Not the end

"I needed to remind myself... This wasn't going away, not any more than it does every late spring."

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In between so many majestic curtains, coronas overhead, in between chasing my tail being unable to put my tripod down to take a photo because it was all just too beautiful, I couldn’t fully realise that this wasn’t the end. I didn’t want it to end. I couldn’t have it be the end.

It was almost anxiety inducing. And then I realised this wasn’t about Yellowknife, this was about the aurora.
I get varying levels of this every spring, when the aurora gives way to endless daylight, but it hasn’t been this crippling maybe ever. It’s usually an emotionally, mentally, peaceful transition to the bright summer nights.
This was a surfacing fear I was giving the aurora up, but this isn’t that. Leaving a place I have for so long associated with such a deep love is not so straight forward. The aurora will be waiting for me again in the fall, and I will be there to meet her, just in a new, even more beautiful, better feeling, place.

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's that I need this as a big part of my life."

This distinction was one of the most important ones to have made. Chasing my tail holding my tripod, unable to put it down because I was too excited about the aurora in every part of the sky and feeling waves of anxiety as I prepared to leave — this was the beginning of Yellowknife for me. It was nearly every one of those 20-something trips here 10 years ago.

10 years ago, it was as much about Yellowknife as it was about the aurora.

Now it is, I feel it in my bones, now it is just about the aurora.