A Holy Interruption
The Total Eclipse
We decided to camp with two other families on the Llano river, smack dab in the path of totality. I’ve noticed over the years there is a distinct contrast between the drive out to camp–full of chatter and squabbling and groans of boredom–and the way back. The drive home is imbued with a very specific kind of quiet- so specific there should be a word reserved exclusively for it, like so many of those entertaining German words like hygge. A silence born of exhaustion and contentment. On the way home, we find ourselves saying only what’s necessary, which turns out is very little. Music seems distracting and noisy; advertisements excessive and obscene. The extraneous fluff of life has fallen away over the past few days, as the tasks at hand are simple ones: cook, eat, keep the kids alive, clean up, play, sleep. This, I’ve come to believe, is the natural pace of a human life. Driven by necessity, we naturally “come into the peace of wild things”, as Wendell Berry puts it.
As for the eclipse, I don’t know what I expected. If I saw mention of it in my newsfeed I scrolled past as if I was having an allergic reaction. I prefer not to know: to enter into the moment, my mind a blank slate.
The kids spent the morning on the Llano river which is a gorgeous, placid thing. The water is long and wide, speckled with orangey-pink granite boulders like ginormous, ancient turtles frozen in place. Over time grasses, wildflowers and trees have slowly staked their claim on each rocky mass, creating complete little islands interspersed throughout the river. The perfect habitat for tadpoles, snakes and little boys.
Cedar and Santiago are both seven now. This morning, Santiago ran up to me earnestly, out of breath and begging to let him and Cedar take the kayaks out by themselves. I relented, insisting on his full attention while I lectured him on stroke technique which apparently was useless, because he was paddling away faster than I could holler instructions. Cedar followed suit, his tiny muscles rippling in his back as he paddled furiously to catch up.
It was one of those moments you can feel your mind capturing like a firefly in a jar–sensing that in the very end when your mind unscrews all those lids at once it will whiz by you, relieved to breathe that fresh air again. My heart swelled, so grateful for these boys who were slipping through my fingers like the most precious sand. I sighed and noticed Nolan, Santiago's mom, standing right beside me with the same look on her face. “I feel like they’re going off to college”, I said as we watched them becoming smaller specks in the distance, more and more unreachable.
After lunch, we moved all the blankets and lawn chairs into the open space near our campsite to watch the eclipse. Watching the kids try to use the eclipse glasses independently was at first more entertaining than the eclipse itself. They all knew not to look at the sun without the glasses, but the order of operations proved to be difficult, as they’d remove them before they’d fully looked down and be temporarily blinded, moaning and rubbing their eyes. They frequently yelled at each other to “put on your glasses!” and “don't look at the sun!” and then proceeded to do the exact thing they’d just witnessed. When they realized the moon moves rather slowly and nothing exciting was imminent, they’d fling the glasses into the grass and run around shrieking, continuing their game of tag that started yesterday.
Slowly and in pieces, the sun felt as though it was setting, even as it hung right there in the middle of the sky. Colors lost their luster and our skin appeared grey-ish, almost luminous. The children instinctually came closer to us and quieted down, their excited screams now hushed conversations.
I strained to listen to the river noises between the chattering, until finally I snuck off to the riverbank alone.
Once, many years ago, I graduated high school early and immediately took off alone to live in a very foreign country. During those first few weeks, a piercing loneliness would emerge every time the sun set. One such evening, I paced under the enormous night sky and called Papa crying. He said to me “Oh sweety, what are the stars like tonight? Do you see the kite?” Unsure where he was going with this, I looked up, the starlight streaking through my tears. Immediately, I found the kite– this constellation that we both knew like the back of our hands (and, as I realized many years later, we’d completely made up). “Everytime you see that kite, I want you to remember that I’m over here, looking up at that same exact sky, thinking of you.”
As I slide down the bank to the riverbank, I wonder where Papa is now, knowing he’s watching this same sky. Often the sky has felt like the strongest tether between us, like it’s the only thing that spans the distance.
For over an hour, darkness crept slowly. A sense of unease crept in with it, almost like dread or death. In a handful of moments, it rushed in, overpowering the light. I heard Cedar gasp from far away and shout in his high-pitched voice, “Oh my god!! That’s amazing!”
The moon eclipsed the sun, surrounding itself in that white glow, like a portal. Or like a black hole, threatening to end it all.
An eclipse, like a holy interruption. Like a slap in the face of our ordinary lives. Since the dawn of time we’ve come to rely on the rising and the setting sun; on the daytime staying daytime and the night staying night. This felt like god was sleeping on the clock. This programming has been interrupted..
An eclipse, like a resurrection. But not one to conceptualize, to be believed or negated. A resurrection felt and known in the body. Night swallows day, like a threat. All creation falls in line, defenseless and silent. After that brief power struggle, the sunrise provides that merciful warmth again, but we are left shaken, unsure of ourselves. Apparently god likes us like that, uncertain.
An eclipse, like a holy reminder. Reminding us to take not a single iota for granted, like daytime or children or friendships or existing. To look up, and remember that we are on a floating ball, absolutely engulfed in abyss. That daytime is nothing but a strange and necessary illusion, enabling us for some hours to think our lives are something other than vulnerable and wild. Behind our bright, friendly sky is a darkness that would swallow us whole, if not for our paper thin atmosphere. For a moment, the moon strips away the sunshine, revealing the dark waters in which we swim. And we’re left wondering, which is true: the darkness, or the light?