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This week, I went on a journey to find beauty in nature. I know it\u2019s not actually that difficult to find, especially in Michigan, but I was looking for a new kind of beauty I\u2019d never seen before. The kind of beauty that only comes in the darkest of nights under just the right conditions. You see, the sun was flaring up, and that meant there was an increased chance of seeing the aurora borealis across southeastern Michigan. And I was dying to see it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve wanted to see the northern lights for as long as I can remember. In pictures, they always look like someone found a giant paintbrush and made big sweeping brush strokes of blues and greens, and sometimes reds, across the black night sky canvas. I\u2019ve never actually been fortunate enough to find the lights in person, but that doesn\u2019t mean I haven\u2019t tried. Repeatedly. And Monday night was no different.<\/p>\n
So late that night, I piled into my friend\u2019s car with three other girls and we headed north to chase the lights (our second official attempt as a group). Last time we drove until morning only to be severely disappointed by the lack of color in the sky, so this time we decided to cut ourselves off. We drove until one in the morning and spent our hours in the car wishing, praying, and hoping to see the lights. And I really thought we\u2019d see them this time. The sky was crystal clear and even from the highway we could see light streaks of something we hadn\u2019t seen before, which, of course, we assumed were the lights. We drove and drove, and yet, no aurora borealis. In fact, we hit clouds the further north we got. Discouraged, we turned around and drove back towards Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n
But then, something magical happened. The clouds cleared and brilliant stars filled the night sky. A great big orange ball of a moon hung low on the horizon, covered by just enough clouds to create a mysteriously spooky masterpiece. Shooting stars skidded into view and out again. The sky was beautiful, just like that painting I had imagined, even without the northern lights. And even though we didn\u2019t find the lights like I hoped we would, and even though my heart still aches for the moment when I can call my family and say I did, I am so happy for that journey. I got to see something just as beautiful and magnificent. I got to see the kind of pure night sky some people in big cities have only dreamed of. And I know I\u2019ll find the lights one day. But for now, I\u2019ll take the nights filled with surprising skies instead, because they\u2019re just as good, if not better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week, I went on a journey to find beauty in nature. I know it\u2019s not actually that difficult to find, especially in Michigan, but I was looking for a new kind of beauty I\u2019d never seen before. The kind of beauty that only comes in the darkest of nights under just the right conditions. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[816,277,817],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6871"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6873,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6871\/revisions\/6873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}