I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. My grandmother’s house is directly across from the Golden Gate Bridge. Sunsets from her balcony, with the hills of Marin County, the bridge, and the San Francisco skyline outlined in fiery orange and reds, were an event. There is a time each year, around my Uncle’s birthday in late December, when the sun sets in the middle of the bridge. It is amazingly beautiful. Anytime there was a particularly beautiful sunset my family would call each other to go outside to look. Since I lived on the bottom of the hill where my grandparents house was there were times when my household would pile in the car and rush up the hill just to bask in the grandeur of the sunset. It was magic.
I had the desire to call everyone to go look and pile into a car and rush out to see natural grandeur a couple weeks ago. The news on the radio station I listen to all day was about the possibility of being able to see the Northern Lights right here in Minnesota. I was so excited. I realized that I have always wanted to see the lights in person, ever since I learned about them as a child. My great-grandmother made and sold beaded necklaces and ornaments. Sometimes I would help her set up at the craft fair at her retirement home. Some of the beads she used would shine in every color of the rainbow when the light hit them. She called these beads aurora borealis. She explained to me the effect was named after lights that could be seen sometimes in the sky in the Northern parts of the world.
Moving north from San Francisco to the Fargo area I had not anticipated an opportunity to see the Northern Lights. I have always thought of them as something that happens closer to the Arctic Circle. So when I heard there was a possibility of seeing them here, I was giddy like when the sun sets in the middle of the Golden Gate bridge and we would pile into the car to rush up the hill to bask in the glory of God’s creation. I wonder if my great-grandmother saw them when she lived in Minnesota and North Dakota.
Unfortunately this first opportunity turned into naught. Clouds came in just about sunset. I know some people in Minnesota saw them. They drove out beyond the pollution of city lights and cloud cover on a cold night to experience beauty. But I now know it’s possible. Someday in the future, I just might be able to glimpse what has only been a childhood fantasy, light dancing in the sky like the rainbow colors on the great-grandmother’s beads.