Quiescent voyages

Having gone through that cycle of - forecasting a strong solar activity, thinking about when to start packing, when to have the dinner and about that road into the night more than at least a dozen times. That was a recurring event throughout the last two years. It was a workday and there I was sitting on my cubicle at the open office, listening to some organic house music on my earphones looking at the numbers. It was the second day of the solar storm and I was getting surprised by the magnitude of the activity. Already feeling the excitement and looking forward to the evening beyond, I found myself thinking about that high school friend. He had a background photo on his PC back in my hometown. When I asked about what that photo was about, he mentioned that it was the Aurora Borealis. The northern lights. And he went on about it, how it appears in the north pole and how colorful it was. I was amazed by the photo and I couldn't even imagine seeing them with my own eyes back then.

There I was on a small village of the Anatolia and I barely could perceive the reality I was living in. Some days it was feeling like I was alive but I was frozen in time. That's how soulless that town was. I don't even want to remember some of the summer times, perhaps because I barely had any friends to spend time with. That kid probably wouldn't even recognise who I became after all those years. But that moment of time, looking at the computer of my friend and seeing the dancing northern lights was a memory that sticked with me all these years. There are other things that also sticked with me like spending two hours touring the entire city from the school to all the way back home on an uncomfortable chair in the bus.

Then I am returning to the reality and checking the clock and it shows two o'clock in the afternoon. I am thinking whether I should invite any friend to chasing northern lights this time. I don't even know which spot that I will go but after all the solar storms I experienced in this short time, I am seeking that composition on my mind. A purple haze of the lights behind an old Dutch windmill. That shot is sticking with me. Searching some of the locations where I could shot such photo becaming like searching a needle in the haystack. Because of the cloud forecast and everything I am giving up and deciding to go to a safe location where I know I will have a good chance.

One part of me is telling me that it was never about taking photos. It was always driving in the dark, sometimes not even seeing one hundred meters far away. Driving alone in the middle of nowhere all by myself and setting up a tripod in the middle of a field. Actualising my solitude vividly there feeling insecure at times. But I am whistling some songs and looking at the moon brighting up the night. Oddly, it's starting to feel like home. This feeling of being far away from home and voyaging on the road. But returning back to home after a long and cold night of driving. Not even seeing a glimpse of a pillar some nights, spending the whole night out doesn't feel unsuccessful. That feeling of being lost and coming back home bringing a new wave of sensations towards me. That uncertainty filling up the whole night and to feel some feelings after all. What an abundance in the world we are living in.

I am voyaging more than thousands of kilometers. Consuming hours of sleepless nights. Sometimes coming back home and editing few photos at night. Sometimes throwing myself on my bed at 5am in the morning. It feels like a secret between the night and my lens what has happened the night before, when I wake up. I find myself on a different spectrum of feelings like I have touched something from the outer space. Especially during those nights where I could only shoot from the horizon. Each of these nights, probably I can describe with another thousand words. However there is one thing that keeps coming is that uncertain hope at the beginning of the evening and the weird strangers I stumble upon the road.

Chasing northern lights has been one of the life altering experiences for me in the past two years definitely. But not with the views they offered. Rather with the uncertainty they brought and that feeling of just voyaging without thinking the outcome. When thinking materialistically, it doesn't even make any sense. Though, sometimes sleeping at the trunk of the car on a literal hail storm and under a solar storm gives the proper meaning to the small life of mine. That how temporary and fragile my existence is.

I am not sure if it was a distraction but when I look back I feel that I have cleared my apprenticeship on the maximum peak of solar cycle 25. I am not sure how many of these cycles I will be able witness in my lifetime, maybe a couple more if I am lucky. However this solar cycle has taught me substantial amount of things psychologically. The quirks of the astronomy photography and the unknowns of the northern roads were among few other things that left a long term mark on me.

In those journeys I endured into the night, one feeling I couldn't run away from. That void stayed with me all the way to the north pole and back home. Though, I looked deep into it to embrace its pitch black depth as much as I could sustain.

Claiming the photos I have shot was easy. Acknowledging and welcoming some reflections echoed from that void deep inside me though, was a strange feeling.

"Eve dönüyorum denebilir ama döndüğüm yer evim değil. Bunun nedeni belki de bir evimin olmaması. Ya da daha doğrusu, evimde olmadığım zaman kendimi daha fazla evimde, evim gibi bir yerde hissediyor olmam. Öyleyse insan ne zaman evindedir?"