I dithered for weeks about going to see the eclipse. Mondays are a heavy teaching day for me and it seemed a little self-indulgent to cancel all my classes for personal travel. Midwestern weather is often uncertain in April, and I hated the idea of canceling all my classes, trekking to the totality zone, and then watching it rain.
But I really wanted to see the eclipse.
Elwood took Monday off and procured eclipse glasses. We pulled Stella out of school. I moved two classes online and handed off the third to a pair of TAs. We picked up Joe and his girlfriend, and we took the dog along because I was worried about getting stuck in traffic on the way home. It was a full car. The forecast was iffy, with clouds forecast across the zone we could reasonably drive to.
We weren't entirely in agreement about where we were going. I was happy to be on the edge of the totality zone; Elwood wanted to go deeper in. He prevailed, but I was battling grumpiness about it-- worried that we were driving into heavier clouds, worried that we were going to hit unmanageable traffic.
Through our eclipse glasses we could see the sun disappearing behind the moon. A sizable chunk had vanished when we stopped for lunch, and the moon marched steadily across the sun's face as we drove. When we reached our destination we didn't have long to wait.
We were on a property owned by a congregation of Catholic sisters, with a long-term care facility and a working farm. The residents were out on the lawn in their wheelchairs, eclipse glasses over their faces. There was another gathering, with younger attendees, down at the farm. "Eclipse party this way," the sign said, and so we walked that way. The farmer was unenthusiastic about Sandy's presence near her livestock, though, so I took her back out onto the little road between the farm and the parking lot. I stayed there, alone with Sandy, while the magic happened.
You've already heard a zillion people tell you what it was like. The farm's rooster crowed, the streetlights all kicked on, the temperature dropped. At the moment when the sun slipped entirely behind the moon, the people watching erupted in spontaneous gasps and cheers.
I took off my eclipse glasses, and gazed.
"Clothed with the sun" -- I've heard that phrase more times than I can count. It was unforgettable, though, to see the moon clothed with the sun, the ghostly corona gleaming though the dimness. I loved the Annunciation coincidence, too. Abigail Favale put it beautifully:
Whenever I see the moon, I think of Mary, she who most perfectly reflects the uncreated light. How incredible to watch a total eclipse on the feast of the Annunciation--that moment when, at her assent, the divine and human touch, becoming one.
— Abigail Favale (@FavaleAbs) April 8, 2024
I prayed; I watched; I stood still in wonder. The sun peeked around the other side of the moon, a dazzling golden-orange. Tears slid down my face as I put my eclipse glasses back on. "That," I thought to myself, "is why the word 'wondrous' exists."
Stella came hurrying toward me. "That," she said, "was the coolest experience of my ENTIRE LIFE!"
Days later, I'm still thinking about it. I've been thinking about the lunar meteorites that have left the moon's surface cratered and pockmarked. I didn't know the reason for the diamond ring effect or for Baily's beads, but I'm still thinking about the metaphor: the way that light and beauty can shine forth from damaged places. I'm thinking about that brief hushed twilight in the middle of the afternoon. I'm glad I was alone during totality, because I don't know if the stillness and the strangeness would have felt quite the same way in a crowd. I'm thinking about all the gifts in my life that I don't always recognize as gifts. A moon that was a slightly different size or a slightly different distance from the earth would mean a world with no eclipses.
I'm grateful for a world in which there are eclipses.
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