Totally eclipsed

I hope your day feels like the return of the sun after a week of rain.

I have come to hate the very idea of the total eclipse of the damn sun.

​The last time a total eclipse was viewable in the US I lived mere miles from the path of totality. We’d planned to get my mother and maybe even my east coast sister out to visit. Then we’d all drive to a perfect viewing spot and revel in nature’s spontaneous weirdness.

Then my mother got sick and we started taking turns being with her in New Hampshire. So I saw a mostly eclipsed sun from the window of a plane heading east. It was still cool, but didn’t match the Instagram ravings of my fellow Portlanders.

I did have a pair of eclipse glasses which I shared with other passengers, which was kind of cool. When’s the last time you really interacted with the other captives on a plane?

Oh well, we said. The next one is in 2024 - only a few years from now! And it’s going to be viewable from New England! We’ll have an East Coast version instead.

Then my mother died. And my sisters and I have had a rough year of near total estrangement, so I won’t be heading to Vermont to see it on my sister’s farm, though I think they'll be there. Together, without me. Which just makes all the previous stuff fall into relief: my mother’s illness and death. The events that led to our sibling estrangement.

I thought about planning a last-minute trip to Mexico to see the eclipse from there, but who am I kidding? I don’t have the kind of bank account that lends itself to urgent foreign trips. So I guess I’ll just try to avoid coverage and figure out where the next one will be.

Because there’s always another one.

And I’ll limit my wallowing to just a few minutes tomorrow. Maybe I’ll play Bonnie Tyler at top volume and just feel all my feels.

Possibly the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen was a total, and totally unexpected, eclipse of the moon from the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya. This was 1986, so we had no internet, and thus no warning. We lay on our backs in the grass, watching the moon rise. And with no foreknowledge of the eclipse we watched in awe, and maybe a little terror, as a shadow spread slowly over its face, turning it red.

I’ve watched the solar eclipse turn our round ball of a sun into a fiery corona surrounding the shadow of the moon, reminding us that it’s a star, after all.

In each case, things are revealed that are usually hidden.

When the sun is eclipsed by the moon, we can see stars and planets in the middle of the day, and moonshadows dance on the ground. When the sun’s shadow covers the moon we get a full view into the Milky Way, with all the celestial bodies clamoring for the attention usually devoted to that nearer satellite.

That’s what’s happened in my emotional life over the past year. The biggest and brightest elements of my family were temporarily eclipsed, and I was shown the truth that lies behind the faulty familial structure.

I couldn’t stare straight at that sucker - it burned my eyes! But I’m left with that sense of awe that accompanies every eclipse. We’re part of a bigger reality. We see only a tiny part of the universe and think it’s the whole shooting match.

We have no control over what happens out there, and yet we have total control over what happens inside. That’s my eclipse lesson, and I don’t even need special glasses to see it. Happiness is, as they say, a choice.

So maybe I’ll listen to a little George Harrison instead.

Recommendations!

It's a twofer today of books with a celestial theme. Well, books which have celestial names; they have little to do with stars.

I don't read much nonfiction, and most of that is memoir, so you know when I love a weighty tome full of research it's saying something. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson, is that book! It describes the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities. For obvious reasons. It would take too long for me to tell you why you should read it. So trust me, it's worth your time.

The second is a post-apocalyptic tale that includes the horror of the life we may face in the after times but also contains a jolt of hope and beauty. This is one of my very favorite books ever. The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller.

(Those are affiliate links.)

​With thanks to Katrina & The Waves.

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The flex: handing them back