Total Eclipse of my Heart
Two short letters for your Monday
Two short pieces for you today. (Not a 15 minute read?! What?! I know. I know. You. are. welcome.)
First, a letter I wrote to my niece during the last eclipse. I love Nashville and I love the sky and I love anything a whole bunch of people decide to find joy and magic in so I booked a flight.
August 20, 2017
Dear Macey,
Today I am traveling to Nashville TN to see a solar eclipse tomorrow. The energy on the full flight is electric. The flight attendants are so upbeat and kind and seem to be actually enjoying themselves. During her departure announcements, one asked how many people were going just to see the eclipse and after a full plane of cheers, she blasted total eclipse of the heart from her phone over the intercom. Everyone is talking, fast chatter. The business man in the front row across from me is reading a magazine and discussing it with the flight attendant in her jump seat. Anticipation. I just looked up as we turned to line up on the runway and saw the white nose of the plane pointing right at the city – layers of tall buildings, spire of the empire state building. I am sitting next to an older couple and I was trying not to be annoyed he was taking the whole armrest, when he began quietly reading something in a language I don’t understand from a page of symbols to his wife beside him. I softened. She was clearly a little anxious. Later in the flight, he thanked her for coming on this trip “I married someone who would go on a one day trip to see an eclipse.” His arm bothers me less. People are beautiful. The world is beautiful. Sometimes, even today, I still get stuck in sadness thinking about the future, but right now is so damn good. I have a little headache, but I have it because I stayed up too late laughing with friends who sprawled in my living room to sip last beers before I left for three weeks. I am so lucky.
When we take off we turn and I can see us as a tiny plane shadow in the murky water below. Then we sweep over my house – I count the blocks from the bridge to my apartment. We slide past the park – a big swath of green in the middle of an island of buildings – and we move south as they grow taller and still smaller.
Every moment is an unrepeatable miracle. I will fly again, but I will never be over this stretch of flat green with its patches of dark green clusters of trees littered with houses, strung together with brown paths. This subdivision – a perfectly manicured circular maze. Flying through the most perfect fluffs of heaven clouds – pulled apart cotton balls piled on top of each other molded by the sun. Tiny baseball fields. Whole neighborhoods hidden in a cloud’s shadow while their friend’s next door bask in the sun and bright greens and browns. The sky is storybook blue.
I’m sad I didn’t write about the actual day of the eclipse outside of that short instagram caption, but there are parts of it that I still remember… the feeling, always the feeling. I went to the park right beside the water and it was already filled with people. I was by myself and so I brought a book to read and probably a journal to write, but I spent the whole time looking at the other people. It was a Monday in the middle of the day and all of these people had chosen to come sit in this park together instead of whatever Monday-ing they were supposed to be doing, just to witness this event in the sky with other people. Groups were playing music, couples were kissing, kids were running between blankets, the energy was buzzing, people would periodically put on their silly matching glasses and look up to check in on the sun, and my attention was everywhere. I was so in love with all of it. All of them. The moment of actual totality was so cool. The park became dusk so quickly and we were all there together. A steamboat passed and I actually can’t remember if the park cheered or was hushed, but I do remember it felt like there was one blanket over all of us for a moment. Then all of a sudden it was day again and our community dispersed, a little closer.
And another short piece from two days ago that I wanted to share. It’s an excerpt from my morning pages two days ago. I was writing stream of consciousness on the subway. Another eclipse of the heart.
April 6, 2024
For the Girl on the Train,
[A page and a half of stream of consciousness about the train and the things I have to do that day and the things I’m worried about.]
I keep feeling like the lady beside me is looking at my pagese and it makes me uncomfortable, but I also wonder why - I’m not writing anything interesting (maybe that’s why) and I wonder what it would feel like for her to catch herself reading this part.
[Another few sentences of random.]
I would struggle not to read someone writing in a pen in a notebook beside me too. I mean, she just has her phone in her hand and I already know she has Dua Lipa in her headphones and is probably a dancer because her phone background is a group dancing in a studio.
[Another page and a half about listening videos I watched the night before and my projects.]
The girl next to me is now writing what I think is choreography in her notes app and looking around the train between tapping on his phone. Whether my generative energy inspired her or not (I like to think it did), the two of us strangers sitting next to each other on the train making things, brains spiraling forward, full of color and movement and what’s next — that is beautiful to me. Especially as we both look out at a sea of phones, it feels like we are in on a secret together, something shared between us. That this is a special place. We look up and we connect and we create.
Keep making stuff.
I wrote that last sentence quickly because I decided I wanted to give her this page, but she got off on the next stop, earlier than I expected, and I rushed to take a picture because I wanted to keep the moment too. I was too slow to not make a big deal of it and hold her back from her exit, but she looked back just as I let the moment go. I wish I had given it to her. But I also think she already knows.
To the girl who got off the A train at 34th a little after 730am Saturday, thanks for creating with me this morning. I’m excited for what you do next.
Enjoy today’s eclipse friends, whether you’re in the path or not, whether you’re going to look up or not, it’s going to be a beautiful day. Magic’s in the air and I’m here pushing some your way.
Love the story of the girl on the train - love both stories actually.