On a heavy Chicago afternoon in June, with the world locked away in COVID quarantine, Gunnar Branson stood alone outside a garage. He watched as his wife, college-aged daughter, and two cats drove away. A thirty-year marriage ended while he stood in the alley. Dark thunderheads loomed overhead, alternating with bursts of hot sun. A light breeze fluttered the linden tree.
At a certain age, it's easy to believe that most of the light is behind you. Or at least, that's what Gunnar thought. Story over.
But maybe not.
It wasn't over when his family moved to Alaska in the 1970s with a depressed world running out of gas. Years later, as he struggled with the end of a marriage, he started to believe there were answers to be found in that past. He wrote a story of a boy growing up in Alaska and an older man waking up to the best part of his life and in the process learned that the story is not over. The world does not have to end. Not yet, anyway.
Keep chasing the lights.
