I rarely see the stars from in the city. I need to get out to the woods this year.
I will never forget, this one time in University, driving around with my roomie at the time. She had a sunroof. And the Northern Lights were amazing at the time. Out there, where we lived, there were always plenty of stars. The city lights from Edmonton didn't ruin the sky in our small town.
It seemed like, no matter where we drove, the lights were following us. So we drove, on the back roads, all the way around the town. On the outskirts of it. Watching these northern lights follow us.
It happened, when we had gone all the way around town twice, that we looked up, through the sunroof, and saw all of the stars wiped out of the sky by the northern lights. They were all that was visible, all the way around. They had, indeed, followed us, and made a big circle of darkness in the centre and then just glorious, amazing, dancing lights all around. And she was from the NWT so she told me a few light legends. Like about conceiving geniuses under them. And whistling to make them dance.
So there, on the dirt road outside Camrose, pulled over, two young adult women pushed up out of the sunroof of a green sunfire, we whistled. We whistled up at the sky and watched the lights dance for us, surrounding us, taking over the entire sky just to show us their glory.
I had a deep and powerful connection with that girl. I wish I hadn't been so high so often, sullying up our friendship. She may have grown up to think I was too high to remember the magic. I wasn't. I never forget. Especially not magic.