I wrote this last year right after the solar eclipse. I figured it was worth sharing since this month it had been a year. Enjoy!

…

I drag myself out of bed after only a few hours of sleep. I’m a nocturnal creature who has found her home on third shift.
I leave the house in my galaxy pajama pants and “I love horror movies,” t-shirt, with my curly green hair floating around my head like seaweed.
So many people asked me if I would get up to watch the Eclipse. I asked myself who would sleep through it?
The roads are abnormally quiet for the middle of the day, cruising down 585 I am thankful for the clear sky.
On my Mom’s back porch in the country, I pick up my iPad and start playing Darkside of the Moon, an album that came out years before I was born. I try to time it just right so the song Eclipse will be playing during the totality.
I look up at the sky through glasses that blot out everything but the sun. Speak To Me swells from a heartbeat to a heavenly drone on the iPad beside me. I reconnect with my 17 year old self and remember the first time I ever listened to Darkside Of The Moon. I wonder if 17 year old me knew back then that there would be a solar eclipse in 2024?
Beside me, my Mom says she’s going to hoot and holler when it reaches totality. She hopes the neighbors can stop fighting long enough to watch, and she hopes their kids see it. She hopes that my brother got a good view from where he’s at in Sandusky. She hopes my sister and her former partner have a good experience. And she’s glad she is sharing this with me.
And as she is hoping out loud that everyone she loves experiences this, I am silently wishing the same for her.
As the clocks ding, signaling the beginning of Time, we debate about whether it’s at the halfway point yet. It’s not quite there. Mom says she hopes the DJ at the college is blasting this song when it hits totality.
We talk about how dark it’s going to get. I mention the drop in temperature.
I feel the anticipation one feels when in line for a rollercoaster. I am blasting off into the universe, so small yet one with everything. As David Gillmour’s’ voice sings about missing the starting gun, I am thankful that I never let ten years get behind me without running. I know this is the only time in my life I will see this, and I look back on a life not wasted. I think about all the paintings I’ve done, all the people I’ve made smile, and about the book I’m about to publish. I wonder how the characters in my novel would feel watching this.
Great GIg In The Sky starts, and a soft British accent talks about dying. I miss my grandparents, and I wonder what kind of view they are getting from the other side. Are they watching? Something this amazing awes our inferior human eyes. But would it even register to someone no longer limited by such a feeble body?
I remember seeing lighnting in 2016 in the Netherlands the second time I did Ayahuasca, and tears sting my eyes. Mom pats me on the arm and asks if I’m okay. I nod. She asks what I’m thinking about. I tell her, “Stuff.” Because there are no words to describe the beauty of lightning on Ayahuasca.
I remember friends and lovers I’ve parted ways with, and I wonder if they are all watching. My dead ex husband crosses my mind, and again, I wonder what it looks like from the other side. I look back on times I considered ending my life, and I’m filled with nothing but gratitude for still being alive.
Mom says it looks like a banana.
As the cash registers are dinging at the beginning of Money, I think about the door opening in the Wizard of Oz and everything being in color. I cherish the times in my life when I had similar epiphanies.
I jokingly tell mom now it looks like a plantain, like a banana, but longer and skinnier.
My body feels so light, and I feel nothing but love.
The temperature drops more.
Mom says when her phone dings again it will be my brother, since he is seeing everything a few minutes before us.
I try to commit every single detail to memory. I want to capture everything about this experience in a capsule and save it for later.
I tell mom now it looks like elbow macaroni.
She says, “With cheese.”
I say, “The 2024 Eclipse, Sponsored by Kraft.”
We both laugh.
Soon it looks like the Amazon logo. And then a toenail.
Brain Damage.
Roger Waters sings “The lunatic is on the grass…”
Now it’s only a yellow sliver.
The yellow sliver shrinks to only a dot. I take off my glasses and look up. I take in the darkness and orange halo that stretches 360 degrees all around. It’s like a sunrise, but all over, like something from a dream.
“All that you touch, and all that you see, all that you taste, all you feel…”
Mom and I hoot and holler like we said we would.
“All that you love, and all that you hate, All you distrust, all you save…”
I tell her I don’t want to forget any of this. I’m scared I won’t remember everything. I need to write about it and paint pictures of it. I need others to experience it, on some level, through my eyes.
“All that you give, and all that you deal, all that you buy, beg, borrow or steal…”
It feels like right now the entire world is staring up at the sky. No one cares about political correctness, or who makes the most money.
“And all you create, and all you destroy, and all that you do, and all that you say…”
Everyone stopped for four minutes to stare at the platinum ring in the sky.
“And all that you eat, and everyone you meet, and all that you slight, and everyone you fight…”
I feel so small, so humble, and so grateful for everything.
“And all that is now, and all that is gone, and all that’s to come, and everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon!”
The sun starts to peak out again, like being slowly reborn. And I feel reborn, too.
My brother calls. I answer and ask him how awesome it was? He says it made him cry. I tell him me too and I say I wish grandma and grandpa were here.
I know soon I have to leave and go back to bed for a few hours, so I can go to work later and continue this mundane existence. But existence doesn’t feel quite as mundane now, after we all put our lives on hold to look up at the sky.

Author’s Note:

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The image above was created with DALL-E, in the future when life slows down a bit, I plan to use my own art for these stories. But for now, this works.

Thanks for reading.

V.