There comes an age in every person's life when they accept that disappointment is inevitable. It may not come easy, however, and on the warm bus back to Reykjavik on a cold midnight, I tried to placate my slightly sinking heart.
"At least I saw something."
"We've got like three more nights."
"I can return someday."
It sort of worked. I was a little sleepy, and the disappointment was no longer in waves, slowly ebbing into acceptance. All we can do is try, and try we did. The aurora answers to no woman, and she appears at will – this much I had learned from my antsy walks peering at the sky in Rovaniemi a few nights prior. The clouds and the weather might cooperate, the app might show false promises, and she might appear as white wisps to the naked eye, which, to be fair, she had. The camera picked up more colour, but was hard to operate in darkness with frigid fingers, and I hadn't done my research on the ideal settings. At any rate, there were things to try again for. And there are often second chances. And this wasn't the purpose of my travels, anyway. It would have been really nice, but it wasn't why I had come. I'd been dreaming of Iceland for years.
Our guesthouse near the bright, inspiring shape of Hallgrímskirkja was an unassuming white building that could be mistaken for apartments, but comfortable and welcoming. Convenient, too, because the bus dropped us off just a few meters away, opposite a darkened expanse. (A churchyard, perhaps?) I alighted, but I think my brother saw it first; I had given up, after all.
A magical green apparition, dancing directly in my line of sight.
So there she was, where no one had expected. We leave the brightness of cities for the cold and the dark to increase chances of a majestic sighting, but she appears despite the brightness. Like a gift. I truly believed that. I exclaimed and giggled, eyes skyward till my neck hurt. I turned my head this way and that, I looked and photographed and recorded, I heard my brother's excitement ("I'm so happy for you!"), I was in disbelief, I was grateful, and if I'm honest, I was a little greedy. When it all ended, I wanted more.
For not only did she appear, she stuck around. She shape-shifted. She apparated and glided across the sky. She was a benevolent hand right above our guesthouse; she was a gleaming arch stretching to the building across; she was beams of green lighting up the sky, the black sky, the starry black sky. She was green enough to see with bespectacled eyes, and maybe slightly purple too. She stayed for almost half an hour, putting up a performance to remind me that life isn't always disappointing; that sometimes it's simply and completely and inexplicably magic.
Reykjavik, Iceland, 14 October 2022; first draft written 6 May 2024.
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