gamerdonkey

I've been reflecting on my past year during its last few weeks. This feels like a big year for me, but then again, they all still feel big when I look back on them.

These aren't really in a particular order, so the numbering was probably a mistake. Also, I don't promise any of them will be interesting.

1. Aurora Borealis

One of my bucket list items has always been to see the northern lights. I don't think I'm alone in this desire, but I had gotten as far as discussing a visit to a friend in Iceland with the side goal of checking it off my list.

I knew the sun was in the most active period of its 11-year cycle. I'd also heard that aurora might be visible at my latitudes. Of course, I had heard that before. My night, I assumed, would include an hour with friends, staring at the northern horizon as we questioned whether this glow or that weird light was actually aurora.

I was driving towards the sunset to meet my friends a couple hours away. I kept leaning over the steering wheel and looking at the darkening sky, hopeful but ever mindful of all my experiences in the past. A cloud above me looked pink and odd in the fading light, and I laughed to myself how it almost got me. How I almost thought it was glowing itself. But then it changed shape in a way that clouds don't, and I pulled off at the next exit so I could get out of my car.

I found myself craning my neck up, mouth agape, at the aurora borealis in the same state where I had lived my entire life, on the same highway I'd driven dozens of times. Ribbons of green and blue slithered against the stars in the north. A green glowing cloud hung high in the sky to my south. Above me, filaments of pink and deep red danced, and as I traced one line from the zenith over my head through its arc into infinity, tears welled up in my eyes. It was beautiful, and I didn't want it to end. I eventually had to drive on, and it lasted long enough that I still shared the experience with my friends.

Just a couple months ago, I saw them once more. I happened to be driving again, this time north. They were green and they writhed in the black night, looking much like the images I'd always seen in books and online. I got to watch them for a few hours on my drive, but they were gone by the time I reached my destination.

2. Total Solar Eclipse

The first time I saw a total solar eclipse was probably the closest I've come to a religious experience. I was surrounded by people I loved, mere walking distance from my home. Nothing had prepared me for the moment when the clouds broke just in time to reveal a black hole in the sky surrounded by ghostly white wisps of smoke. Of course, the whole experience altogether is what made it special. The sheer and total inevitability of it. The way the sunlight slowly falters and the air grows chilly. How shadows become sharper and the world around you seems muted and thin. Animals act strangely, and the tension builds inside you until something goes utterly wrong with a part of the sky that you've taken for granted your entire life.

The eclipse this year went very similarly. I was at least prepared, though the sensations still resonated deep inside me. We had to drive far south to see totality, but I'm happy we found an event in a small town. It was just enough of an event to have interesting people without feeling too big.

This time, on a whim, I made myself a camera. I stayed up until 1 am the night before working on it, cutting and taping an old cardboard box. I poked a pinhole in a cut-out piece of a soda can and I didn't even have time to test how well it worked. I had never made my own camera before, and I knew it wouldn't be a good one. I did have the pieces and I wanted to demonstrate that I understood the principles. I also knew that whatever I made would be entirely mine. It would capture a wholly unique record of this eclipse.

I guessed at the timing as I flapped open my tape-and-cardboard shutter. The picture turned out far over-exposed, but I am lucky that the direct-positive paper I was using reacted to that extreme brightness in a way that still formed an image. Like I said, I know it's not a good picture. But here, captured in real crystals of silver, is a piece of a celestial event so big that I can't put it into words.

3. Injuries

I have been injured many times throughout my life, but this year seemed defined by a couple more extreme cases. The first happened weeks before the eclipse, when I stupidly leaned out of my car to pick something up off the ground and got yanked back by the seatbelt. This somehow bruised my ribs, and I was resigned to a single sleeping position for well over a month. The other time, I was stupidly pulling the lawn mower backwards up a hill and managed to hurt something in my lower back. Any angle between standing straight and lying down was torture.

The strongest memories of each of these injuries are the extended times where I woke up in such pain that I did not know how I would get out of bed. I always managed it, which I know made me lucky (and my cat happy satisfied). I also recovered without heavy medication or therapy, which I know makes me luckier.

I'm getting older, and my body will fail me more often. But these are also reminders not to be stupid. I'm not invincible.

4. Cicadas

There was a lot of news about the overlapping broods this summer. I think my area only got one of the hibernating broods, but my god were they loud. The sound was deafening under some trees, and I measured up to 95 dB (between a truck and a helicopter).

This was also the first time that I saw cicadas molting their shells and emerging in their adult forms. They looked very weird. It was fascinating.

5. Comet

I've gotten to see several comets over the past few years, but C/2023 A3 has certainly been the most impressive by the naked eye. It was only one night, as the object was already fading, but the enormous tail streaking upward was truly a sight to behold.

I also got to have a social interaction that is very much not like me. I had initially been watching for the comet as the sun set, parked at a nearby grocery store with a surprisingly good view western skies. When I at last spotted the comet, I planned to drive to darker areas. On my way out, however, I saw some folks with cameras standing in the grass and looking in the correct direction. I stopped by and asked if they had seen the comet yet. They said no, so I got to pass on my experience viewing past comets, namely looking for a smudge in the sky (not a dot) and bobbing your head side-to-side to make sure it's not just a ghost image in your eye. They were all able to spot it within a couple minutes, and I drove on with a weird sense of satisfaction.

6. Camping

For my birthday, I went camping by myself for the first time. This is almost entirely true. I did sleep in the tent alone, with nobody in even shouting distance, but I was on the ranch I grew up on. Also, my mom drove out to sit with me by the fire through most of the night. We stoked the flames, watched the stars, and talked and talked and talked.

After she drove back to the house, the night was cold and scarier than I thought it would be. My sleeping bag held up, though, and I'm glad for the experience. I woke up to dazzling sun and a clear blue sky over a chilly morning world.

7. Wisdom Teeth

My Thanksgiving did not go the way I thought it would. I had to cancel plans with my family because my tooth hurt so bad that I did not sleep a wink. There's just nothing quite like a bad toothache. It's the kind of pain that pushes all other thoughts from your mind, that makes you want to do anything to make it stop. I can understand why people went to the terrible dentists that you hear about from the times before anesthesia.

After a day, I found an emergency dentist and ended up having all four of my wisdom teeth removed in a single visit. It was quite an experience, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it. The holes in my mouth healed about as well and as fast as I could have hoped, but it was still so disrupting. I got so sick of mashed potatoes.

8. 20 Books

I made a goal for myself to read 20 books this year. I've noticed for some time that I haven't been reading as much as I once did, even though it's something that gives me a lot of joy.

I didn't meet my goal. However, I read more this year than probably any year since high school. And I found some great books; some recommended, some randomly picked up at the library. You can read the details on my reading page.

9. Remembering My Dad

The past year has been blessed in that I haven't experienced loss like in 2023. That year I lost my cat, my grandma, and my dad. My dad gets a mention here because he passed so suddenly in December that we didn't hold his celebration of life until January of this year.

It was a small event in an Elk's Lodge, arranged by my uncle. There were so many pictures. Some were of me, and I'd never seen them before. I met people from my dad's life that I knew, people I barely remembered, and some that hadn't seen me since I began forming memories. It was beautiful and sad. We told old stories and new. There was music and awkward old-person dancing, and I'm pretty sure I got hit on by a septuagenarian.

It was hard to say goodbye. I've thought of him often over the past year, especially here among the holidays. My dad loved Christmas, and it's been difficult to celebrate without him. I feel like it's what he would have wanted, though. It's a way to honor his memory. He loved life and he would want us to keep living it.

10. Plasma Cutter

At the celebration of life, I spent more time around my extended family than I probably have in a decade. Afterward, I talked long into the night in a hotel room with my uncle, cousins, and brother. My brother told me about a plasma cutter table he had bought but never got working and, knowing that I liked that kind of CNC thing, asked if I could help him finish it.

So I drove down to his shop on weekends throughout the spring, summer, and fall. We would spend a whole afternoon building the table, wiring up electronics, and tuning the software until he finally had a working plasma cutter. My brother is a good deal older than me, from my dad's first marriage, and I had never gotten much time to hang out with him. The time I got to spend with him over the past year was great. We talked while working on that third thing. We talked about life, about Dad, and about our future.

It was a good reminder to me that I should build things with people I care about.

Honorable Mentions

1. Bus Mom
2. Full suit
3. Herb garden
4. Bottling Donkey's Doubt
5. Saucy's Pizza
6. Front row baseball
7. LED sign
8. Return to rally
9. Dirty 20 Trivia