Eclipse

We drove our little rig up route 5 to 10 to 25 to 302 and through Groton and on to Cabot with only another car or two for company. The green in Cabot had a smattering of folks and was ringed with parked cars and a space waiting for us. We put a tarp down on the damp grass and waited with kids tossing balls and hoola hoops, and parents playing and shooing and commiserating with each other, and young adults cracking rapture jokes and sipping beer. And lo and behold an old friend from Thetford (remember that town across the river?) came over to say hi and catch up on the kids and everything we want for them but do they want it for themselves? And we waited some more until someone shouted, “There it is!” and we all put on our glasses and saw the small disc touching the corner of the sun.

And we waited on Cabot’s green with its simple war monument surrounded by those old New England faces: the church, the market, the hardware store and the homes of the village dwellers. And the din of conversation and kids playing and the feeling of anticipation ebbed and flowed sometimes with silence and wonder as the sun continued to burn with all its might despite the shade that was being slowly drawn across its face. And the air started to get cooler and then a slight breeze could be felt. And then when only the tiniest sliver of sun was revealed and we wondered how it could still be so light out and saw that our shadows were uncommonly flat and sharp-edged. And the sky to the southwest looked ominous.

And then, with the glasses on, the sun was gone from view. Could we look? We took them off and glanced at something most of us had never seen before and will likely never see again. Standing there half-afraid to look again we all saw something truly awesome and almost frightening if you looked too long. But together we looked as long as we dared with awe and wonder and when the first ray peeked past the trailing edge of the moon, more than one of us shouted, “That’s it! Don’t look any more!” And the kids and parents and young and old put their glasses back on to watch a little bit longer and feel the breeze die down and the sun start to warm us again as we hoped we would all be all right.