Since April 8, when I witnessed a total solar eclipse, I have been feeling more and more melancholic. It's not because I was disappointed, or because my vantage point wasn't ideal, or because of some depressing epiphany I had watching the moon turn our planet's star into a wispy white halo. I've been struggling all week to find the right words to explain my sadness.
I wrote down random thoughts in my iPhone's notes app as they came up. They surfaced as I sat in a Lyft, eating pretzel snacks at the airport and slumped in my aisle seat listening to "Weird Fishes" on the flight home from Indianapolis to New York. I think that these ideas, even if they are not all connected, share a certain desire. What I realized is that the 2024 solar eclipse felt so intrinsically dreamlike, confusing and surreal that the more time passes after those few minutes of totality, the more my body accepts it as a real dream. And it feels sad to distance yourself so quickly. Normally we have at least a few months, maybe even a few years, before yesterday becomes cemented in the past. I'm not sure I had a few hours.
The eclipse is already starting to feel like a childhood memory perhaps concocted from watching old home movies - a memory linked to one vivid image, maybe two, and a deep cradle of emotions. The image of totality is burned into my mind, but my mind was scattered in those moments because I panicked about where to focus my eyes and what to think about, that's important enough to be in the same room as an event that most people call a 'one-off'. in a lifetime." I was thinking about it too much. One of my grammatically incorrect scribbles in the app literally says, "I didn't know where to look what to do with myself." The result is that I just ended up with jumbled have thoughts that quickly merge into a single echo, as this story certainly makes clear.
Related: I'm going to Indiana to prove me wrong about solar eclipses
On April 8, shortly after it was announced that the solar eclipse had begun, I didn't rush out of the press room at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where I was sitting to catch a glimpse of the sun. There was no rush; I even have written about before how I usually classify myself as an eclipse cynic. I knew it would be cool, even existential, but I wasn't sure if I would need to see a bit of space traffic to be emotionally moved. I'm the type of person who can be emotionally affected by anything philosophical, so why would I need to physically see an eclipse? I was already interested in the concept.
When I put on my cerulean paper Warby Parker solar eclipse glasses and peered up at the sun, I have to be honest: I thought I was going to be proven right about my skepticism. The sun looked very interesting. There's no doubt about that. I even texted our Space.com group chat saying that I wish the sun always looked like this, like a "bitten cookie," as my dad described in a parallel text conversation I had with him and my mom. It did. It looked like an orange ginger snap with a broken piece in the shape of someone's teeth. Still, I wouldn't say I felt a profound change. But as the clock continued to tick and totality drew closer, I became aware of my breathing. It was alarming. I did not expect it.
Surrounded by thousands of people on a race track who couldn't help but scream with joy as a crescent moon slid into a sliver, I felt the earth spinning. I noticed that we were not on top of our planet, but attached to it somewhere to the side due to the curvature of space and time, and of the Earth itself. The fresh wind flowing through my hair began to feel like streams of individual molecules. The drop in temperature made me think about thermodynamics. I wondered where the birds were. A man standing next to me, who had just seriously asked me for advice about his solar eclipse glasses, shouted "brother, look at the sky." I almost cried, and I didn't know if it was the eclipse or me.
Suddenly I couldn't see anything through my lenses. The sun had disappeared. Someone nearby shouted, "Take them off!" to no one in particular. I did, and I saw the totality.
I've come to the conclusion that since my photos don't do the totality justice, neither do my words. It would be like trying to explain what a new color looks like, or trying to equate a photo of a sunset with a sky with magenta streaks, which is why I have to end this story here. I had to see this in person because it's something that language can't quite capture; there was something that seemed like it shouldn't exist. Imagine seeing the moon for the first time after decades of living under an empty night sky. It is very moving to see such a strange cosmic scene only with your eyes, as if you have traveled to an alien planet with a cold, black sun. They were right, whoever they are.
Another thought from my notes app is a lyric from the song "Holy Shit" by Father John Misty. I'm not surprised I wrote this down. It's one of my favorite lyrics ever, and I think it can be interpreted in many different ways.
"Maybe love is just an economy based on resource scarcity"
Related: I proposed to my fiance under the diamond ring from the 2024 total solar eclipse
In this case, it made me think about how the rarity of a total solar eclipse, a rarity due in part to the sheer coincidence that our sun and moon appear to be the same size from our perspective on Earth, is why my memory of this experience is so valuable, and I wish it wouldn't disappear. Therefore, it had the power to make me give the sun space in my mind next to the place I have always reserved for the moon.
It would probably be better if we had more love in the world; I don't believe love has to be an economy based on resource scarcity, and I've always taken that lyric as a sarcastic point about how we've come to view love. But maybe it's for the best that we don't have more total solar eclipses. My cynicism might have been true if the solar eclipse market was saturated. Still, total solar eclipses will remain rare. Therefore, the way they make us feel will be too.
Maybe it was never purely about the sun or the moon, and that's where my mistake was in thinking that these events aren't really worth the hype; Maybe it was just about the scarcity of resources. I don't think that's a bad thing. It may simply be why a total solar eclipse is considered so remarkable. What I saw was indeed remarkable. So please accept this article as my formal apology for being an eclipse hater.
