Kiitila #5 A goodbye to remember

We can all bet our asses that this increasing group of visitors to frozen Lapland, has one goal in common; witness one of the world’s many miracles, all unique treasures of their own kind. Witnessing the northern lights happened to me before, in Tromso several years ago. Yet the event is so unbelievable and strange to witness, the image drips away from your mind. And I do not mean the feeling, the feeling itself is such an incredible experience of its own, hard to describe nor understand. I refer to the image of this green beauty dancing above you, scientifically explainable yet impossible to believe. It is just the image itself that completely sucks you into the moment and when it’s over, you’re heading back for a different world, the non-hidden world where life goes on and on, in a circle. And that’s why it is so hard to remember the northern lights exactly as they are, and in my mind all that was left was this blur of green in the cold dark sky, making me feel warm inside. I was extremely excited leaving home with the idea of returning with a refreshed collection of memories, yet after a week I still hadn’t caught a glimpse of the mystery in the sky and secretly, I started to worry. I had only 10 days left, and even though there was something challenging and adventurous about having to actually hunt them, I just wanted to catch a glimpse of them now and starting looking at my forecasting app nervously every minute after 9PM.

One day me and my new creation of friends grabbed the snowshoes and took the car towards Levi city, being a surprisingly steep skiing slope and a gathering of wooden stores with a welcoming warm, orange light shining trough their windows. We parked our car slightly out of the city and put the shoes beneath our shoes, or let’s say the rackets, as they are basically wooden (or slightly fancier iron ones) rackets you tie beneath your shoes. At first one really has to get comfortable with this because it is not easy, you need to find your balance and at first you will step on all the wrong places; besides the path, at your own racket, at your companion’s racket. You will get annoyed, feel convinced you cannot do it, and while complaining you’ll realize you’re getting familiar with your new feet and slowly turn into a wild animal. You belong in the snow and you can go anywhere without any danger of sinking, and you no longer need the pathways made for us silly poor human surrendered to the cold wilderness. I will never allow people to say finland is a flat country, I will invite them to come to levi. I was a bit offended we couldn’t call them mountains, but to a flat-lander like me, they were. I was out of breath and glowing hot despite the extremely cold day. But the cold brings brightness, and therefore a reward, waited for me on top of the hill.

When I finally caught my breath again, I realized we were at this platform on top of the hill from where we could see the whole world. And the world was a gaze of pink and orange, as only from these heights you could see the power of the few hours of sun that coloured the sky like a painting. But the height also ensured that as some sort of timelapse, we could see pink turning orange, orange turn yellow, yellow turning light blue, and then a peaceful transition towards the darkest blue waited at the end. We could actually see Levi in 1 full day, but besides all these activities in the sky, the world below it was at peace. The hills were covered in silverblack trees were nothing happened, were its life was asleep. And at the foot of these hills, the coziest little gathering ever took place as the town of Levi and its tiny orange lights, was the only sign of human life, but just as still as the world around in. it was addictive, the still life, the desire to be a part of it, and I love how travelling to these places helps us emerge into it. after this climb, obviously the descend had to happen and let me tell you this is a whole lot harder. Gravity messes with these shoes and it is not a surprise, nevertheless just as hilarious, to see people rolling down when gravity concurred them. At the foot of the mountain we walked the frozen-lake route back to our car, and now I got extremely cold due to the frozen polar wind mercesly carving into my few pieces of naked skin.

The car was a welcoming warm surprise, and the darkness started to hit in. we were cold and back home, decided to hit the sauna. Isn’t that the best part of the finnish culture, the normaility of owning one of these beautiful wooden cabins that you can totally heat up with a steam creating the smell of fresh wood and a total silence with it. I’m not good with heat and therefore after sitting for 10 minutes, it is time for a challenge. In our swimming outfits we left the safe fog of warmth, that slowed down our heartbeats and made us totally zen, to get heartbeat-speed up again. We open the door, and as some escaped prisoners, run into the snow. Some of my hero-friends even threw themselves into the snow, I was proud enough just standing there, enjoying the heat shielding me for a few more seconds as I stood there, almost naked, on the icy road, staring at the brightest sky ever, a field of sparkles. And that’s when my friend shouted. ‘guys, it's starting’! – when one doesn’t search, one will find. And as I held my breath and followed his voice, I noticed a vague, strange kind of fog in the sky, blurry but steady. It was totally white, as if it was a highly located fog. Yet it was our clue, and as if we could actually find it source, we jumped back into our clothes with our wet hair freezing and our warm skins shivering, to leave the light pollution and find the darkness.

As we entered the slippery road that led us out of Tonttula, my eyes never left the sky. And that is why they got to witness the white fog taking a shift to milky green. It slowly shifted from foggy blurry movements to ocean-alike waves, as if it was the sky was being electrified. Purified, as the milky-green waves started to spread in an unsynchronized way, disappearing from one spot to appear at the other, creating little bows in the sky or simple strange dots, looking like porchways into space. Our hands turned purple with cold as we couldn’t stop taking pictures, whilst trying to put the camera away to simply watch, terrified they’d disappear. But they didn’t. The vage green fog started to create a massive curtain, and this curtain, still shivering, was covered in a shade of milky green. It spread throughout the whole sky and as my breath stopped for a few second a watched the curtain turning into a massive bow, and I saw its green colour intensifying. Almost crying with joy I went inside to put on some more clothes, feeling the adrenalin trough my frozen veins, before I heard my name being shouted. Immediately I ran back, preparing for something but not nearly for this. The dark sky above us was no longer dark. It was completely lit up by a green spotlight from above, as the northern lights now created a massive river that carefully shivered its way forward, like waves. Waves, activied by electricy, as you could see the shocks that boosted new green into the river, rushing trough. They were dancing uncontrolably. The green almost hurt our eyes as shivers of purple appeared at its edge and the bright light started to reflect into the snow. as it kept flowing like a river of purple green, I realized it had moved a gigantic distance, as if it was hunting the sky. It was slightly scary too, as if the sky was on fire, a hellfire, that would swallow the world at any second. It was outside our reach, beneath our control, forcing us to respect the planet. At the moment, I could have peed my pants without even noticing, at the moment I was so grateful to be a part of this incredible place called earth. I couldn’t tell you if I stood there for an hour or 15 minutes, time is an irellevant thing when magic is timeless. i smiled gratefully at the sky, feeling intensenly happy despite almost leaving; nobody was going to take this away from me.

- It's an amazing life