The wonder of totality

So it goes dark for a few minutes. What was the big deal about the solar eclipse?

Just as I remember it. Photo by Jordon Conner on Unsplash.

In the weeks leading to the April 8 solar eclipse, I urged friends in North America to experience totality if possible. But I came to realise that for many it wasn’t a must-see. It’s 25 years since I witnessed a solar eclipse in totality and my desire to experience another has never faded.

August 11, 1999 - The pre-dawn ferry from Dover to Calais is packed with eclipse sightseers. Cars and tractors line the verges of the N roads and lanes near Amiens. Tables and chairs in place for the pique-nique à la campagne, as good as any for the Tour de France.

At the 12^th-century church of Saint-Denis de Chaussoy-Epagny, we join our friends to witness the baptism of baby Iris. Eclipse eyeglasses are handed out with the order of service.

Our convoy drives through valleys and hills to the hilltop grounds of a ruined abbey. Money donated for a good cause, we park, set out chairs for the short wait, and share packet hors d'oeuvre, champagne and anticipation. The light dims. An other-worldly golden hue lights our faces. The air cools. As the sky darkens there’s something to be figured out. It takes a moment to comprehend that the darkness is coming from the west. The temperature begins to fall as the black disc that is the moon steadily, almost imperceptibly, closes out the blazing sun disc. A crescent slither of sun is all that remains. Until.

Totality.

Eclipse glasses off. A collective cheer. Street lights flicker in the village on a far hill. It’s cooler now but not damp. No time for dew. Some folk chatter, relaxing into it, forgetting perhaps, that this will soon pass. We watch it all, the corona, the stars between gaps in the cloud, the glimmer of daylight on the western horizon.

We take no photos and make no social posts. It’s a year before the phones with cameras will be launched.

Moon, please don’t hurry. We don’t want it to end. Not yet.

But there is the light, the diamond ring. ‘Don’t look. Put your glasses back on.’ Remets tes lunettes.

I want to see it again, says our small boy.

We will. One day. I say.

The convoy heads to a field beside a peat lake, a scene of many celebrations, for a lazy, languid afternoon of picnicking, swimming, rowing, volleyball, reclining, and reflection.

Sharing.

Back in London, friends speak of witnessing the partial eclipse, of the coolness, and surreal light.

‘Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him.’ Thus wrote Annie Dillard in her essay Total Eclipse, August 2017.

That’s if you care about it. Kissing is OK too. But it appears I care about this experience. Not enough to schedule my life around to see every solar eclipse but enough to make a journey of a day’s driving or a short flight if it’s (relatively) near. Mother, like son, wants to see it again. Again.

July 22, 2028 - is marked in the diary for my daughter’s birthday and a total eclipse of the sun that will traverse Australia, some 3374 km, from Bungle Bungle in the northwest to Sydney on the east coast, then across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand’s Southland. There are 1563 [how many now?] days to go yet already I’m torn. Will we join the throng lining Sydney Harbour, party central, lights flicking on, as darkness comes from the west? Or will we journey to the outback to witness nocturnal wildlife stir beneath the glittering dance hall sky of the Milky Way?

Wherever we choose to be, the magic of totality or even a partial eclipse, is in the sharing, in being present with those people in that place at that moment.

Q: Was totality a thrill for you, or was it eclipsed by other matters?