Sometimes it Takes a Shadow to Bring out the Light
Photo from Unsplash
“If it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant.”
On the afternoon of April 8, 2024, my husband and I were smack dab in “The Path of Totality,” and it was just about time for the phenomenon to begin. We headed out to our deck to sit and watch, special glasses in hand. The front and backyards of our neighborhood were already filling up with the watchers. It was a gorgeous spring day, uncharacteristically sunny and cloudless for early April. The sky gods were on our side.
I was afraid to look at first. These eyes need to last me at least another three decades, and I worried about damage even with the special glasses. So I put livestream local coverage video on my iPhone, so I could put my glasses on at certain intervals and look. My chair faced away from the sun, and I was intent on watching the birds as I waited for the much talked about shadow.
The day before was a beautiful day, too, and it seemed like all the neighborhoods on my Sunday walk were not only filled with out-of-state license plates and overflowing driveways, but more walkers than I would usually see. I passed my neighbor and her out-of-town guests on my walk, and we chatted briefly about what was to come on Monday. She remarked about the shadow that would descend across the backyard as the moon covered more and more of the sun, and how much she looked forward to that spectacle. I saw her again walking through the backyard on Monday as we were getting ready to settle in on the back deck, and she remarked about the shadow again. I think it might have been then that I decided that the shadow that would usher in the three and a half minutes of darkness was exactly the celestial drama I was here for.
The livestream gave me a good sense of when to turn and look. I wanted to be sure I saw the hallmarks of each of the stages that had been talked about. The birds, who had started out quite actively scooting from tree to tree in our backyard began to slow down both in flight and song. I checked the livestream and put my glasses on yet again. The moon seemed to have accelerated its pace in making itself known as the main attraction.
And there it was, just like my neighbor had talked about. As the shadow known as the umbra began to descend across our backyard, overhead a flock of blackbirds hurried across the sky in a panic to roost for the preemptive night. I donned the glasses again, not wanting to miss anything from this point. As the sun became almost fully eclipsed, in countdown fashion, the spectacle seemed to arrive painfully slowly, then unmercifully quickly. And with the darkness descended a stillness, a perfect stillness, and a noticeably colder temperature. At the point of totality, it was the dogs first, barking their questions, “Where’s my dinner? Who is taking me out for my nightly walk?” Then there was the swell of cheers from the sky watchers across backyards, across neighborhoods, across my entire city, and perhaps even the whole state of Vermont. Total darkness, stars, pure white corona of light all signaling our time with the darkness would be brief. Overcome, I was holding my breath (or was my breath taken from me?). As I exhaled, my face was wet with tears.
“Be here now, be present, bear witness,” the sun and the moon, joined as one, seemed to say. And for once we listened, we were, and we did. Hundreds of thousands of us watching, quietly in awe, in silent prayer, in deep meditation with the astronomical forces and enormity of the universe – reminding us we are small specks of dust, but not insignificant in our roles as guardians and stewards of the planet that provided us with a view to this celestial splendor.
And then as the sun began to uncover, waking us all from the three and half minute night, our neighbor played Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” the words ringing clear and sonorous across the hedges and patios and backyard swing sets. With the sun laboring through its re-emergence, families toted their lawn chairs back to their resting places, almost as if it were a common event. People hopped back into their cars for the long, grid-locked treks across several states to get back home before missing another day of work. There’d be backseat arguments over whether to recycle their eclipse glasses or keep them as a souvenir in a kitchen drawer. Children would rehearse the stories they would share back at school on Tuesday and what it had been like for them to be part of history. “Where were you when the moon covered the sun for almost four minutes of darkness?”
“Darkness swept the earth in my dream” is the first line of Galway Kinnel’s “The Comfort of Darkness.” I love that line. And at times, that afternoon did feel like a darkness swept dream. And I will never forget a sun too brilliant to be seen by the naked eye or the heralding shadow I witnessed on a Monday afternoon in April, serving as a great cosmic reminder that we are collectively alive. After all, the two touchstones of that April afternoon, the darkness and the light, are always with us all.
The winner of The Precious Days One Year Anniversary Giveaway is:
EILEEN
She will receive a new copy of Kristin Hannah’s The Women.
Thank you to all of The Precious Days readers and subscribers.
