I awoke this morning at 5:30 due to a nightmare set in an old Victorian mansion. I don’t usually get up that early, but I decided it was going to be a fun day; I might as well get up and get it going.
I had my coffee and my morning quiet or devotional time–basically Bible reading, prayer and listening. I enjoy Tim Keller’s teaching via podcasts.
After that, I ran on the treadmill for 8 miles, which took 1:48. That’s a very slow pace. I watched the latest episode of American Idol while I ran. I’m still trying to train for the Indy Mini, which is May 5. It’s looking bleak.
After my shower, I put on the t-shirt I purchased about 4 weeks ago to commemorate the eclipse. Mine is a silly one of a neon cat in aviator gear, with the words “Muncie, IN, 04.08.2024” on the front. My husband’s is a classier design but also included “Muncie,” on it, not just Indiana. I’ll put these shirts away with our viewing glasses and other mementos this week.
My husband stopped working at noon and purchased champagne and PIzza King Royal Feast pizza for us to have on the deck while we celebrated the eclipse.
This week I had cleaned out some boxes from our attic, and in one box I found the champagne glasses that say, “Bride” and “Groom” from our wedding, with ribbon still attached to the stems. So I cleaned them up, and we used those today for our champagne.
I set up chairs and a small table on our back deck, and we enjoyed our late lunch and listened to a playlist I had curated from my music library. Some of the songs included, “Miss Sun,” by Bozz Scaggs, “Lovely Day,” Bill withers; “Walking on the Sun,” Smash Mouth; “Brighter than the Sun,” Colbie Caillat; “The Dark of the Sun,” Tom Petty; “Pocketful of Sunshine,” Natasha Bedingfield; “Soak Up the Sun,” Sheryl Crow; ” “Summertime,” The Sundays; “You are the Sunshine of My Life,” Stevie Wonder; “Beautiful Day,” U2. There are more, but I’ll stop there. I notice I didn’t include many about the moon, but “Dancing in the Moonlight,” by King Harvest and “Bad Moon Rising,” by CCR are two of my “moon favorites.” But I am by far a sun lover rather than a moon person.
As the moon creeped slowly across the sun, we decided to play badminton. It’s kind of funny when we play because we always remember how we won a BSU badminton tournament many years ago. We used to be a pretty good badminton duo!
As totality neared, we found places that were comfortable and put on our glasses. I have three short videos which document just before and during totality. I love that when the eclipse happens, and you can only see the corona, you can hear cheers going up from all over our neighborhood. And yes, we gushed about how amazing it was ourselves.
I have saved a long text thread from our three adult kids updating us on what they were doing right before totality. They have since sent pictures of the grandkids viewing it, as well. I’m keeping a Google photos album for the eclipse so that in the future they can see the texts, videos, pictures and reports from our family members on this momentous day.
I was most overwhelmed by seeing the corona and hearing the mourning doves coo at that odd time of day. The temperature drop was also interesting.
All day our minds kept going to thoughts of ancient people who have witnessed this event with no forewarning, how terrifying it must have been for them. How they must have rejoiced when they realized the sun had not died and neither had they, once totality passed.
And of course, no day is complete without the sadness that comes over me when I think of my parents. I would have loved to share this with them today.
I spent the rest of the afternoon on the shaded porch, looking at Facebook (I had been off during Lent, so it’s fun getting caught up with everyone and seeing their eclipse photos.)
I plan to have a bowl of ice cream this evening and read a book which I picked up this morning momentarily but put down. Ironically, the passage I read was this: “When Eddie and I talked about that solar eclipse, we also talked about how stars are in the sky all day long, you just can’t see them on account of the sun being so bright. You need the darkness of night, or an eclipse when the moon briefly blots out the sun, to see the stars by their own light. So most things you can’t see in the dark, but other things–like stars–you can only see in the dark. That’s what I’ve been doing since Duke died, sitting in the darkness waiting for whatever has its own light to show itself.” (Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls)
Well. As I mentioned, I’m grieving daily. But I’m happy to say that I am not figuratively sitting in the darkness waiting for some kind of relief or light. As CS Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” That is, I have an undercurrent of comfort and faith that buoys me when the tide tries to pull me out. I hurt at some point every day, but like the ancients learned, the shadow passes, and we go on. I am going on.