The end of summer emotional lull
The August to September transition has been one of the most difficult transitions through my ‘professional’ life. Putting aside the long days and absolute relaxation of summer for constantly overwhelmed and sleepless days and nights of the fall kills me.
But toward the end of summer, I spent some days lounging on my balcony surrounded by a pathetic crop of kale, spinach, and tomato plants, but the most beautiful railing planters of wildflowers, reading a deeper scientific book on the aurora and space weather. It’s one I come back to often, and fail to fully understand. But there is a lot I do grasp, and a lot because of the last 10 years of my life chasing the aurora almost nightly. Adding together my real life experiences with more scientific understandings that go well above my knowledge level makes me feel so genuinely grateful for this part of my life that I’ve chosen and somehow managed to keep pieced together. I guess it made the transition this year just a little bit easier.
“I’ve never been very good at the end of summer transition.”
So, Whitehorse into September continues down the familiar path of ‘worse than I hoped but better than I feared’. Clouds and rain cells frequent the area, but not without escape routes into clearer sky which has lead repeatedly into long nights with the aurora. There still isn’t a higher high than leaving town under a mess of cloud with strong hopes of driving ourselves into those clear pockets, and meeting the aurora there. It is the best feeling in the entire world and these nights lately have been full of them.
