COLOR MY WORLD by Jane Kelley

This is what I saw last October.

After we heard that the Northern Lights would be visible, my husband Lee and I drove to darker skies. We joined lots of other people on the shore of Lake Michigan. 

The sky had a little shimmer of green and pink. It was amazing. But it was nothing compared to what I saw in this camera screen.

I tried to keep my focus on the actual sky, and not that small computer. I spend far too much of my life looking at screens!

But it was hard to resist. Why was the image in the screen so much more vibrant? How come the whoozeewhatzit enhanced the whachamcallit and made the colors pop?

I felt cheated. I felt fascinated. I took a photo of the photo--as a comment on the absurdity. How could real life not be as good as this image?

And then I realized. This isn't just technology. This is what any artist does. Writer, painter, sculptor, photographer, composer--we all heighten reality. We deepen the color. We emphasize the contrast. We brighten the hues. We make people pay attention to something they might otherwise have missed.

Northern Lights are literally out of this world. The shimmering sky reveals particles that came from the sun, sneaked past the Earth's magnetic field at the north and south poles, and slid along the ribs of the field, where they interacted with our atmosphere. This is always happening. Only the intensity of a solar storm makes manifest what we don't usually see. 

So be the storm! The surge of energy! And don't be afraid to add your particular whoozeewhatzit to the whachamcallit to MAKE PEOPLE SEE COLORS.

JANE KELLEY is a great lover of astronomical events and storms that make her stories shimmer.