The sky went strange last night.

Around 11:23 I stepped out to check the yard, just the usual ritual before bed. A deer wandered ahead, nose to the grass. Then I looked up and stopped breathing for a moment.

Green light.
Pink edges.
A slow moving curtain across the northern sky.

The Northern Lights, visiting Virginia.

They rippled so softly it felt like the air itself was dreaming. The kind of color that doesn’t make sense this far south, but there it was, spilling quietly over the ridge.

Neighbors came out in pajamas, phones held up, some barefoot, some whispering.
Someone said, “It looks fake.”
Someone else said nothing at all.

The light shifted. Mint to violet to something gold at the edge. I tried to take a photo but the camera flattened it into a dull smear. It wasn’t something meant to be kept, only witnessed.

When it faded, it left a hum behind, a shimmer just behind my eyes. The kind of beauty that insists on being temporary.

Later, inside, tea steaming on the desk, I scrolled through the local posts: aurora over Roanoke Valley , salem sky glowing last night, did anyone else see it?
Yes, we did. All of us looking north, just for a moment, remembering that the world still surprises.

Today is gray and ordinary again.
But the sky still feels like it’s holding a secret, waiting for someone to notice.

note to self:
Sometimes wonder sneaks up quietly, wearing borrowed light.