Aurora Borealis
On fleeting things
I have this very specific memory, from when I was in high school, of this fucking ridiculous Jeep on big lifted Monster Truck wheels in the Hannaford parking lot. I wanted to take a picture—at that point (2004? 2005?), some of my friends had camera phones, but I still had my Nokia brick— and I had no way of doing it. You should’ve seen it, I said later, trying to convey to a friend how stupid it really was.
Since then, I’ve taken approximately one million photographs of all manner of things, from the lovely to the completely mundane—fall foliage, views out airplane windows, signs on telephone poles, my feet for some reason. There is an entire album that my phone generated called Waterfalls Through the Years.
So many pictures I don’t even know what to do with. The opposite of memories, really—just a deluge of precious things and total bullshit all mixed up together. I’ve started to think it’s better to let some moments pass. Maybe I’d rather describe the stupid Jeep the best I can.
Anyway, last night I was walking home from the gym, and I noticed the light outside seemed weird—almost like, you know how, when it’s snowing at night, and all the clouds are bright? But there were stars, and the sky itself was lit up in purples and pinks and red. Faint at first, where I first noticed it, and then, when I turned around to see, so bright I could hardly believe. You should have seen it.