My Eclipse

When I was eight my class made pinhole cameras to see the eclipse. My teacher may have explained what an eclipse was, but if she did, I wasn’t paying attention. What caught my attention was her warning, “Do not look at the sun during the eclipse. It could blind you.” 

But I wanted to become blind like Helen Keller, and the man I saw at the grocery store. The man brought his dog inside the store. My mother said the dog was his eyes and kept the man safe, so he was always with him. I was not allowed to talk to the dog or pet him. Nobody was. He belonged only to the blind man. He didn’t have to share his dog with anyone. 

When I asked how people become blind, Mother said people are born blind that way.  But that isn’t true. I could become blind during the eclipse.

The eclipse was happening around dinner time, so we took our pinhole camera home and begged parents to let us go back to the school playground to see it. Most of my classmates didn’t show up, but I did. My father was a scientist. He came home early from work to do this with me and my brothers. I think he explained about the eclipse too, but I was thinking about my German Shepherd seeing-eye-dog. I would name him Sunny. 

Kids and adults were scattered around getting the cameras ready. My dad got mine set up. And stood beside me. This had not been my plan. With Daddy here, I wouldn’t be able to look up. When the eclipse started I told him the camera wasn’t working, but he told me to keep looking. What I saw was a tiny light get smaller. I looked up, hoping he wasn’t still there, but he was. “You can’t look at the sun, Punky. It could blind you.”

***

I hadn’t thought much about the eclipse until I had children and had bartered tuition for them with a private alternative school. My work at the school was to integrate the arts into the curriculum, so in preparation for the 1994 partial eclipse it was my job to make it understandable and meaningful to children from preschool through middle school.  

The first challenge was to explain what an eclipse was in an assembly with the whole school. Words would not be enough to get their attention. We acted it out. Ten of the biggest kids became the sun. They formed a tight circle in the middle and made fire with yellow and red scarfs.  Three kids became the earth, each with a different color shirt to wear: blue, green, and brown. They held hands and slowly rotated around the sun. And the moon child in a white cape circled around the earth. The rest of us watched and every time we saw the moon block the sun we yelled ECLIPSE. They understood it. And for the first time, so did I.

For two weeks we focused on the eclipse. Pin-hole cameras were made and decorated with glitter and sequins. We imagined we had no knowledge of astronomy. What would we think was happening? How would we try to stop it?  We created stories to explain it, and dances to bring back the sun, and songs to celebrate the return. 

And when the day arrived, families came to our solar arts festival on the playground. When the eclipse began, the students and parents viewed it with the pinhole cameras. I stood close to my children, watching them more than the eclipse. Reminding them to not look at the sun. 

On the ride home, my kids expressed disappointment. The songs, dances and stories were more exciting than the eclipse. I agreed.

***

Seven years ago, my daughter-in-law proposed a family trip to see the total eclipse. Based on previous experience, I was not excited, but being with all eight grandkids was enough reason to take vacation days, book hotel rooms, and travel eight hours to see what will last for a few minutes. If it isn’t cloudy. 

On the day of the eclipse, my daughter and her five kids and I managed to find my son, his wife, and three kids on a crowded Southern Illinois University field. There were indoor exhibits at a Field House. Space movies, cotton candy, and an announcer giving the countdown. As the time neared we found a space to lay out blankets. My daughter-in-law handed out the solar glasses that allowed us to look at the sun as the eclipse began. And when it was in totality, the announcement came over the loudspeaker. “TOTALITY FOR THREE MINUTES” We took off our glasses and saw it. The bright ring around the sun. Crickets went crazy. So did the kids. They yelled and laughed. And it was magic. Three minutes of magic. We all felt it and wanted to feel it again. 

That day we committed to the next one. 2024.

***

This time my husband took me to the airport at 5:00 AM. I flew to New Jersey and my daughter in law met me at the airport. The next day she, the three grandkids, and I picked up my son at a train station in Albany on our way to a rented house in upstate New York. My daughter and four of her kids flew from Las Vegas, rented a jeep, and joined us the next day. The house was lovely and perfect with the exception there was no running water. The sump pump was broken. Drinking water was purchased, and mountain snow was melted for the toilets. Kids took baths in the hot tub. To compensate for the inconvenience, the rental fee was refunded. 

On the day of the eclipse a nearby town was holding a solar festival, but while considering that possibility, or viewing it in the backyard, one of the grandkids broke her little toe. How that happened is unclear, but we opted for the backyard. After initial howls of pain subsided, my granddaughter consented to being carried to the backyard by her father to sit on a chair with a stool and pillow cradling her foot.

As the eclipse time neared, the light dimmed, and the air temperature dropped. Birds started up, and then the kids decided there might be owls nearby. They (including the cool teenagers) began searching and hooting. The injured grandchild was monitoring the coming of the eclipse on her mother’s phone, and announced when it was time to put on the glasses. One of the kids yelled “Hold hands-No talking”. And so, we all sat, hushed-hand-in-hand, looking at the sun as it appeared to be slowly eaten. 

I don’t know who was the first to yell when it reached totality, but we all took off our glasses and screamed. Some got up and danced. But I fully and freely stared at the shadowed sun until my son shouted the warning call: “Glasses back on.” 

That night we talked about the next total solar eclipse in 2044-another twenty years. The kids all committed to being there together. Wondered who would be added to the family by then and speculated. If everyone has a spouse there will be eight more. If they all have at least two children, there would be another sixteen. We will need more houses. And hope they’ll all have running water.

When I reminded them I would be 92, they assured me I will still be here. They promised to come get me wherever I am. I didn’t argue. There’s no point to that. Whatever is planned won’t happen the way they think it will. And it won’t matter. It will be what it always is for us: Family magic.

Besides, they are right. I will be with them.

Always.