Eclipse!

Our trip to South Carolina has been incredible. I had read several articles about what to expect, mostly ignoring all the dire predictions of hellish traffic and cloud cover.

The traffic on the way down was non-existent.  We took route 1 all the way to Gervais St, where we turned right to find our hotel in a funky, life-filled, friendly downtown area.  We commented as we traveled that the roads of South Carolina are almost identical to those of North C, except, if you can believe it, there are even more pines.  The forests that line the NC highways are slowly being overcome by hardwoods, but that process is only in its infancy here.   The ground is sandy, and the trees stretch tall and grass-like, the way pines do, reach reach reaching overhead.

We passed various church signs reminding us to follow the Son not the sun, one of which added, "no glasses needed."  We saw signs for the Bethune Chicken Strut and Bill’s Burgers.

We filled up with gas once we got here, got the rations unpacked, and got settled.  We were meeting Stephen, the host and event planner for the weekend-- he did an incredible job. Our hotel is perfectly situated, and everything about the weekend was amazing.  

On Sunday, Stephen and I walked the area scoping out potential viewing spots.  Finlay Park is nearby, a vast green vista on the satellite view.  Getting there meant walking through an enormous train tunnel that had, disappointingly, no bats.  Not one.  We did hear, however, one lone cicada calling desperately for its mate.  "Find me!!  Find me before our 14-year slumber, my love!!"  He had tucked himself into a deep crevice between two bricks, his sad and desperate call cut short by the sound of our voices and our large pale faces peeking into his supposedly safe, prime real estate.

We were pleased to discover, as we approached Finlay Park, a manicured stretch of lush grass, at first blush a welcoming green blanket.  As we got closer, though, we realized the "families" camped out on the lawn were not actually enjoying picnic lunches.   Their bundles were belongings, not food, and people were mostly alone, with occasional bunches of adults looking wary and hard-worn. Every bench had a person in repose, a sac nearby.  

The only exception was an older couple practicing with their drone.  They caught the attention of two passers-by, who called out to a third, approaching from the opposite direction.  The approacher and the enthusiastic spectator exchanged a complicated handshake that ended in a strong grasp where cash traded palms with a ziplock bag.  Stephen looked at me and snarked, "They are very good friends."  

The cheerful drone practicing guy, his cheerful wife, and their cheerful little dog paid no mind to the shenanigans and soon after packed up their toy and moved on.  

Stephen and I continued to walk the area, noticing the neglected architecture and now-dry water features of the aging park.  I felt for the homeless in the oppressive heat, and wondered idly what percentage of the Columbia homeless we were seeing.  

We climbed about a million steps to a shady spot overlooking the post office and debated the viability of that spot.  We wandered down to Main St. and came to a street festival with tented vendors.  A guitarist busked outside a cafe; a duo calling themselves "The Ethnomusicologists" (perhaps the geekiest band name ever) played hand drums and a sax.   A pianist sat in a truck and hammered out a Schroeder-esque song list.  We bought our eclipse t-shirts and resisted the multitude of caloric treats on display.

We eventually made it to the capitol building and the confederate memorial statue there.  Tourists milled about taking pictures of everything, including that, George Washington just behind it, and the large marble steps.  We walked around, seeking shade, and found ourselves under an enormous pin oak whose branches had grown out and then down, forming a gigantic, leaf-domed "room."   We stopped to admire its enormity and beauty, commenting on the noticeable cool.  We found a monument to the original statehouse that was burned by Sherman and commented on the resentment that act had left behind, presumably fueling the difficulties we continue to have today.  We found a cement block that once held a memorial canon but was donated to the scrap metal effort of World War II.

By the time we were heading back to the hotel -- downhill, thank gods -- we were tapped out.  The heat, the exertion, the humidity… heavens to mergatroid, we were DONE.  We realized we would have a huge challenge the next day -- our goal was to watch the sun for three hours.  OMG.  How would we survive it???

Later that afternoon we went to the South Carolina State Museum.  They offered typical state museum fare, along with a telescope “set for sun viewing.”  What this meant is that they strapped a much smaller telescope atop their enormous one (the sun gives plenty of light -- in fact, you can see it with the naked eye), and transmitted the signal to several live-feed computer screens.  We picked one in the corner, away from the crowd, and watched the images scroll by.  The live feed showed the flares and storms swirling in the energetic mix, interspersed with educational images, showing such things as relative scale for the planets.

We wandered, then, through exhibits of the dinosaurs that inhabited the area in the way back years.  South Carolina was an ocean in the dinosaur days so their fossils are seafaring creatures.  We enjoyed debating which of us the Tylosaurus would eat first, given the choice.  Stephen agreed to take one for the team, but I think we all know it would be me.  We took in the Lego “4-D” movie (I highly recommend this experience) and the planetarium show accompanied by a live band that specializes in “planetary music.”  In a “now I’ve seen everything" moment, we listened to a group of talented musicians singing about the perseids.  Like, for reals.

By Sunday I was pretty antsy.  We lingered over breakfast; I did some puzzles; we watched tv.  I realized I still had two more hours to kill before heading out, and I knew I had to get moving.  The scorching heat and life-force-sucking humidity be damned, I had to do something.  Jacked up on I-can’t-believe-it’s-finally-here, I zoomed up to Main Street and then left a while.  I was hunting for a store that might have postcards, but never did find any.  I ducked occasionally into air conditioned venues, but mostly took in the sights and sounds. People setting up cameras, tourists looking to sup before the show, and a busker with a ukelele.  Two people were shouting about Jesus.  One woman with a thick island accent stood on a corner and shouted politely, “I just want to remind you about Jesus.  I realize you’re all excited about the eclipse, but please don’t forget about Jesus!”  Not sure how many of the truly faithful would have forgotten about him, but I guess she felt better having said it.  Later I heard a gentleman at the capital with a microphone yelling about the coming of Christ.  I felt for them both.  I felt the excitement in my own blood and bones, and could easily imagine how that could turn to fear.  I knew the eclipse to be a spiritual experience, and I could imagine how intense it would be for them.

One thing I definitely noticed--the apocecliptic predictions of unmanageable crowds never came to fruition. The streets were never more crowded than a typical tourist weekend, and for me, this was child’s play, crowdwise. I had survived popular concerts, political marches, the Obama inauguration (cold too!!), and, frankly, the DC Metro at rush-hour.  The eclipse crowd was not even a crowd in terms of filling the space.  Plenty of room to move around, plenty of wide-open spaces throughout the experience.  We barely even had to stand in line for meals.

Finally finally finally the time was nigh, and I hooked up again with our little band of eclipse-goers.  We decided on the capitol lawn, and as we approached, we spotted a grassy hill facing the sun.  A thick tree cover kept the top of the hill in cool shadow, and the height created a lovely breeze.  The slope afforded a gentle recliner feel as we tilted back (watch out for the ant hill!) and took in our favorite star.

Now I must stop for a second and discuss the difference between watching an eclipse and getting to see totality.  I had read several articles joking that 99% is not good enough, but none of them explain why.  Let me try…

The eclipse itself--the moon’s shadow passing in front of the sun--is an interesting phenomenon.  It’s not so different from a lunar eclipse.  The enormity of the bodies in motion, the concepts of light and reflected light, shadow and space… all of them are interesting.  Add in (pun intended…) the incredible math that goes into determining the exact second, the exact location, the exacting nature of all of it… and yowza!!  What an incredible thing this all is.

However, totality is something else entirely.  It is a thing all its own.  So yes, while 99% of the eclipse is as interesting as all the rest of it, totality is a completely different phenomenon.  

So here we sat on the very green hill of the capitol grounds, our eclipse glasses firmly in place, and we watched the sun.  One article I read pointed out that you can’t tell it’s the moon that is carving its shape into the sun.  All you know is that the sun is slowing disappearing.  The sky simply starts to subsume the sun, in a disc shape that you soon realize will engulf the entire star.  Slowly by slowly, the encroaching circle covers more and more of the sun.

My first thought as the darkness took shape against the glowing yellow disc was of cartoon eyeballs cut to the right.  They are often depicted with a white circle on the edge of the black pupil, and this is essentially (in negative) the shape of the sun in the beginning of the eclipse.  So I found a picture of cartoon eyeballs and posted it, with the caption, “the sun right now.”

We continued to watch, taking many breaks to sit in the shady, breezy cool of the hill’s top, and starting to make conversation with our fellow spectators.  The experience was already delightful, and meeting people from all around made it more so.

The next phase was when the sun looked distinctly like a crescent.  The sun was slowly taking on the distinct shapes of the moon’s phases.  They are both, after all, spheres in a play of light.  This time I found and posted a picture of Pillsbury crescent rolls.

A few minutes later, we had a clear “C” shape, if you sharpen the ends of the C down to points.  Kind of like what happens when the Cookie Monster is truly enjoying his cookie.  And this was my final picture to fb, because after the C, things got REAL.

By now the light had a distinctly different color to it.  The hour just before twilight is known to photographers as the golden hour because the sunlight, which gets filtered through the atmosphere and the horizon, takes on a lovely golden glow.  Twilight itself, tends to be gray.  In eclipse, the light changes to twilight, but goes directly to gray, even when it’s as bright as the “golden hour.”  So as you look around, you’re looking at a gray landscape that is too bright.  The effect is disconcerting and strange.  The world is almost purple in its strange gray tones.

About this time, we started to notice the crescent shapes in the shadows of the trees.  I stopped anyone who would listen and pointed it out.  Two homeless men sat on a nearby bench in the shade, completely uninterested in the eclipse.  (Weird, right?)  I pointed out the shadows to them, hoping to get them engaged in the event unfolding all around them.  They rolled their eyes.  I moved on.  

Other people were far more enthusiastic and soon we had crowds of people checking out shadows under different trees.  Some were a vibrant and movement-filled symphony of crescents all vying for attention. Others were mountain landscapes carved out in Cs.  Others still were oceans of cresting waves, the Cs piling on each other in orderly layers.

The crescenting sun got thinner, and we took our spots on the sloping grass.  A small group of young adults from Charlotte piled behind us, and I felt proud that these young people took the time to come enjoy the view. Now the change in the light was undeniable, but as I tried to photograph it with my iPhone, the software automatically adjusted the settings and “fixed” the photo.  Oops.  

Suddenly it occurred to me I wasn’t hot any more.  I looked at Bill and Stephen next to him.  “Hey!  It’s cooler!”  And we all realized we were now sitting comfortably.  We no longer needed to walk up into the shade.  We could sit here throughout the rest of the event and we would not melt.

A woman behind us realized she could hear the crickets and said so out loud.  Suddenly we all became aware of the bug chorus all around us.  Exactly as we had read, but none of us had really believed.

Now this is where my story diverges from anyone who wasn’t in totality.  If you were in the 95 to 99% zone, you can probably share a very similar story.  Except, perhaps, for the disinterested homeless guys.

This is where things went nuts.

We were all looking avidly between the sun and the surrounding areas.  The strange colors, the bugs, the sunset appearing in all directions.  And then pop -- Venus became visible.  Someone shouted “Stars!!!” and we all looked up, glassless and away from the sun.  There she was, a bright star in the night sky.  People started cheering.  Glasses back on, I watched the last sliver of sun sharply outlined against the left-hand side of the disc.  I watched until nothing was left but the tiniest dot, and I pulled off my glasses.  Then, like a coin sliding into place in a horizontal vending machine, or the click of a plastic strap lock, the moon completely covered the sun and the corona popped out in an instant, 360 degrees around the sharp black dot.  

The English language does not have a word for how beautiful that corona is.  It is not a simple ring of light or a halo like the glow of a full moon on a foggy night.  It is a rushing, swooping, dynamic sputtering of angelic brilliance that varies in density, brightness, width and height.  You are staring at the sun, and you are seeing its very essence.  Like a million threads of light, the energy of the corona dances away from its darkened center and out in every direction.  Like the difference between seeing the Boston Symphony live and hearing a digital recording, no photo can possibly do the experience justice.  The cheers and screams that erupted from our little band of hillside friends were echoed in every direction.  To say it is a spiritual experience is to state the obvious.  The earth, the moon, and the sun are lined up perfectly, and the light show is literally unbelievable.

We gazed and cheered and clapped for two minutes and 41 seconds.  Well, in the last few seconds, we started shouting warnings to the crowd, especially the children, to put their glasses back on.  As the sun peeked out and the thin sliver once again shone around the moon, the cheers and clapping resumed in earnest.  The sun had returned!!  We would all be ok again!!

As the light returned to normal--everything seemed accelerated on the flip side--we all stood and gathered our belongings.  The crowd thinned.  Before leaving, Bill shared his photos with the Charlotte crew behind us, and stopped several times during the short walk back to the hotel to show off his photos and text them to strangers, all of us joined in this incredible experience.  The trees continued their crescent shadows for a long time, and we all tucked into the hotel lobby for a rest.  We shared refreshments and stepped outside occasionally to check on the sun.  Eventually the full yellow disc returned, and Carolina life returned to normal.  

Except no one will get a postcard.