northern lights
EVERYTIME I DO IT MAKES ME LAFF.
Yeah, I know, everyone saw it, but I'm going to post my pictures here anyway. Not everyone has specifically listed "see the aurora borealis" on his life's bucket list, as I have, so I feel I have the right.
Over the summer, we got a little bit of the northern lights here in New York. Not much, but enough to make the night sky look like a dim smudge of rainbow sherbet. Well, a couple of nights ago there was another flareup, and this time it was quite impressive. Kim and I stumbled outside close to midnight to take a look.
Of course, cameras for some reason perceive this phenomenon much more vibrantly than the human eye, so these pictures are more dazzling than the reality.
Can I check this item off my bucket list now? Maybe. This was kind of backwards to how it usually works: you see something spectacular with your naked eye, such as a dazzling full moon, but the photograph looks like a car's headlight seen dimly through fog a mile away. This time, the photographs were more intense than the reality. So, yes, I've kind of seen the northern lights. But I wouldn't be averse to traveling to Reykjavic in the winter and getting the full experience, incandescent ribbons and all. (I think a winter in Reykjavic would be neat anyway. When Kim and I went, it was late summer. It was amazing then, but I was strongly impressed that it would be a great place to spend the dark winter months holed up in a little garret with a stack of books and donuts.)
Incidentally, the northern lights unfailingly cause me to think of the Rainbow Resort theme from the "Kirby's Adventure" OST. There is a part in that level where you can get the UFO power and fly around blasting enemies against a backdrop of shimmering lights. I'm not sure that track belongs on my Western New York soundtrack, but it is definitely what plays in my head when I think of the northern lights.
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