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.

A night of chaotic serenity

It was a few minutes after 5 in the evening and I leaned up against a north facing window. Yesterday the moonrise was in perfect time with the Belt of Venus. Tonight, the sky was again completely clear, now a deep blue still from twilight, and I felt some sadness in that. I guess you could say twilight lingering past 5pm begins to feel more normal, and what I love so much in the north is the forever darkness and even the forever daylight on the opposite side.

Still, the trees looked so beautiful covered in snow and the sky such a rich colour blue. Some stars were visible, and a few streaks of aurora too. That is not necessarily normal, to see the aurora so early, but it is not the first time also. Maybe a good sign for later.

“It was fine, until it wasn’t.”

A short time later I was just settling in for the night, at least for the next few hours.

The aurora was still arcing over my house, but the Canuck game was just a few minutes in and I was really ready to just crash, zone completely out. I had dinner all cleaned up, lighted candles in all my Kähler houses, and I was lying sideways across my sofa with my untouched, still steaming tea, on the sofa arm. A light headache lingered in the background.

After the hockey game, I would take a hot bath, unless the aurora was so good that I would feel anxiety (it’s a real thing with me) about missing being out with it. But all that was a situation for later. I felt fine in my decision to let go of chasing an early show and instead re-evaluate in a few hours. It was fine, until it wasn’t.

"I guess you could say twilight lingering past 5pm begins to feel more normal..."

My feeling of ‘wait and see for later’ developed overwhelmingly into not a great feeling, and I really had no choice but to take the decision to run down the stairs, grab my keys to remote start my car, and get changed. I once again messy poured my tea from my mug back into the teapot, and then into my thermos. I had reached such a panic to get out the door that I didn’t even let my car warm up for at least 15 minutes, and it was already -40.

It wasn’t until I was down the hill outside my neighbourhood that I had realized I forgot my tripod back inside my front door. So after an almost immediate u-turn and a swing back up my street, I was now on my way out, to chase the early aurora after all.

In the end, initially forgotten tripod and all, it was perfect timing.

When I walked back in my front door just before 8pm, I first just dropped my parka to the floor against the front door, but did hang it up on second thought. There is nothing worse than putting back on a freezing cold parka if I decided to go back out later.

I laughed to myself as I looked back at this chaos, walking up the stairs in just my base layers now. I’m not usually this dramatic.

So, back home and I warm up another mug of lavender cream earl grey tea. I sink back into my sofa catching the last period of the Canuck game. Usually the aurora cycles every few hours, so I knew I had a little time even if I wanted to go back out. I re-lit my candles from earlier and opened up my MacBook, actually starting to write this post. It was still before 9pm, and I kept an eye on the windows of course.

I think I knew, aided by data as ever, pretty much right away that I was going to be going back out. But the little curl up on the sofa in between, with not quite enough time to write all of this, was just what I needed. The whole night was.

When you get back home and just can’t even anymore.

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."

I just hate New Year’s

I have never been that person to go out or to party, to be in large groups, or some loud environments, or just to drink. I hate this pressure to celebrate the new year, that this exact moment or this time should mean something or change something, or we should be happy just for that. I hate feeling this pressure of that. I really hate that.

"I just hate that pressure about traditions."

I hate New Year’s, but in some ways I really love it. I love the time of it. I love the cold and the dark with the warm and the light inside. I love that contrast. I love when the snow is sitting on the trees. I love when we have hoar frost covering everything. I love how the days and the nights feel so cosy. I love making warm meals, I love hearing the familiar sounds in my house from the pressure of the furnace turning on. I love feeling the warm air blow at my feet standing at the kitchen sink.

Actually I would love to stay at home on New Year’s Eve, to play some board games and to make some glühwein. To light all of the candlesticks. I love to celebrate little moments, but in any day, not forced when we have this outside pressure. I started to book off the last couple New Year’s Eves from work because I hate feeling this pressure so much.

On this New Year’s Eve, I tucked away under a throw finishing my tea on the sofa, picking away at some lebkuchen around 7:30pm when I opened AuroraMax on my phone. The aurora was there already, so I checked some data, which also looked very good.

I hesitated because I knew there would be these celebrations outside. Fires on the lakes, cars and snowmobiles everywhere, fireworks. In some way, it would just be nicer to maybe take a warm bath and sleep early. But I bundled myself up, packed some hot tea and some sweets, and found myself a cosy corner on a frozen lake.

"I hate to feel this way that 'Oh, I should do that, I should be like that.' I shouldn't be like anything. Nobody should. We should just do what we feel like."

This night for me was not to celebrate New Year’s. There were fireworks over the treelines in the far distance - they looked beautiful, and a few more passing car lights than usual, but I left all of that aside to just do what I felt like. I didn’t watch the time, I didn’t make any special sayings or traditions. I just tried to enjoy what moment was there. Kicking off my mukluks to curl up and feel the warmth of my heated seat on my toes, how totally peaceful it feels to rest my head against the inside of my beautiful car and watch the aurora right out the window. All the hours I stayed were beautiful and perfect beyond imagination.

Freezing long nights and familiar comforts

Outside the car, the ice still sings

This fall was the warmest one I’ve experienced here, yet it is the earliest I saw the lakes become passable by car. Now the nights are freezing, and after six hours I feel like I can barely function despite spending much of that time tucked away on a dramatically reclined heated seat, with hot tea, and some lebkuchen sent lovingly from halfway across the world in the most perfect ever care package.

The ice layer on the moon roof eventually melts and clears, and the stars become visible overhead. Cloudy weather comes and goes too. The night changes a lot through these hours.

Quiet and alone

One of the best things for me in such cold nights is the usual rogue snowmobiles and party bonfire scenes on the lakes are much less. The time quickly becomes so late that no one else is crazy enough to still be awake and out anyway.

Probably not halfway through the night, I really reach the point where there is no coming back to real warmth. My fingers, my toes, my face… They all just reached the place of being cold in their bones, and a little past 3am that numbing cold becomes too much and sends me back to my warm bed and gives a good sleep for the night.