3.24.24

Northern lights filled our skies

Empty nights synchronized

Yesterday an early-spring snowstorm socked in much of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Tonight and tomorrow night, a different kind of storm will give us something different to talk about, at least if you’re able to stay up late enough.

There’s a geomagnetic storm doing whatever a geomagnetic storm does, and that will most likely create good conditions for northern lights. They’ll be visible in the top third of Vermont, as well as along the northern border of most of the U.S., mostly from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.

I don’t see myself being up to witness them, seeing as it’s a school night, but one never knows.

Reading about the pending aurora borealis brought to mind Northern Lights, a single from Death Cab for Cutie’s 2018 album, Thank You for Today. It’s a beautiful song that includes guest vocals from Lauren Mayberry, of the band CHVRCHES.

Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard has described Northern Lights as a song akin to a John Hughes movie “… that takes place in my hometown, about two people in this suburban wasteland with nothing to do who spend their time on this body of water, one pining for the other, yet both knowing that this place will be a temporary stop in a much longer life.”

I love that description, and sometimes I wonder about our lives and what comes after, if maybe we’re all in that spot. Spending time together in a temporary place before moving on to something much longer.

Whether there’s something after this or not, it’s a damn shame we aren’t able to spend our time together in a better way. Even just for a little while, as the northern sky glows on the outskirts of a raging storm.