Addiction and the Aurora.

I think I once made reference to a play I saw on the TV called Clay. It told the story of a man who became so obsessed with his garden that it developed into an all-consuming addiction. Eventually it became so dominant that he took to living in a makeshift shelter in order to be closer to his beloved soil, and even when his wife died the fact meant nothing to him.

I sometimes wonder whether the Aurora Borealis could have a similar effect on me. It’s such a compelling phenomenon that I could almost imagine myself moving to a tent on a mountainside somewhere, just to be ready for it when it chose to grace me with its presence.

That’s the thing about the Aurora; you never know when it’s going to appear. And when it does appear, you don’t know how long it’s going to last. And when it’s gone, you don’t know how long it will be before it appears again. It washes in and out, flooding the firmament with unimaginable brilliance and beauty, and it does so in its own time and under its own direction. You have no control over it.

But I suppose an addiction is something different. That’s when you have no control over yourself.