The van left Tromsø at 6:30 p.m. I had checked the cloud forecast four times that afternoon, which is generally three more than useful.
This was my fourth visit. On the first three, I did everything right. Thermal layers, spare batteries, a camera I had tested in my freezer back in Singapore. Each time, the sky stayed closed.
I told myself this would be my last attempt. Partly, I think, so I could stop wanting it.
About an hour out of the city, we stopped beside a frozen lake. The snow squeaked under my boots. Within minutes, the cold found the gap between my glove and my sleeve. Above us, the sky was still grey covered in clouds.
One of the guides, a tall man with frost already gathering in his beard, handed me a paper cup before I asked.
“Blackcurrant” he said. “Hot. Hold it first. Don’t drink it yet” he added
I held it. The warmth went straight into my fingers.
The other guide, a woman in a red knitted hat. She asked if this was my first time.
“Fourth,” I said. “I haven’t seen them yet.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s a lot of cold for nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” I said. Then I wondered if that was true.
By nine, I had stopped looking up. She noticed.
“The clouds are moving,” she said. “Slowly. It could open. It could not.”
“You don’t have to be optimistic for me.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m being honest. Honest is more useful.”
The other guide crouched by the fire and explained, in plain terms, that the lights can be active above the cloud even when we can’t see them. They watch for gaps. They watch the wind. Sometimes the gap comes. Sometimes it comes after everyone has gone home.
I appreciated that he didn’t soften it.
I thought about Singapore. The warm, heavy air when you step outside. Kopi in the morning, the familiar walk to the MRT. Home is good. On the flight over, I had wondered whether it should be enough.
I sometimes think about the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind where the protagonist wanted to erase their memories, I wanted to erase mine also due to the disappointment on my previous visits.
Around 10:40, I stood and started walking toward the van.
He tapped my shoulder. “Wait. Look north.”
At first it was barely anything. A pale arc low over the hills, closer to grey than green. My camera saw the colour before I did. Then it strengthened, a soft green band that thickened and slowly folded, like breath spreading on a cold window.
No one spoke for a while. The fire ticked. Somewhere behind me, someone laughed under their breath.
The woman in the red hat came to stand beside me. “There,” she said. “Fourth time.”
“It is really beatiful, all those trips are worth it” I said. “thank you” I added because their encouragement made me stay a bit longer.
I hadn’t realised, until then, how much that had mattered. The lights were the reason I came. But the warm cup, the honest answers, and the company in the dark were the reason I stayed out in the cold long enough to see them.
On the drive back, my disappointments didn’t disappear. They were still there, three trips’ worth, folded neatly away. They simply felt smaller next to the thing I still love.
I don’t know what the sky will do on my next journey. I don’t know where that journey will be.
Back home now, I sometimes wrap my hands around a hot drink and wait a moment before I take a sip.
Hold it first. Don’t drink it yet.
I still want to go.