Somber moments and simple joys

I never expected to see these little cedar waxwings playing around my house this morning, technically the afternoon. I still had my coffee in my hand, so it was morning to me.

After so many of them flew around my dining window and caught my eye as I sat at the dining table, I stood at the window looking a few metres down to one of the trees I planted years ago where dozens of these birds stayed for some moments. I just stood watching them, sipping my coffee and smiling like it was the first time I had ever seen anything so beautiful. It was deeply surreal.

"Cedar waxwings are a really special bird for me, one that represents a lot of love, but that's more a story not for this blog, at least not now."

There was just one other time I had seen them here in Yellowknife and it was not anywhere near the middle of winter like we are in now. This felt extra special and like I could not miss them, and like this was not just a coincidence.

The forever northern sunset

Just a few hours later, the sunset snuck beautifully up on me. The low grey overcast sky of the entire day was glowing orange as light flurries still fell. This forever sunset is one of my favourite things about the north. From the sky, the horizon faded into a misty snowfall far in the distance and all around the snow was reflecting pink. Cotton candy clouds circled the entire sky.

Tea, dinner, and tea

Back home, just the simple joys of too-hot-to-drink tea, candlesticks, and some writing carried me well to dinner. I didn’t even make it through a full episode of The Great Pottery Throw Down before I was messy pouring tea into my thermos and changing in a hurry.

Tonight as I began tipping the teapot spout down toward my mug, I stopped myself and ran back toward the living room bringing AuroraMax up on my phone. It was instantly clear there wouldn’t be time to sit down with a cup of tea, so back in the kitchen, I poured straight into my thermos for the road.

Tea waterfall down the side of a mug and all over the counter successfully averted.

As the aurora lowered back into the northern horizon, I retreated back to the car where two slices of stollen were waiting. I really did bring them out with me on a plate with a fork, and despite driving hurriedly out, not a speck of powdered sugar was spilled over the plate’s edge. The car smelled strongly of lavender cream earl grey tea. A shimmering, pink lined arc of the northern lights danced straight out the front windshield.

The aurora quieted quickly down, and before I left for home, I laid out on an area of the ice not far from the car where I cleared the snow away. It’s hard to say how long I stayed this way, staring straight up. The aurora had cleared of the sky overhead, but I would occasionally catch faint streaks of her in my peripheral vision just as I would catch the faintest sound of Look After You, left playing quietly on repeat, when the engine would switch to battery and there was no other sound.

The depth of winter

From the solstice, we have gained already more than one hour of daylight. Just like that, it feels as though the darkness of winter begins to slip away. The full moon rises over the middle of the day and sets not until the late morning. From that, the darkness of the evenings does not fully come and blue hour carries an even more special feeling. The deep blue twilight sky over a snow covered countryside feels incredibly nostalgic. Younger, but no less in love, I chased these beautiful hours of light through the very north of Scandinavia for months at a time. They represented the everyday magic of life I longed so deeply for.

The nostalgia of those days helps me to better enjoy these ones. It gives a connection of love to these chases of light and hours of stillness in winterscapes. It helps to separate what I love so much, this northern everyday life, from the government and from their policy decisions. It helps to take away the names, to detach those superficialities from the forests, the lakes, the light and the temperatures to preserve that love, and that wonder of life that is so essential to life.

"The deep blue twilight sky over a snow covered landscape feels incredibly nostalgic."

In these few days of only -20°, it feels like I can breathe easier and connect more purely. I can keep my balaclava down a little bit more, feel the cold air on my face, keep my hood down to hear more, even to breathe deeper breaths. All of the magic in the memories of those forever-ago polar night skies I can bring into these winter night skies, and that feels very needed. Beyond words.

"The first moments of the sun reaching over the horizon and touching the landscape, and touching my face... That is the best."

Moments of joy

An instinctual u-turn

I knew the section of the highway I was driving through, I had driven it hundreds of times before. I knew the beauty there, but before I even left the house I had set out in my mind a destination rather than a journey.

Still hundreds of metres away, I could see the mist rising from the river. I slowed from the not even 70km/h I was driving and I admired how the sunlight was turning the rising mist gold. Then the sunlight broke through the forest. I released my foot from the accelerator but not yet touching the brake. With my eyes not particularly focused on the road, I travelled probably several hundred metres more while I pondered stopping. Was some… ‘destination’ really so perfect or important?

I sped up and recentered in the highway to drive on, but then immediately slowed, veered again to the side, and doubled back to leave my car at the side of the road for a while. To be in that present moment ended up giving some of the best moments in months.

"I just got to find something physical that lets the energy out. It just creates room for your thoughts, and just forces you to be in the present moment. And the more you are in the present moment, the more good decisions you are going to take and it's going to lead to a better life."

Running through the forest

In such a long time, I never felt the happiness I did for the minutes of just running alone through this forest covered in the snow. Kicking up snow that sparkled in the sunlight and running to nowhere for no other reason than it just felt so beautiful. Like I had to get the energy out, like this was the only way to let out being so overwhelmed with the beauty. I would throw my arms out as I randomly ran steps, like it would somehow express how in love I felt in these minutes or it would centre me.

-40 in the middle of the day and I was running around with my parka open and toque barely on my head enough to cover all of my ears. Yet at a moments notice, I could have just fallen down in the soft ground there, just to try to soak this up. The mist continually rose over from the open water at the river below. When I became still, that mist was the only movement. Even my own mind in these moments finally got some stillness.

Occasionally I could hear my car idle back at the highway, and when I finally ran back to it and got inside, my breathing instantly iced up the insides of the windows.

The highest the sun is getting in the sky these days.

This empty northern hemisphere

-30° today but I reached for a little bit of summer. I stretched my fingers over soft green moss and remembered how it feels to lay my head back on the moss of the forest floor months from now. The warm glow of the sunlight is never ending because the days are so short, and for seconds sometimes you can really feel the warmth still too.

"The sun never reaching far enough around the sky to melt them away."

Entire rock faces remain covered in the most fine ice crystals. The sun never reaching far enough around the sky to melt them away. Water runs from somewhere above and drips a drop at a time down the icicles. Other drops take a different path landing on a rock face and splashing down catching my face. A little bit of life. It feels nice.

All of me feels warm. My balaclava is covered in frost, and ice crystals dangle down from my fur hood. My toes are warm and cosy in thick wool socks tucked away on a sheepskin insole inside my mukluks. Only my fingers feel cold from handling my camera through my mittens. My fingers and this one small spot that runs along the side of my left hand which always has this cold, tingling feeling when I’m a little bit tired.

It’s an easy solution to warm up my fingers. Just to make a soft fist inside my mittens with my thumb tucked inside to my palms, if I could only put my camera down.

Soft summer moss in a world of winter.

Warm light gradients over a tamarack tree.

Everything’s changed

Shake your hair, have some fun
Forget our mothers and past lovers, forget everyone
Oh I'm so lucky, you are my best friend
Oh there's no one, there's no one who knows me like you do

Remember when we cut our hair?
We both looked like boys, but we didn't care
Stick it out together, like we always do
Oh there's no one, there's no one quite like you

Almost three years apart, but within seconds of spotting each other at the airport, we were right back to old times

My bestest, bestest friend came up for the weekend and this was so, so good for the soul. It was as though time stood completely still these days, while simultaneously feeling like it couldn’t be passing any faster.

We enjoyed cold city walks with thermoses full of glühwein, and hours far out in the countryside. Back home, we drank copious amounts of coffee with equal parts home made stollen. Canuck and Leaf games were thoroughly suffered through enjoyed. The northern lights were spotted dancing from the windows of the same but changed home. And endless heart to hearts led to a few tears. And of course laughing fits did too.

For a weekend, it really felt like everything is going to be okay.