Wake up. Coffee. Meditate. Feed cat, dog. Walk dog. Weather, hot humid. Rain, not yet. Sun streaming so bright reminds me I get headaches from too much light.
Think about Lori, who flew from Manhattan to Nashville to view the eclipse from her perfect place along the path of totality. Wonder if something wrong with me: I don’t really care that there is a solar eclipse, first one in how many years?
Go feed neighbor’s cats, two scrawny old felines. Neighbor Doug is bass player touring with his Americana band in Germany with his ex-girlfriend, her guitarist new husband and a violin player.
Remember that I also have to feed those cats, Ada and Roxie, for the next few nights because Doug’s current girlfriend, usually the night feeder, has gone to North Carolina to view the eclipse from her perfect place along the path of totality.
Read about making pin hole eclipse viewer from cereal box on Facebook. Don’t eat cereal. Wonder briefly if I could make a pinhole viewer from an apple or a carrot or even just the tin foil, like I made hash pipes and then cocaine pipes back in the day.
Realize that not once have I read up on any spiritual or doomsday or science attached to this, the first total solar eclipse in how many years? Again wonder if there is something wrong with me that I don’t care about the eclipse. Consider researching some spiritual or science or doomsday info for the sake of this piece of writing. So far, can’t be bothered.
Bad 80s song begins playing in my head. “Once upon a time there was light in my life, now there’s only love in the dark, nothing I can say, a total eclipse of the heart.”
Apparently, I’m not alone. Famed ‘Eat. Pray. Love’ author Elizabeth Gilbert posts a video of her singing the song at Karaoke.
As an enthusiastic news avoider (always same story, different day) I can claim that all I ever know about current events, I learn on Facebook,where there is this
Does Donald Trump mention the eclipse? Don’t even have to look. Don’t care. Nothing good ever comes from that direction.
Started Googling solar eclipse. Definitely a time-sucking mistake. Some fun headlines:
Eclipse could seriously impact Trump, the nation, astrologers warn – Detroit Free Press
Is the Solar Eclipse a Message From God? – The Atlantic
Then this, from the Washington Post
“10 seconds of burning: Friends partially blinded after watching solar eclipse (at 16, in 1962) warn of dangers”
Glimpsing an eclipse does not seem at all worth damaging one’s eyesight for good. I get paranoid about burning my retina after reading that.
Sent to me in a text:
And now? A total eclipse of the heart? Sun?
Start self-diagnosis of why eclipse mean so little to me. Depression? Disassociation with reality of current events? A relapse into the “I don’t care, fuck its” of my youth? I recall when my mother gave me a book called ‘Pierre I Don’t Care.’ Remember writing something about it
Voila! From five or six years ago: “When I was around 11 years old my mother gave me a Maurice Sendak book called ‘Pierre I Don’t Care.’ ‘There once was a boy named Pierre, who only would say ‘I don’t care.’ Pierre just didn’t care so much that eventually he stuck his head in a lion’s mouth, who ate him, or something like that. What’s the correlation? I avoid the pain of my parents aging and the pain of being loved by them, by being ‘not caring’ or being stoic about it all. I put on my ‘adult’ and go in to do the battle or task and then I am left with a wounded or confused little girl echo after its done.”
(It goes on): “Note to self: before you start to write memoir it is probably a good idea to assess how much you actually remember of your life. If mostly all you can recall, from the age of 11 or 12 on is encased (note to self: consider changing word to ‘eclipsed’) in a marijuana haze perhaps you should think again. But here is the mystery. My sister, who didn’t disappear so completely in to a drug thrall, doesn’t remember either. In truth, she remembers less than me. Why don’t we remember? Was it that bad? What was it about our childhood, our living in the land of my parents, of Paul and Adele, which required forgetting everything about what went on? Or more accurately, required one to not pay attention, or not care, in first place?”
Only madness lies in that direction.
A friend of mine texted me that she just Googled, ‘solar eclipse and mental health.’ That’s pretty crazy.
Discovered that another friend, a crazy, traveling, dancing, goddess-y, vegan friend at that, who “did not feel strong urge to watch the eclipse.” I read her Facebook-posted link from a site called whitewolfpack.com. Acknowledge coincidence as I’m collecting material for a piece of wolf-centered writing.
Headline: Navajo members won’t watch Sunday’s solar eclipse
“Even though it’ll be in full view over the Navajo Nation in Arizona, traditional tribal members won’t look up while it’s happening. The Navajo word for eclipse is “eating the sun. In the Navajo tradition it is believed that the ‘sun dies’ during a solar eclipse and that it is an intimate event between the Earth, Sun and Moon. The moon and the sun are sacred the way they were created, and you are not supposed to watch the moon or look at, stare at it for a long time. It affects your mind and your body. During an eclipse, every man, woman and child – they have to show reverence, and they don’t eat, they don’t drink water, they just go into the house until it passes. And then they show respect for the moon and the sun.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.