Photo Credit: Jackie Hudgins

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to see the Northern Lights, a rarity in these here parts. My husband and I, loaded up and went into the deep dark woods to escape the light pollution, in anticipation. From his work he knows every road in our county and drove us deep into the country, down a road named for a man long gone, a farmer, a powerful mover and shaker in the county, who was perhaps most well known for his propensity for wearing dresses. I can’t emphasize enough how unusual that would’ve been at that time in this part of the world. This was long before Billy Porter or Harry Styles were even thought of, and the mind boggles. But he was known to be a major political player, a king maker and breaker, so no one said a word when they saw him out on his tractor with his skirts billowing out behind him. I’d like to have seen that.

(But, I digress. Seriously. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

So we drove miles down this deserted, pitch black road. After a while we saw another car pulled over. I said “Maybe they’re looking for the Northern Lights too…or dumping a body.”

But even though it was clear and dark, what we did not see was one tiny sign of an Aurora Borealis. We stood beside the car, in the spring night for a long time. It was perfectly still and perfectly dark. Slowly, I began to notice the stars, like a handful of diamonds thrown on the black velvet sky, the fireflies, the frogs, the crickets. And then another sound rose in the dark:

“Chuck-Will’s Widow, Chuck-Will’s Widow.”

Joined by another, and then by another and another until all around us a chorus of song from a most elusive bird, the aptly named Chuck Will’s Widow, cousin to the Whippoorwill. Seldom heard in the city and almost never seen anywhere at all, they rule the night in the country, the darkened meadows their kingdom. I’d never seen or even heard one, and here we were surrounded by them. We stood transfixed, not by the miracle of the Northern Lights, but by the miracle of everyday world at night. And so it was that I came in search of one thing and found something else entirely. Something I had not even known I’d wanted, a transcendent moment in a lovely place with my favorite person under the night sky. A different kind of light illuminating the dark with wonder and love.

Chuck Will’s Widow