A to Z Blog Challenge: The Letter H: Hello Darkness

The day after the eclipse, I’m still awed and humbled by the experience.

For someone who makes a living with words, I’m at a loss to justifiably describe how I felt yesterday during the total solar eclipse.

Fortunately, we had a clear, warm, sunny day with the temperature hovering at 16 degrees Celcius. At 2:00 p.m., I went outside, wearing a light cardigan and carrying my eclipse viewing glasses and a beverage. I settled down to wait. I was about to see something incredible, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality of it.

Around 2:15, the moon took a nip out of the bottom right section of the sun, but it made no difference to the level of light nor to the temperature. By 2:45, it started getting significantly cooler, so I went into the house to get my coat. The next thing I noticed was a change to the way I perceived colors. We were in our driveway and my husband’s car, a cherry red Mazda, looked almost a dark rust color while the neighbor’s dark blue truck seemed to be a brighter shade of blue. By now, the moon almost covered the sun, and everything became surreal. It wasn’t dark out, but it wasn’t light either–a kind of odd twilight.

And then it happened! It got quiet, the streetlights came on, and a weird night and day darkness descended. The moon completely covered the sun. As I mentioned, it was clear here. I wish I’d had a camera capable of showing you what I saw. The planets and stars were visible more clearly and brightly than I’ve ever seen them. It was magical, a true miracle of nature.

For those two and a half minutes of totality, we just stared up at the sky, reveling in the once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was strange to sit in darkness as we were and look up at a light sky and still see the stars. Luckily, a friend had a better camera and captured a much better image than I did.

And just as quickly as totality started, it ended. In a matter of seconds, it was light again, although it took a few minutes for colors and the temperature to return to normal.

While the partial eclipse lasted another hour, the magic was over. How did I feel? Sad, the way you do on Christmas morning after all the presents have been unwrapped, and it’s time to clean up and get to work again. The magic was gone. I was sorry to see it go, and yet, I was happy that I got to see it all.

I’ll never experience a total solar eclipse like this again since by the time the next one comes around this area, I’ll be long gone, but for now, I have the memories and my pictures, and that’s not such a bad thing.

So, today’s letter H stands for Hello Darkness, my old friend, a line from a Simon and Garfunkel song. It also stands for humbling, the way I felt in the face of such an event, especially when the moon stole not only the sun’s light but its heat.

I must admit, it has also given me an idea for a novel. Can you imagine what it must’ve been like thousands of years ago when humans experienced this phenomenon? Did they believe the world was coming to an end? Did their soothsayers predict that something like this would happen? I’ll leave you with one last picture posted by an author friend of the eclipse taken in the South Pacific. How amazing is this? To use an old-fashioned word, it’s a real HUMDINGER! April 8, 2024 has gone down in history.

Here’s another taken in Toronto with the CN Tower bisecting the solar eclipse.

Come back tomorrow to see what I have for you under the letter I.

Check out blog posts from other participants here: https://tinyurl.com/w54yupwe