This week NPR ran an interview with author Katherine May, who wrote the book, "Enchantment: Awakening Wonder In An Anxious Age."
May told interviewer Rachel Martin that she was seeking, “to find ways to feel my connection with the world around me again and to reignite a sense of fascination with it.”
Here in Juneau/Douglas, Alaska, our wonder might be awakened by a string of enchantments: mind boggling auroras, kilometers of groomed cross country ski tracks on a frozen glacial lake, or feet of fresh fallen snow for playing in the mountains. All thanks to inundating snowstorms followed by clear skies and cold temperatures.
But to quote Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
For the most part my husband and I spend our evenings catching up on household stuff or getting ready for the next day’s commitment or adventure. So we are pretty discerning in our TV watching. Sunday night around 9 p.m., we decided to catch up on the one episode we’d missed of All Creatures Great and Small, the PBS series based on the literary classic about a small town veterinarian in Yorkshire between the First and Second World Wars.
My iphone remained in its usual inadvertent silent mode. As the credits rolled on a moving story of healing a traumatized race horse, I glanced at my handheld screen, filled up with messages. The first one from my sister in California: Saw on FB the Northern Lights are putting on a show…send us pics if you catch some.
Then a text from our daughter: Go outside!!!
Photo Credit: Sue Walker
The next texts contained shots and a video of northern lights swirling into the shape of the profile of a bird’s head, maybe a raven. And people standing on the side of North Douglas highway in puffy jackets, intently holding phones before flames of mauve and green to the South.
We fumbled into warm over pants and down jackets and headed out towards the end of the road. From what we could see out the windshield, the auroras were faint at best. A stream of headlights passed by in the opposite direction. Not a good sign. Still, when we parked near the North Douglas boat ramp, it was like Grand Central Station. Who knew that many people would bust out of their cozy dwellings on a cold end of the weekend night? How did they even know the lights were out?
My unscientific answer: social media; which I have to admit, is my dubious go-to for northern lights. I’ve seen way more auroras on my laptop than in person since Facebook came around. Being sound asleep at 3 AM is a valid excuse for missing the biggest show in Alaska. But 9:30 PM?
The following day I’m drawn to a welcome distraction of stunning sights and sensations: Mendenhall Lake surrounded by snowy peaks glowing in late February sunlight. A space so vast that you can feel like the only one kicking and gliding or skating, until a friend you haven’t seen in months slides up and you catch up near the face of yet another new moraine, courtesy of climate change.
As I returned to Skater’s Cabin after a soul expanding classic ski, (Thank YOU, Juneau Nordic Ski Club) I ran into a former colleague who’d posted a pic on Facebook from our community downhill ski area on the biggest powder day in recent memory. It was the view to the East from the top, trees so loaded with freeze and snow they resemble sand castles and wintery peaks all the way to Canada.
Skip’s caption: Eaglecrest - February 25, 2023. “Just tossing this in with all the other Eaglecrest posts from yesterday. You would think no one had ever seen Blue sky and powder before.”
That Saturday, thanks to a commitment to help with a posse of 7-year old ski racers, I managed to get up there early enough to get first tracks in silky flakes so deep they stop you in your tracks as the run flattens.
Part of the deal was making sure the Mitey Mites stayed in a straight line awaiting their turn on the slalom course. Corbin’s ice blue eyes lit up as he pointed up and across the slope to a faint half moon on the sky. “Look, the moon is watching our ski race!”
The author of the book on enchantment in that NPR interview spoke of experiencing “awe, the kind of awe that I felt as a child that came so easily to me, which I really had lost contact with.”
That sense of wonder is on tap for anyone of any age from an endless fountain here on this narrow strip of settlement between the Juneau Icefield and the Inside Passage. And as I commented on Skip’s powder day post, “It’s like the northern lights. It never gets old.”
Love this piece! Awesome Auroras and puffy powder.....who could ask for anything more!?