I kept hearing people talking about the moon for the past few weeks. I heard it would blot out the sun, how all manner of chaos and havoc was going to break loose, how nature would be in an uproar and we’d all end up with a show we’d never forget. I’m going to have to say, I was less than impressed.
If you didn’t know there was an eclipse coming, you must literally live in a cave with no means of communicating with the outside world aside from “hollering from yonder hilltop.” Pretty much everywhere you looked and listened, someone was talking about the eclipse. My favorite thing I saw was a local news station excitedly running the graphic, “ECLIPSE 2024…WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!!!” Here, let me help you with that…you need to know the moon blocks out the sun and don’t be a goober and stare at it.
I’ll never forget the 2017 eclipse, one that actually brought 100% coverage of the sun here locally. I drove out near Leeds, which was in the frighteningly named “Cone of Totality.” There were dozens of people there, some of whom drove down from over an hour away in Charlotte because that was supposed to be a prime viewing area. The blotting out of our primary source of light started…a quarter of the sun was covered, then half, then three quarters. Tree frogs and crickets began their serenade, picnic shelter lights kicked on, Pink Floyd music echoed down from on high (not really) and suddenly a black cloud popped up out of nowhere and covered the whole thing up. So I missed it. Wamp wamp.
Well, interestingly, I happened to be at a trash dump when the moon made it’s most recent rare run of interference. Even if you know it’s coming, it is still quite a shock. The full moon in broad daylight is just a strange thing to see. Maybe strange isn’t the right word…repulsive might be what I’m actually looking for. You might disagree, but you didn’t have the angle on it I did. Anyway, it started moving, shining brightly in the daylight it would soon extinguish as it did. I had never actually seen a moon quite that large or for so long in the light of day. It also seemed to be uncomfortably close to me. Other people standing around…I know they had to know it was there but they pretended not to look, but how could you not? A giant moon, right there in your face, moving in unnatural ways in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe they were heeding the advice you always hear about how you shouldn’t look directly at it. Maybe I’ll end up having damaged retinas or corneas or cones, rods…some part of my eye. I can’t say it actually blocked out the sun, but it sort of outshined it and not in a good way.
Then, that full moon disappeared just as quickly as it appeared…because the lady tossing bags in the compactor finally felt a breeze, I guess, and pulled her sweatpants up.
It will supposedly be 20 years before I get to see that sight again…and I think that is far too soon.
