night magic

Photo: Sean Galbraith

My apartment faces south to Lake Ontario and to the right, the downtown Toronto skyline, alit at night. Over the last several weeks I've been privy to fantastical light displays as the city tested the new LED lights for the CN Tower.

I usually get home from work shortly after 2 a.m. and the Tower, previously blacked out with only airplane signals, would be red, then green, then purple. The colours shifted into each other, disappeared, were there all at once. They pulsed up and down the elevator shafts.

It was silent music, not very unlike the northern lights, a dance of shimmering, waving colours.

I sat on my couch and the show would go on until 3 a.m.

I missed the official launch a few days ago. And apparently the awesome displays I saw regularly for a week are not going to be the standard, but only for special occasions. Too bad. I miss the quiet shifting rainbow already.

But even when the colours stay stable and don't shimmy or glide, they are a lovely touch, and it's hard to believe the Tower was dark for so long.