I first met Morris at a Kenyon College reunion in 2000 in Gambier, Ohio. He was two decades my senior. It was one of those instant attractions. We were holding hands before exchanging last names. On the back patio of Old Kenyon, we sipped keg cups under a tapestry of starry skies, and he recounted his experiences with eclipses. One in Mazatlán, Mexico, in 1991 and another in Lake Balaton, Hungary, in 1999 – both in totality.
He and three friends had piled into his 1975 Buick LeSabre Convertible for a 3,000-mile trip. They’d barreled out of the early July heat in Boston and traded it for a shimmering desert inferno in Mazatlán. Sixty hours, they drove and camped in the desert darkness on July 10th. Sometime after breakfast, they put sugar cubes on their tongues, and at 28 minutes past noon EST the next day, they donned welding helmets and stared into the eye of God.
His incantations enchanted me.
“All laws vanished under that umbra,” Morris whispered. “The sky went dark mid-day. I had a deep revelation.”
“And what was that?” I asked.
Morris paused and smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. “Have you ever witnessed totality?”
“Never.”
“The next total eclipse is in 2017. Add it to your bucket list. You’ll need to see it with your own eyes to understand my revelation.”
That was the first time our paths crossed, and like totality, it didn’t last long. But it got me thinking. Are our lives like these systems? Are there people and future experiences that are deterministic? If a journal existed with the eclipses of my life – would I dare open it? At the time, 2017 seemed impossibly far off – a lifetime away for a college junior – but just a shallow breath in the cosmic cycle.
Morris and I dated through the years. He worked internationally, in Paris mostly. He visited me during my senior year at Kenyon. After graduation, I stayed with him in France. In Giverny, we held hands and walked through Monet’s gardens and lily ponds. We ambled about on the cobblestone of the right bank. When hungry, we sat at cafes beside the amber waters and ate almond croissants.
Discussions of marriage and children spun as stars in a timelapse. Like moons, we connected in different places over the years. But distance was difficult, and ultimately overcame attraction. We diverged romantically but remained close friends.
I started researching the next totality. It dawned on me that I had no idea how they could even predict these alignments. How can you even assign cartesian locations to multiple systems that are all spinning? Also, it’s a myth, you know, that totality is complete darkness. The atmosphere’s scattering produces a kind of sunrise look that stirs the crepuscular.
****
Fast forward to summer vacation in August of 2017. I lived in Asheville, a single mom with a ten-month-old daughter, conceived from a sperm bank. Morris lived in Hawaii but was state-side visiting teenage children from his first marriage. He called and invited me to a party in Asheville scheduled for the night before the eclipse. It was to be a festival-style camp-out at a mountain farm owned by a mutual Kenyon friend. Our orbits would again align. I told him I was excited to see totality with my new baby and with him.
“It’s not possible for me. Flight plans for the kids.” Morris said.
Morris was on a mission to experience the eclipse with his children before delivering them back to their mother in Chicago, and he was heading in a different direction.
“Listen,” Morris continued, “Asheville is not quite in the path of totality. Come to the party, but understand that on eclipse morning, you’ll need to drive an hour west toward the Smoky Mountains, toward Sylva and Cullowhee.”
“Can’t we just watch it from Asheville?”
“No. The sky won’t even go dark in Asheville. You must be along the central line, only forty-two miles wide, to witness it. Totality will last just two minutes and thirty-eight seconds. But it’s life changing.”
“That’s it?” I asked incredulously. “Two minutes? Life-changing?!”
“Yes,” Morris assured me. “You need to be in the path of totality. Go with someone. Take your child. You’ll reunite with a thousand new friends.”
***
As a new mom, I’d found creative ways to supplement my income by occasionally renting part of my Asheville home as an Airbnb. The listing became an unexpected hotspot in the weeks prior, especially after I rebranded it as an “Eclipse Rental.”
Downtown hotels were all booked, and the messages kept coming. One poignant plea from a mother: “Please host us in our mutual celestial journey! We’re on a budget. I’m coming in from the coast with my three children. I’ll gladly pitch a tent if you rent me space in your yard.”
So, I opened my spacious, creek-side yard to three families, allowing them to camp in the nights leading up to and following the eclipse. I also rented half my house to a family flying in from Tampa and created a makeshift eclipse commune under my canopy.
People were scattered around – children playing board games on air mattresses with sleeping bags, teenagers snuggled under quilts on my sofas. A single dad from Charleston napped shirtless in a hammock below a walnut tree in my backyard. Droplets of sweat shimmered on his sun-bronzed chest as it rose and fell, a gentle cadence in sync with Twilight’s crickets. Children, like pendulums, swung back and forth on the tire swing.
My home was filled with excitement and wonder. A dark-haired girl named Joy asked if she could roast marshmallows in the fire pit. We stacked logs over the rim and watched the orange light grow as the sun disappeared. Up now from his nap, Joy’s father whittled green walnut branches into skewers for marshmallows.
In the early darkness of August 20th, as my Airbnb guests gathered around the now huge bonfire in my yard, I headed off to the mountain party. There were mainstay Kenyon alums and new faces, too. There was an air of enchantment – pregnant with anticipation of the alignment. A palpable force, like the rip current of an ocean tide, flowed through the partygoers. It felt special.
Morris arrived with his two precocious teenagers in tow: a boy and a girl. Watching them interact with my new baby stirred an uncanny feeling as if the threads of time were interweaving. The juxtaposition of my former lover’s offspring engaging compassionately with my child ignited a complex chill of emotions, wrought jealousy, and determined acceptance.
I had an overwhelming desire to share our untold history. Torrid details and pedestrian ennui. The weft and warp of our lives had torn, and I wanted them to know. But I couldn’t. They were too innocent and untouched by our paths. The simplicity of youth held more gravity than the past complexities of adult relationships.
***
My daughter and I slept in a guest bedroom at the party farmhouse. When she woke at 3 am, I turned her to my breast. Outside, I heard late-night laughter mixed with Grateful Dead tunes. Other Kenyon alums crashed on sofas, air mattresses, or pitched tents in the yard. Morris and his children stayed in an RV parked in the driveway.
The following morning, Morris and I said our goodbyes – again – as he drove off with his children.
I drove to pick up my girlfriend Shelley, her two teenage daughters, and her mother. Together, we headed toward Franklin, NC – a single point on the path of totality. Shelly was a new neighbor, and we’d become fast friends. Her teenage daughters occasionally babysat my daughter. I was attracted to Shelly and wanted to get closer to her. She awed me as a single mother and savvy business owner. Weeks earlier, I’d told Shelly about Morris coming and the party.
“If Morris can’t join you for the eclipse, I will!” Shelly had proclaimed, her dark eyes gleaming. “We’ll take our kids to see it! Pick us up that morning after the party. I want to go with you.” My heart thumped warm like a kid going to the prom.
Interstate I-40, usually quiet through a remote stretch of the Smoky Mountains, was teeming with vehicles. The sun beamed brightly, mist ascended from the river valleys, and a few cumulus clouds dabbed the horizon. Our spirits lifted as we crested a hilltop, and three hot air balloons floated above. People were sprinkled quietly in the heavens.
We made a pit stop in a mountain town and stocked up on lunch fixings and cold drinks at an Ingles grocery store. A colossal sheet cake with a solar eclipse painted in gold, green, orange, and yellow hues read: “ECLIPSE: Franklin, North Carolina, 2:35 pm.” I bought it.
I also got a t-shirt that said: “The Great American Eclipse: Path of Totality, Franklin, NC.” The t-shirt was tangible evidence, a piece I could revisit later to assure myself that the experience was real. I eventually wore that t-shirt into frayed lint- until the memories were fibers of my soul.
***
We pulled off the highway at the Smoky Mountain Visitors Center just past noon. Surrounded by gardens, rolling meadows, and picnic tables, we spread our lunch. There were hundreds of people. The adults milled about and exchanged stories of past eclipses. An enthusiastic employee of the center distributed cardboard eclipse glasses with dark shades. The skies were blue, and people bristled.
Some folks had professional cameras; others had cereal box pinhole viewers. Backyard astronomers fiddled with telescopes. The day was scored with birdsong.
And then, suddenly – or not at all – it began.
Six minutes past one o’clock. A gentleman from Idaho invited me to peer through his shaded telescope. A tiny dark nibble in the sun hinted at the event unfolding as if the old Aztec creature had taken a bite.
The shadows got my attention approximately thirty minutes into the partial eclipse. Half-moon-shaped daylight painted the summer foliage, casting ethereal crescent shadows onto the sidewalks. My infant daughter peacefully napped in her stroller; her delicate skin bathed in the dappled light of a thousand moon-kissed smiles filtered through the branches of the tulip poplars.
Then, the light turned crisp and silver. The edges of objects shimmered as if the dynamic range of the world had been recalibrated. All eyes gazed upward, some arms outstretched, in reverence, I suppose.
***
As the moon slid across the sun, a profound transformation – the cessation of birdsong. I heard a cricket chirp, then another – then a third joined in. A chorus of cicadas soon overlaid the rhythm. A firefly flashed in the grass. Then, from vernal pools deep in the forest, the peepers began. The symphony of dusk played a matinee.
I held my daughter in my arms. She had few words at eleven months, yet a burgeoning awareness filled her eyes. She gazed up at me, perplexed, and giggled softly. “Wasn’t it daytime just a minute ago, Mama?”
As the sun plunged into its luminary sinkhole, a collective gasp. A shared breath of astonishment, like a crashing wave. The summer breeze turned as cool as a midnight zephyr. The people simply stared in an unusual silence.
Along the horizon, the sky was still light blue, warmed by rosy hues of pink and gold. But all around, above the horizon line, it deepened to indigo. Directly above was almost pitch black. Stars twinkled, and I could see some of the planets. An elderly man beside me had tears winding into the wrinkles of his lips. I wanted to kiss him. Whose woods were these now?
A lone whippoorwill began its haunting solo, breaking the silence with a resonant and dark melody. The ethereal notes added a mystical gravitas. Slowly, a cheer rose through the crowd. People began clapping, whistling, and shouting in awe. United, briefly, again. Shelly beamed at me, and I felt a blissful surge of warm blood within me.
***
In that moment of totality – I flashed back to the birth of my daughter. It was as if time had folded. I relived the first contractions, the involuntary vanguard of motherhood. As a first-time mom, I’d had no idea what horrors awaited.
In those early dagger stabs of labor, shaking from the visceral force of the contractions, a deep realization dawned upon me – an understanding that comes only from the crucible of childbirth. Timeless, primal forces were at play, keeping time to the flow of our bodies. The whippoorwill stopped.
And then, shards of gleaming gold rays escaped from behind the black boulder and began their blinding torrent. The stars dimmed. Shelly closed her eyes. Black transformed into indigo, to cerulean. The crickets’ symphony faded until just one confused cricket sang alone. The cicadas stopped.
Suddenly came the clear trill of a blackbird, sweet, sharp, flute-like notes reverberating through the air. The blackbird sang a solo of loud, fluid warbles before more birds joined in – a robin, a bluebird, a wren. The birdsong began – again.
“Wow.” My friend Shelly whispered, breaking the spell. “Holy fucking shit. I have no words, but that was so intense!”
The crowd blinked and looked around at each other, struggling to articulate the event.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Shelly’s teenage daughter. “Did you guys know it was going to be like that?!”
I was thinking of the people on my lawn. I wanted to be with them.
“I took a picture of it,” said a man off to my left. I glanced at the photo on his phone. It looked nothing like what we’d just seen.