An 8% Chance
An ice bar in Bergen, an 80-year-old French traveler, and an 8% chance of seeing the northern lights.
I wrote this on my phone in a restaurant, so please bear with me if it doesn’t make much sense. I was thinking and writing.
“Here I am tipsily writing another Substack post.”
I was inside a bar made entirely of ice in Bergen, slightly drunk, sitting next to my parents when I wrote this. The walls were ice. The glasses were ice. Even the seats were ice.
The day before, we had been on the fjords. I remember thinking: this is beautiful. And then thinking of nothing else. Just staring at the landscape in front of me. And maybe thanking God for being who I am and the luck I had to be where I am.
The next day in Bergen was another long one.
By the time we ended up in the ice bar, I felt that specific kind of exhaustion that only comes from over-living a day. Too many activities.
And in the middle of it, I typed:
Now I’m writing the rest two days later. From a restaurant in Tromsø. Waiting to see if the sky will cooperate tonight.
My parents are the reason a Tuesday night in an ice bar feels normal to me. They raised me in a way that created the idea that you do the thing now. You go. You see. You don’t wait for perfect timing.
My first trip was before I turned one. I was just three months old, I believe. My first international trip was when I was six. And I haven’t stopped since.
Which is ironic, because they also believe in stability. In building a career in one place. In not jumping ships. My dad stayed at the same company for decades. He built something steady and safe.
My parents didn’t start traveling seriously until their 40s, when they had money and structure. Which, ironically or not, was when they had me (late, I know). I was born into their travel phase.
I’m in my 20s, trying to calculate whether I can drain my barely-there savings account for a four-day bike trip in Vietnam just because it seems cool.
We see life differently.
I feel like I am always in a rush. There’s so much to see and so many things to do and, unfortunately, so little time. Some things are simply better done when you’re young, and I feel a constant urgency to experience them now. That doesn’t mean I want to travel on a whim forever, but at this stage of my life, a more flexible career that allows me to experience the world feels more appealing than committing to one fixed career path.
My dad thinks there’s time and that I should build a safety net before doing anything else.
I kinda disagree. And realizing that I’ve already done things he will probably never be able to do because of age only makes that anxiety worse. But we’re here together.
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Earlier that same day, before the ice bar, we took the cable car up the mountain in Bergen.
French. In her 80s, I believe. Traveling alone.
She speaks Portuguese fluently. Learned with her Portuguese friends. She’s been to Manaus, my hometown, years ago. Of course she has. This time, she was alone.
After a few minutes of conversation, I asked her if she didn’t feel scared to travel alone.
She smiled and said, “Se eu esperasse pelos outros, eu nunca iria pra nenhum lugar.”
If I waited for others, I would never go anywhere.
She said it casually, just answering my question. Just a fact she learned with life.
I haven’t stopped thinking about her and I regret not asking for her name.
Because she is what I want to be. Independent. Curious. Moving through the world without needing someone beside her.
And here is the uncomfortable part: I am afraid of exactly that. Being alone. I crave companionship. And I don’t think it helps that I am very much in love.
And there’s someone very specific that I hope would be with me.
One of my biggest dreams was to see the northern lights. Maybe the number one thing on my checklist.
This trip only happened because I pushed my parents into it. I told them they were getting older. That it was now or never. Some tours here have an age limit of 65. That fact unsettled me more than I expected, especially considering my parents are in their 60s and 70s now.
As for me, I would have come on a version of the trip anyway. I had already budgeted what a solo Lapland trip would cost. But I wanted them to see it while they still could. With me.
Last night was our first aurora chase.
The forecast said 90% cloud coverage for most of the night. An 8% chance of seeing anything.
Our guide, Paolo from Chile, told us forecasts are unreliable. Sometimes nothing happens until the boat turns back. Sometimes the aurora shows up after he’s already gone home.
“Aurora forecasts are like men,” he said. “They promise a lot but… let’s see.”
Funny. And I must say I agree.
We were about to return when it appeared.
A baby aurora. Soft. Faint. Green. Not dramatic. But there. It beat the odds.
This time, anxiety didn’t help. It took its time, but it showed up.
And maybe that’s the thread running through all of this.
My parents built stable lives and then learned how to chase wonder later. The French woman never waited for anyone. Paolo left his entire life to chase the lights in the Arctic.
And I’m here, somewhere in between, I guess. Afraid of being alone, afraid of missing my window, afraid of wasting money, afraid of standing still.
The odds don’t always look great. But sometimes the sky turns green anyway.
Life is good.
God is good.
I’ll let you know if it shows up again tonight.