Darkness After Noon

We Need More Wonder and Awe

I stepped out onto my front walk on Monday afternoon to watch the eclipse. Maybe “watch” is the wrong word. I didn’t have the dorky glasses, so it was more to experience the darkening, without looking directly up at the moon blocking the sun’s glory. Take that, centre of the universe! Think you’re soooo special, do you? Turns out many of our neighbours had decided to do the same. Which was fine. Until one of them – I’ll call him Mr. X - started talking. Loudly. It went something like this:

Mr. X: (in an extremely loud tone of voice) Hey everyone! Hey David! Hey Pina! (proceeds to list everyone in his line of vision, where a simple smile and wave would have sufficed) Hey, Rondi!

Me: (feeling teary and emotional as the sky got dark and the birds went silent. Getting goosebumps and not wanting mood ruined. Trying to ignore him) Hey.

Mr. X: (at top of lungs, blissfully unconcerned that everyone is taking in the moment and the few who are talking are whispering. Also, intermittently chomping on a cookie) Hey Rondi. I don’t get the big deal. Do you?

Me: (not wanting to engage but naively thinking he actually wants my answer. Making sure to use indoor voice) Well yes, I do. Don’t you find this cool? The birds stopped chirping! The sky is dark. It’s three in the afternoon.

Mr. X: Meh. It’s going to happen again in 20 years. (continues with outdoor voice and cookie chomping) Want a cookie?

Me: Er, no. Thanks, though. Listen, twenty years isn’t tomorrow and anyway, it’s still a wonder. We’re all here, outside, watching this together. How often does this happen? Isn’t that something?

Mr. X: (looking entirely puzzled and more chomping)

Me: (thinking that now, I must convince him!) Isn’t it humbling and yet also makes you feel at one with something massive? We’re small and the moon might be indifferent to us, but at this moment it’s like, wow, no denying we are all connected – planets, living creatures, plants, energy, past, present…

Mr. X: Yeah, yeah, we’re all cogs in a big, cruel machine. I already knew that. (chomp chomp)

Me. Well, er, I didn’t really mean it that way, um…

Mr. X: It’s not even really dark. It’s just like a cloudy day. Who cares?

Me: (taking note of birds literally nodding off on branches - not an exaggeration. I have written about our front porch birds here and here and can suss out when birds are snoozing. I so envy their ability to fall asleep quickly and without Ambien) Er, ok. Well, I guess I’ll go back inside.

Thank you, sir, for raining on my parade, however unintentionally.

This neighbour is a lovely guy with an equally lovely family. But in that moment, I wanted to bop him on the nose, shake him and scream, “We are all part of this glorious universe! What is wrong with you? Put your stupid cookies away!” The exchange made me think of this part of Anne Sexton’s poem Admonitions to a Special Person:

Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing

and leaves you hanging upside down,

mouthing knowledge as your heart

falls out of your mouth.

I don’t suppose Mr. X was being intellectual exactly, but whatever the doofus equivalent of those lines is, that is what he was doing. My parents were both guilty of over-investing in intellect, and the experience made me wary of discarding simplicity and joy all because you think you can explain them away and diminish what inspired them in the first place. Because I think we need more reverence and delight. Prior to Mr. X’s nattering, everything was set at the quietest quiet – beautifully so - despite the fact that many, many people were outside. I watched some television coverage and noticed the same thing - when the anchors weren’t blathering, you heard gasps and whispers and oohing and ahing. One little girl being interviewed described it as “the moon pushing the sun away” and said it made her cry; her brother said – in true little boy fashion – that he almost did, but got it under control. Perhaps my neighbour was similarly posturing.

One can certainly understand why ancients witnessing an eclipse might have seen it as an omen, a portent of doom and thought, geez, we had better sacrifice some virgins into that volcano lest it erupt all over our village! Or why medieval peasantry might have thought, wowza, we had better sin less frequently so that our crops don’t fail! Anyone who has seen the beautiful Bayeux Tapestry will remember the image of an anxious King Harold - along with various members of the public - pointing and staring at the 1066 appearance of Halley’s Comet. Isti mirint stella - they marvel at the star - is written above. (Turns out it did not bode well for Harold.)

You can know why such phenomena occur and still enjoy the transcendence. When I was ten, my parents rented a cottage for the summer. My mother believed it would be good for our divided, conflicted not-getting-along family to be divided and conflicted and not get along by a lake with woods and bears all around us. Not sure she was correct about that, but one late night, a couple with a cottage nearby knocked at our door and told us to step outside and see the Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis. Mum woke me up for that and was correct to do so. An absolutely stunning sight and I remember that same feeling of being lifted out of circumstances and part of something limitless.

Einstein said he valued imagination as much as, and sometimes more, than intellect, and he advised to never lose your childlike sense of curiosity, of thrill. I realize that we all have different ways to hang on to those things. Mr. X, for example, puts together one of the best Hallowe’en displays in our area, complete with creepy sounds and silhouettes, the Monster Mash blaring, a light show and ghouls in the yard. He appears to love every minute of it as does every kid within a five-block radius.

John Cassavetes - also a genius, though of a different variety than Einstein - talked about keeping what he called the “man child” inside of him alive. True for women, though I have long thought that far more men have a bit of their little boy in them forever, whereas women tend to lose our little girl. Instead of looking merry, as some men do even at 90, we more easily get a sort of pinched, aggrieved mien to us fairly early on. This is a generalization, so don’t yell at me.

[Eclipse as seen in Isaac and Rebecca Spied Upon by Abimelech, or Lovers’ Deception, 1518-1519, Raphael and his Workshop]

I recently re-watched Cassavetes’ Husbands and loved and appreciated it so much more than I had previously. This has to do with age, of course, with understanding the idea of keeping spark alive in the face of life’s burdens and worries, and trying to combine that spark with being a responsible human. Also, now that I am old, I am far more sympathetic to people falling to pieces and behaving stupidly and not being very good spouses. That said, Husbands is difficult viewing. Really cringe-y and ugly in parts - for me, reminiscent of things that went on in my childhood home. It is merciless with its painful revelations about men and women, and all three actors are so bloody brilliant. (I am experiencing a bit of a Cassavetes obsession these days. Not a bad use of time.)

Einstein was not a great husband (how is that for a segue?) but he was a great scientist, and, of course, it was during an eclipse in 1919 that he and Arthur Eddington carried out their original relativity experiment. Apparently, it has rarely been tested in real-world conditions with modern devices since, and it was decided some time ago that this year scientists would take advantage of the eclipse and do a look-see (not the technical term). Wouldn’t it be something if we saw a big “never mind” headline? Sorry, we’ve had it all wrong.

***

Friends, I am aware that dreadful things are going on in the world, and, in particular, I am aware of Iran’s attack on Israel, which has just started. I thought I would post this piece regardless.

Am Yisrael Chai.