For all you umbraphiles out there (or any of you fortunate enough to be in the path of the coming eclipse on April 8th), know we shall be staring at the same eclipsed sun next week.
My parents are on the edge of totality, so me and the wife are packing up the kids for a visit. The eclipse whose path tracked across Boise, Idaho back in 2017 was my first. It was cooler than I thought it would be. You know, I sort of expected the day to feel like a cloudy afternoon and for there to be a brief moment of running around yelling, “I’m looking directly at the sun, Mom, and their’s nothing you can do about it!” (My parents made the trek to Idaho for that eclipse.)
But I came away impacted. I remember watching the shadows beneath the trees the most. It was serene while at the same time having an element of foreboding. I can see why hundreds and thousands of years ago people would have been pretty freaked out by total solar eclipses. There is something eerie about watching the sun be gobbled up by the moon in the middle of the day.
Did you know a total solar eclipse happens every eighteen months? But due to the fact the earth is mostly ocean, and that much of the land is so sparsely inhabited, humans rarely experience the path of a solar eclipse (unless they travel to them). Thus, the birth of eclipse chasers or umbraphiles.
If you are gonna chase something around the planet, I suppose solar eclipses make more sense than tornadoes or the Grateful Dead or the ribwich (Mmmmm, processed meat food…) It looks like several cities in the path of totality have some pretty cool music festivals and such scheduled for the weekend leading up to the event. I can think of a worse way to spend my time.
In Mexico, back in 1991, the eclipse totality lasted for a whopping seven minutes total. That was approximately the grandest eclipse since the sixth century. This time, the totality will last around four minutes. Not nearly as long as 1991, Mexico. But longer than 2017, Idaho. The closer the moon is to the Earth during the eclipse, the longer the totality. Turns out, this is the main way eclipses are ranked. And this one will be a pretty good one, relatively. In addition to the length of the totality, it appears another eclipse won’t course across a substantial section of the United States for another 21 years. By that time, I might not have eyes…or be able to look upward without losing balance and breaking my hip.
So I’m gonna take advantage of this one. Besides, my kids are still young enough to think such a thing is mildly cool. My younger son is actually excited (well, as excited as a teenage gets about something vaguely educational).
Now I just need help from all y’all to put together a playlist for the event. My first obvious thought was “It’s the end of the world as we know it” by REM. Of course you can play the literal card with “Eclipse” by Pink Floyd, and throw in “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles. But I’m sure I’m missing dozens of greats, so toss out your favorites so I can put together a soundtrack to remember! And for those of you not in the path of the eclipse, remember, my mother says “Don’t look directly into the sun!”
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