A Solar Eclipse

reflections, one turn of the earth later

Yesterday a total solar eclipse moved across North America. You can learn more about it here. Thank you to my collaborators and friends for sharing their eclipse stories with Lucky Rigatoni.

On the morning of the eclipse, the sun does not seem to rise. One continuous grey layer covers the sky, cloaking our zone of totality. My father’s college roommate and his wife are in the driveway drinking coffee in camping chairs. They sit quietly next to their 1980 VW Vanagon, the one they drove here from Idaho. They’ve been sleeping in it for 4 days, waiting for today. The roommate looks apprehensively at the sky.

Inside the house, the day passes in a flurry of tense remote work meetings, family tensions rising, a sleep deprived baby crying, leftovers being reheated and consumed. My husband tries to joke with me, I silence him. There is talk of leaving. There is talk of staying inside.

But then it is 3:00, and the group assembles on the front porch with false hope. Champagne ($14 Prosecco, of course) is popped in a half-hearted attempt to resurrect our festive cheer. We put the glasses on. We cannot see a thing. The baby wakes up from her first nap in days.

Then it is 3:05, and someone sees it the first time. We all shout. We can see it! Put the glasses on! We rapidly disperse throughout the yard in search of the best angles. My sister shrieks over tiny daisies in the yard that are ever so slightly closing. My father looks directly at the sun, claiming his cataract surgery and the cloud cover will protect him. The roommate and his wife remain on the porch, transfixed, necks tilted, glasses on.

Suddenly it is yellow and dark, like a dimming switch has been turned rapidly down. We are all shocked, we feel sick. In the distance we hear fireworks and an emergency siren. We are afraid. We take videos of nothing. The dogs’ tails are between their legs.

Just as quickly, it is over. The dimmer gets turned back up, all the way. After, the sky is blue. The sun feels unbearably hot and bright. The waters are very, very calm. We talk about the morning. We laugh. We walk the dogs. They wag their tails.

— Caroline, Chautauqua, NY

I have eclipsed. It is something extraordinary. Very emotional. Part of me felt incredibly connected to all things, and by being witness, I was an integral part of this celestial ballet. The other part of me felt insignificant, unthinkably small in the infinity of the cosmos. I remember feeling that the universe is too beautiful and life is just so so brief and it is unfair that it has to end.

I will say, I traveled for this one and, while I hate being in traffic, seeing the amount of cars on the highway all racing to see it made me happy.

— Ryan, Nelson’s Ledges, OH

It started to get darker and the spring peepers started chirping thinking it was nighttime!

— Janelle, Deep Creek, MD

I love going each time but I have never cried about it, and I feel a lil broken somehow?

— Ashley, Erie, PA

I can’t help but wonder what went through the minds of early humans experiencing this. The brief but magical feeling of “we’re all in this together”…. spinning around in space. Very few moments in life will compare to a crowd cheering for the sky.

— Lisa, Pittsburgh, PA

Let me start with an admission: I was skeptical, at best. Traveling hours for an event that lasts minutes? No. I think about the swarms of people traveling west to Ohio, traveling north to Erie and all I see is the Garden State Parkway Shore Points at 3:00pm on the Friday of the fourth of July weekend.

Everyone I know asks me: do you have glasses? They tell me Warby Parker hands out glasses for free. They tell me they got glasses at Speedway - should they trust the Speedway glasses? They tell me their glasses came to them tucked in a Christmas card three months ago. The word glasses has shifted meaning this past week - and I know exactly what they’re all talking about. Like the 3D glasses we’d get from AMC on 22 when we bought tickets to the wrong version of Tangled (for the third time). Paper frames with plastic film for lenses.

I don’t have glasses. (You don’t need glasses if you aren’t planning to look!)

Our office collectively decides to embark on an afternoon walk at 2:45, with the peak eclipse (according to someone’s dad) at 3:17, or maybe 3:13. As I’m heading to the door, Lisa darts to the window instead, squinting up at the parting clouds. She slides the paper glasses onto her face and squeals, I SEE IT!

My heart rate quickens and I bounce down the stairs, into the sidewalk. We walk to the end of the block and Lisa gently grabs my shoulder to slow me down. Take these, she offers the paper frames with a portrait of the sun and the earth beside each darkened film lens.

Oh…………my god? There it is. The moon. In front of the sun. Like the most boring epic shadow puppet. Four of us red light:green light down Forbes Avenue as we pass the eclipse glasses between us and marvel at the sky. For me, sharing these glasses underlines the community of the experience.

A sea of people in Schenley Plaza. Glasses. Hammocks. Sirens. I observe my shadow on the grass lose it’s strength. Everything in my view appears like a poorly edited photograph - the contrast adjusted as far as possible to the left. The street lights turn on. The birds are flying, squawking, flapping, and I think they must be going home, all at once.

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Call for submissions

April is National Poetry Month. Send me your original haiku. The collection will be published here on April 30.

Pittsburgh

I’ll be reading with the City Books Writers in Residence at the Poetry Lounge in Millvale on Monday. See you there!