storms along the magnetosphere
Late at night as a kid, when AM radio was still king, you could stay up late with a small radio in the dark and hear voices from the sky.
An electric white-noise hiss and a snapping, popping crackle, AM signals came out of the speaker like a living thing.
They faded out, and then came back, like the sound of someone walking in and out of another room. They were rough and scratched and dented on their way through the air.
By some alchemy as variable as the weather, signals were better at night.
It was possible at times to pick up radio signals from hundreds of miles away. French, or spanish, or some other unfamiliar language might make its way to you as you sat curled up in a small room in a house-trailer in Ohio and unable to sleep. Signals might overlap each other, and you'd hear Patsy Cline singing to someone speaking in french, or a voice raging about hellfire and damnation while a salsa band played in the background.
Growing up poor and miles away from the nearest town, where nights were unlit and as dark as the inside of a goat, it all sounded impossibly far from me, both the voices and the places.
Which was better in some ways.
I think we forget just how intense the world feels when you are a child. Everything feels intense then, feels turned up to 11, blaring and extreme, and even the silences seemed heavier.
The lights of an aurora feel the same to me. Far away, and not quite real, maybe a little lonely, maybe a little lost, but intense and strong too.
