If you live in the U.S., you likely find yourself in one of the following states tonight:
1. tired of hearing about the eclipse,
2. dying to see your next eclipse, or
3. disappointed you missed the eclipse.
I first learned of the now-infamous solar event on April 27, 2017 in the Palm Beach Post’s blog, “New solar eclipse stamp does something no other stamp can.”
I snapped up the stamps — and they indeed performed exactly as advertised. (Sorry one is missing; I mailed it to my parents.)
But I shelved any thoughts about the eclipse itself until a couple of months later. “Wanna go to Nashville?” I asked Esteban, figuring that even if we got skunked meteorologically we could still enjoy ourselves musically. “Sorry,” he replied, “gotta work.”
Fast-forward to last week, when my friends started sharing their travel plans. Nebraska. South Carolina. Oregon. It seemed half my social circle was heading for The Path of Totality. Even the catalogs that arrived in the mail — like this one, from Warby Parker — were promoting the event. Sigh.
I was amused to arrive at work this morning and find a creatively curated pile of treats on my desk.
I was less amused, however, by the weather. In my latitude there would be only a partial eclipse of 83%, which would reach its peak at 1:06 p.m. But when I joined some friends on the top floor of the parking ramp at the appointed hour, this is all we saw.
Esteban got a better shot from a few miles south.
In the end, this was as close as I came to an eclipse.
Am I disappointed? Maybe a tiny bit. It would have been wonderful to witness an event that brought so many Americans together, and that will be a time stamp in the lives of at least two generations.
Nevertheless, I’m grateful to live in an age when we can watch the eclipse online. And anyway … there’s always 2024 — and that eclipse will reach totality over Chautauqua, a place that is dear to me and Esteban.
Until then, I’ll leave you with the lunar eclipse I did manage to see in 2008, right in my own back yard.
“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” — Ray Bradbury
