So. The Eclipse.

The first person to tell me about the coming eclipse was Jeff, and that occurred several months ago.  Jeff was so interested in it that he pondered quite a long time about us taking a trip to somewhere in the path of totality but eventually decided that we couldn't pull that off this time.

I didn't *exactly* match his level of enthusiasm ;-) and was fairly lackadaisical about the whole thing, scoffing mildly at all the hype (i.e. "why do they say this is a once-in-a-century event when I distinctly remember viewing an eclipse when I was a child??")...that is, until about four days ago.  At that point, I suddenly realized that it would be kind of nice to have special eclipse glasses to safely view it--provided the weather wasn't cloudy or raining--so since we were running errands in town anyway, I stopped at 7-11 (and was politely told that they didn't have any eclipse glasses, and none of the other 7-11 stores in town did either, and none of them would be getting any more) and then went by the library, having read that they were giving out 250 pairs of glasses, free--first come, first served.

We hadn't even gotten in front of the library when we saw the loooooonnnggg line of people waiting--and it was still half an hour before the library even opened that day!  We could see the queue extending from the lobby of the library, out the doors, down to the corner, and up the block the other way--and growing every minute.  Since our cause seemed hopeless (and our estimate of the line seemed well beyond 250 at that point), we didn't even get out of the car but drove off, still without glasses.

Two more days went by, and we reached the night before the eclipse.  I scrawled on my to-do list for the next day, "Eclipse boxes."  Surely we could raid the cereal cupboard and find some boxes to make the kind of viewers I remembered from my childhood.

Accordingly, David and Tobin headed up the cereal-box-into-eclipse-viewer project this morning; and we were ready.  Josiah and David would take one with them to the library where they were volunteering this afternoon, and the rest of us could use the other one at home.  Problem solved.

My phone rang at 12:20 p.m.  It was my friend Amanda, calling from her workplace to ask if we were remembering the eclipse.  I told her we were ready with our cereal boxes.  :)

An hour later, one of her employees showed up at my doorstep, holding out a pair of eclipse glasses--yes, the glasses that weren't for sale anywhere in our town--for us.

Amanda has done a lot of thoughtful, generous things for us during the past few years, so maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.  But truth be told, I was completely floored.

Completely relieved, too.  My unspoken, lingering guilt about my negligence in this matter was swept away.  Amanda's gift rescued me and saved the day.  :)

We went outside and donned the glasses, taking our first look at the sun and then, for the next several hours, continuing to peek at what was happening skyward.  It was truly impressive--much more so than I had imagined.  I guess Jeff was right all along.  ;-)

Besides the unexpected, marvelous gift of a pair of eclipse glasses for an unprepared mother, here's what I want to remember about this eclipse...

~ The light changed--not only the quantity of it, but also the quality.  I lack the words to describe it, but it was different than "normal" light.

~ Even when the moon was covering most of the sun (something like 85% coverage in our area, I think?), it was still quite bright outside.  I guess I was expecting it to get noticeably darker than it did (although I knew it wouldn't be anything like what was happening in the path of totality), but it was a vivid reminder of how incredibly bright the sun is--that even when almost all of it was blocked, it still managed to illuminate us very well!

~ Watching the eclipse seemed to be a group activity.  From the posts I saw on Facebook this evening, it seemed that almost everyone ended up watching it with other people--either a planned gathering with friends or an impromptu sky-watching session with whoever happened to be around. I like how it united us.  In my case, we weren't outside very long before our neighbor boy, Jason, came over to see what we were doing...and then it wasn't long until my kids migrated to his side of the lane to take a look at the sky through the welder's mask Jason was using (his dad is a welder, which comes in very handy on eclipse day!).  As time went on, we continued passing the eclipse glasses and the welder's mask around the circle, making sure everyone got plenty of time to see the eclipse in all its phases.  When it was close to the most coverage we got to see in this part of the globe, another neighbor, Barbara, walked over, too, and joined our group.  It struck me that one of the special things about this eclipse was how it made so many people stop what they were doing and go outside in the middle of the afternoon, oftentimes connecting with other people, not just staring at the sun by themselves.

~ Our friend Todd who was undergoing a chemotherapy treatment at the cancer center in town this afternoon said that the center had eclipse glasses on hand and was taking turns assisting the patients to the window so each one could view the eclipse.  So considerate!

~ Jeff came home from work for a while so he could watch it with us, and it is always a treat to have him here more than he normally is.  This time, I was grateful for his arrival for another reason: I needed to go to the orchard to pick up two more bushels of peaches they had ready for us, but Benjamin was in bed, and I didn't want to get him up for that trip.  As it turned out, not only did Benjamin stay behind, so did Tobin and Shav.  Only Moriah went with me to the orchard; and as we pulled up, the folks who run the orchard said to us as soon as we got out of the van, "Do you know what we're doing?"  I hadn't taken the time to really pay attention to their activity, but it soon became clear that they were watching the eclipse, too--the man with a welder's mask which he handed over to me so I could take a look through it.  As we were transferring peaches from their boxes to my containers, he asked if I was familiar with the verse in Amos that describes an eclipse (I was, having read it that morning, in fact), then told me that their minister had used it in his sermon the day before.  Then Ruby, the older lady who reminds me so much of my grandmother, asked if I had seen the article in our local paper about the eclipse, then went on to describe a Hindu ritual of bathing fully clothed for purification after seeing an eclipse (which her tone of voice indicated was fairly ridiculous, to her Old Order Mennonite way of thinking!).  All this time, hands were working, and my containers were full.  I paid (when Ruby was adding up the bill, she said, "I think I need to turn the light on in here!"--another evidence of how much dimmer the world was than usual) and quickly sped home, hoping to not miss the best part of the eclipse, which was supposed to happen at 2:40.  I got home at 2:36 and was able to watch the period of the most coverage along with the rest of the group assembled on the neighbors' lawn.

~ Besides the thrill of actually seeing the shape of the moon outlined on the sun, I also enjoyed seeing the different kinds of shadows that were visible--the best one being in my neighbors' bathroom where their curtains, which had little round decorative holes in the fabric, were giving off crescent-shaped shadows on the floor.  So neat!

~ A recurring thought swirling in my head today was, "I wonder what in the world ancient peoples thought when an eclipse--especially a total one--happened.  Before there was a basic understanding of what causes it, they must have been so awestruck and probably frightened by it.  What must that have been like?"

~ I didn't take a single picture.  I knew I couldn't get anything worth having if I tried to photograph the sun, but I could have taken pictures of us in the funny glasses (like roughly 99.99999% of my Facebook friends did, as evidenced by my news feed this evening!).  ;-)  I didn't even think of it.

~ From my ho-hum stance a week ago, I have been convicted and have repented.  :)  In fact, I'm already making plans for the eclipse in 2024, which will occur the day before Moriah's 12th birthday--what a way to celebrate, you know!  I know I might be jumping the gun a little, but I really think we need to make a trip to the path of totality.  Ohio is probably the closest place of us to see it, so I'm considering contacting any friends we have who live in Ohio and begging asking if we can come visit them during that time.  I don't think it's too early to start planning, right?  And not too early to pray for good weather on that day so we don't miss it!  ;-)