or food supply, has to be one of the most horrific feelings we can experience. But to lose such a love, in some ways, I am sure it is worse.

The aurora never lost her beauty. I had stopped seeing it in her.

Perhaps it’s just that time soothes everything

This night is not the first night I’ve been back under the aurora. It may be the first night I have been back with the aurora and felt overwhelmingly a sense of wonder, of freedom, of peace even, and genuine thrill.

Nothing is materially better now than then, but internally, it feels as though something has shifted. It’s almost as if I’ve reunited, or at least walked the first steps of reuniting, with my first love.

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Running into the night

Just grab a hold of my hand
I will lead you through this wonderland

I dare you to close your eyes
And see all the colours in disguise

"Everybody knows that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. What few people realise, it is only through the parts that the whole gets delivered."

I know these nights of leaving the car off, of feeling such high humidity on my skin, of smelling such overwhelming sweetness from nature and hearing only the fish jumping, and loons and owls singing, will be over so soon. I can already hear in my mind the dry crunch of the snow under my boots and the ice singing in the countryside alongside the idle of my car, but right now I’m obsessed with every last drop of moisture in the air and these rare, but beautiful clear nights.

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