Eclipse Diary Below:
My youngest son has made plans to spend the day with his friends on a boat. I can hardly be mad, but I’m still just a bit upset that we won’t be together today. I’m spending the day with my boyfriend and his two boys, so the mom guilt kicks in, and I feel as though I’m being a better mother to those boys than I am my own son, but I remind myself that I gave my son choices, and this was his choice.
I’m supposed to be working today, though not from my actual office, and not on anything in particular. It’s not exactly a super productive day, but also not a day off, and the gray area is more difficult to navigate than a directive one way or the other. I check Teams from the laptop set up in my home office. My home office is a disheveled mess because I recently switched jobs and haven’t gotten my life together enough to clean it up, but there’s still a serviceable desk that holds my laptop and two additional monitors. About half of my Teams contacts are yellow, and half are green…..are folks actually working today? Were they given directions I wasn’t?
I check Facebook to see who’s on and who’s posted already today. Facebook has become my barometer of expected productivity. It seems as though I’m ok, and worrying about nothing, per usual. So, I start packing up the things I know we’ll need for watching the eclipse from a public place: blankets to set our perimeter, chairs, table, wagon to haul it all in since I have no intention of carrying anything while I walk, copious amounts of snacks that teenage boys would like. Party games and a Buc-ee’s umbrella are last-minute additions.
I shower and put on jeans and a shirt. I walk to Minnetrista to grab some additional eclipse glasses because I already have six pairs for the four of us, but what if the boys each need one for their phone cameras? What if we meet up with friends who don’t have any glasses? What if ours break? Four additional pairs of glasses secured, I’m able to glance around a bit more on my walk home and realize that there are hardly as many people at Minnetrista as there are for fireworks every year. “It’s still early yet,” I tell myself. We were told there might be an influx of 100,000 people, but I only know of 8 who have travelled to Muncie for this event. My friends and I counted them up this morning in our group text thread as we all joked about having bought groceries on Tuesday just in case we couldn’t get anywhere this weekend.
It’s entirely too warm for jeans, which is a welcome change from the winter weather that’s plagued us for months, so I quickly opt for a long skirt, give my computer mouse one last wiggle so Teams turns green again, put the dogs in their crates, and rush out the door, my morning already somehow gone.
We walk to Canan Commons, not passing any other spectators on our way, the streets eerily deserted. A construction worker, seeing our laden wagon stops us to ask what time totality is and what time it is now, but he’s our only interaction until we make it to the grassy common area.
The boys are surprisingly helpful as we set up our excess of lawn furniture, and the youngest immediately grabs the Buc-ee’s umbrella so he can watch Netflix on his phone without a glare while we wait. Ironically, as we’ll discover later, he’s the only one to get a slight sunburn from being out in the sun for hours. Go figure. My boyfriend and his oldest embroil themselves in a heated display of strategery as they each attempt to sink the imaginary naval fleet of the other. So, it’s up to me to walk over and invite the neighbor and her dog to come sit with us so they’re not alone.
Pictures are taken, snacks are eaten, jokes are made, and occasionally someone dons their glasses to look at the position of the moon in relation to the sun, at which point it’s communicated to everyone else that they, too, should look, and we all do. We wile away the time that both passes quickly and also seems to somehow stand still in the absence of school and work duties to fill it. Three pairs of glasses are broken before the big moment, and I’m feeling justified about my morning walk for more. Someone on a blanket near us brought crystal singing bowls, and the neighbor’s dog is not a fan. This communal event is both public and private, as everyone is technically together, but very much staying within their own groups.
Totality. Approximately four minutes. There’s cheering and clapping. Someone yells. There are either fireworks or gunshots in the distance. Everyone winces, but no one is alarmed enough to go check. Unlike on a normal day, sirens are not immediately heard, so we all tell each other that it must be ok. It’s dark, but in a strangely colorful, colorless way. It’s like golden hour…or the opposite. With glasses off, we all look around in a dusky haze at each other, strangers locking eyes for a moment in this shared space.
And then the moon shifts, more light shines on us, and it starts to warm up. We take a few last looks upward and then begin to pack up, like those people who start to leave when there’s five minutes left in the fourth quarter of a game. Folks in a rush back to reality. Except in this moment, the majority of the spectators are packing up, and no one is blocking the view of the few who remain in their seats, so it doesn’t feel rude.
We walk home with the neighbor and her dog, reliving the experience and commenting on the state of the sidewalks in our city. What an extraordinary ordinary experience!
Thanks!