A few weeks ago, we caught a sight rather abnormal for New Jersey: the aurora borealis.
It’s funny how there are certain things that happen that stop us dead in our tracks and, no matter what or who we are, we have shared the experience of that thing happening to us at the same time.
I’m thinking about the earthquake that happened this past April. I was in an online Italian class with other people who also live around New Jersey.* As the earth shook, whatever we were talking about was instantly forgotten as we immediately asked one another: “Avete sentito questo?!” and “Che cos’era questo?!”**
*With the exception of one woman who lived in another country and was initially puzzled at our earthquake marvelling.
**Did you feel that?! // What was that?!
The people I saw in person the week later were eager to share their story of where they were when the earth shook.
Or, how about when the solar eclipse occurred? Though this one was advertised like a royal wedding, afterwards we still asked one another, “Did you see it?” “Where did you go to watch it?” “Did you buy the glasses?”
The same thing happened as our evening skies lit up with the neon glow many of us had accepted we would only ever see in movies or in photos. People took to the internet, sharing their view and the pleasure of seeing the pinks and greens and purples streaked across the sky, but alas, for myself, I didn’t realize the event had taken place until it was seemingly over.
A few hours later, a friend of mine who lives nearby texted me. “Go outside!” she said, “You can see the Northern Lights!”
Barefoot and hopeful, I curved my neck back, eyes squinted up to the dark sky, hoping for something. The faint pink glow, which my cell phone picked up with an even more brilliant hue, was hiding my normally cerulean view, like a burst of magic in the night sky.
Without my friend, I wouldn’t have been able to take in this view, wouldn’t have captured this picture, wouldn’t have gotten the chance to briefly taste the Northern Lights from the comfort of my back porch.
How good is it to share good things with others? Way better than obsessing, or commiserating, about the bad.
There are so many things about life, even in the land of the free, that are out of our control. But tomorrow, we can still be kind. To those we dislike. To those who are different from us. To those who disagree with us.
While the election results pour in and the media goes this way and that way, and there are shouts of recounts and rigging, we can either become part of the madness or we can be kind. We can tell someone about the beauty outside their own door or keep it to ourselves.
Share the beauty, instead of the gloom.
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