Picture of Total Solar Eclipse Taken by Hubby
This story begins, as most do, well before its beginning. For my sister, whom I will call Sis for the sake of privacy, it began in 1979 when she first witnessed a total eclipse of the sun. Seeing another, and another, and another would become a quest for her. Being the remarkable person she is, attending eclipses is not her only quest, certainly not her only success, but it is perhaps her longest enduring. She made reservations a year ago to witness the 2017 eclipse in Charleston, SC.
For my part, it began when Sis told me she had metastatic breast cancer. From that moment, whatever she does, whatever she wants, I’m with her. I learned about her Charleston eclipse plans, and by March had made my own plans for Hubby and me to join her and her husband Bro (again, for privacy’s sake not his name) in Charleston. She and Bro would be driving and taking a week to do so, adding visits to parks and monuments and family, both down and back. Hubby and I would take the train and take three days to do so, Sis and Bro picking us up upon our arrival at the Amtrak station Monday morning and dropping us off Monday night for our return trip.
The start of Hubby’s and my trek was smooth, Daughter took us to South Station, we boarded when called, the Northeast Regional #161 departed Boston and arrived in New York right on time, and we made our connection to the Charleston-bound train with no complications. Unfortunately, the engine swap in DC was very slow. (The Northeast corridor is entirely electric; a diesel engine replaces the electric engine in DC for the remainder of the trip.) Usually the DC stop is about 20 minutes, but it felt endless as we waited without power for the new engine.
By dinnertime the Silver Meteor, Amtrak train #97, was about 45 minutes late. Hubby texted Sis to let her and Bro know not to try to pick us up at the scheduled 4:51 AM. Our attendant would knock on the door to our roomette a half hour before arrival at the North Charleston, SC station, and Hubby would then notify Sis and Bro. As it was, the train was continuing to lose time, so the half hour stretched into forty minutes, meaning Sis and Bro still managed to reach the station before we did. We couldn’t find each other once there, as a couple of hundred people detrained with us. But through the magic of cell phones, I reached Sis, and we walked toward each other until we met.
(I cannot possibly describe the heat and humidity, even at 5:30 AM. As a child I was hit in the head by a baseball bat, and the effect of walking into the summer South Carolina air was similar. Bro suffered the most by far with it, and kept having to hang out wherever there was air conditioning, not at all typical for a man who generally enjoys spending hours outside every day in the summer. Hubby still insists he wants to experience South Florida in the summer; he’s doing it alone, as I will never voluntarily go through that aspect of our trip again. And Bro said the day before had actually been worse. Ugh. I’m thoroughly impressed that anyone can live there. Anyway …)
We bundled ourselves into their rental, a Hyundai Elektra, and returned to their hotel on the Isle of Palms, the Seaside Inn. There was one stop of necessity at the Circle-K for coffee, before we unloaded our gear into their room, and there was some tired grousing and grumbling for the next three hours until we could seek sustenance at the local IHOP, but finally we were ready to face the day.
And what an inauspicious day it was. Though the sky was spectacularly beautiful (and we could see a vast horizon, being at the shore), thunderheads towered in all directions. Below the thunderheads were light clouds, and above there were wispy clouds. In short, although the sun was as always bright and powerful, it was concealed by the atmospheric complications. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled endlessly, and Sis and I watched from beneath an overhang as the beach walkers fled a sudden drenching downpour. It was disappointing after all the time, planning, effort and anticipation, to acknowledge that we were not going to experience the full measure of totality, but there were aspects, such as the settling in of birds, that I was looking forward to in any event. Sis and Bro had already determined that they were not going to drive around looking for a better location. The storms spanned hundreds of miles and were in constant motion. We would stay put and hope for the best.
As for the aforementioned overhang, each level of the inn had an all-encircling balcony that was protected from sun and rain either by the balcony of the floor above or by the extended roof for the third, the top floor, which is where we were. We had walked to the end of the balcony overlooking the beach, and renewed ourselves in the eternal motion of the Atlantic Ocean, my best-known and best-beloved ocean. We watched gulls and terns swoop and climb and chase each other, and laughed with joy and pleasure as the brown pelicans soared and plummeted, dive-bombing their prey repeatedly, usually ending in failure, but always working their way back into the air after a brief recovery to try again.
While we stood and watched, a man walked to the end of the balcony at the other side of the building, the mirror position of ours. He was a large man with a booming voice, dressed in a comfortable t-shirt, shorts, and sandals. We exchanged the usual identifying information of fellow travelers – where are you from (Maine and Massachusetts on our side, Washington, DC for his), how did you come to be here (the eclipse, yes, the eclipse), how did you make the trip (ME drove down leaving two days before, MA and DC left only yesterday, DC driving and MA taking the train), then the large man made an pronouncement: NBC had said the most likely place for the skies to clear for the eclipse was right where we were. Delighted by the optimism of this message, no matter that it was based merely on guesswork and hope, I told him I was going to hang onto that thought and go with it. Sis of course had an appropriate quote from the Book of Psalms: How beautiful are the feet of the messenger who brings good news. Both DC and MA were a bit confounded, not knowing this verse at all, but we had all had our spirits lifted; we nodded our good-byes, and went our separate ways.
Sis went back to her room – between the cancer meds, the long drive, and the early rising, she needed a bit of a lie-down. Hubby joined me; I mentioned the rain and leaned out to get a better view of whether it had stopped. It had not, which is why the next sound from my lips was a gasp. The sun was still low in the sky, and a rainbow was glowing brightly. We crossed to where DC had been and discovered that the rainbow was a rare full arch, one end in the ocean and the other somewhere in Charleston. Hubby took out his camera, and I fetched my sister. Both of them took several pictures (Sis’s phone has a panoramic mode, so hers were the best pictures to share, which she immediately did), but mostly we just stood and admired one of the most beautiful of Nature’s wonders.
I glanced down at the beach-goers, and could literally see word spreading, as people stopped their walks, swims, frisbee-throwing, umbrella erecting, to stare at the reward of being out in the rain. It maintained itself for a good – no, great – fifteen minutes before finally fading. I turned to Sis and Hubby and said, “No matter what happens with the eclipse, at least we had one phenomenal sight.” For once in our oh-yeah?-I-can-top-that family, everybody was in agreement.
The day passed slowly. Sis went back for her lie-down; ex-Navy Bro watched CNN looking for news of the crashed destroyer but found only blather about an upcoming Trump speech, and Hubby and I went for our own beach walk. We encouraged the boy digging his deep pool with the help of the waves; we dodged frisbees; we got our pants legs soaked wading into the water; we laughed and smiled with strangers. I spotted DC man out for a walk with his family, and marveled at the variety of humanity, all colors and languages, thousands of Americans and foreigners, joining in a singular moment. Half-a-mile north and back was about all I could manage; the distance wasn’t a problem, but the heavy air wreaked havoc with my asthma, and I needed to get back to that air-conditioned room.
(Hubby checked his phone for the weather. All day long it claimed the temperature was in the high eighties but the humidity made it feel like 99 F. Hah. No. I’ve been in 99, 105, 110, and it felt closer to 110 than 99. Our eyeglasses kept fogging up, and you could smell every molecule suspended in the moisture. How I love New England. As lovely as the Isle of Palms and its environs are, I could not live there. I love this country and its many and varied people, but I always want to go home. Sorry, I digress again.)
The day passed slowly. (Didn’t I say that already? Ever have the feeling of déjà vu?) A bandstand was set up on the beach; numerous pop-up awnings side-by-side shaded kids’ activities; orange witch’s hats blocked off areas, presumably for professional photographers; as far as you could see from our third-story balcony, people were pouring onto the beach with umbrellas, blankets, coolers, and other accoutrements of the day, By noon, a local newsman was introducing a local DJ on the bandstand, and disco-fied versions of every rock, folk, pop, and hip-hop song ever written about the sun or the moon was being blasted out over the sand. No slow-dancing allowed – even Bill Withers’ exquisitely melancholy Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone was infused with a get-on-up-and-move drumbeat, and some of the people, especially the children, did just that.
The building next to our hotel housed both a general admission pub/restaurant and a VFW hall. A woman spotted us looking out over the festivities, and called up to us to come down and join them for the great cocktails. We laughed and declined, but thanked her for her most effusive invitation.
Meanwhile, contrary to DC man’s declaration, the clouds remained. As the sun transited the sky, it was blocked at all times. There were areas of patchy blue, but they never crossed the sun’s path. Sis did not change her mind about driving around for a better spot, but was disgruntled nevertheless. It was her third total solar eclipse, she explained, and only the first in 1979 had occurred with clear skies; the Hawaiian eclipse had also been blocked by bad weather. She did not believe my protestations that darkness at 3 PM was exciting enough for me; she scarcely acknowledged Hubby’s enthusiasm about the sun’s shadow sweeping across the land. She had been looking forward to this for 38 years dammit, and not to see the corona was just a bust, and everyone around us, including Hubby and me, had to feel the same. Period. Okay, fair enough and true enough, but I was so glad to be there with her that it was hard to work up disappointment in anything whatsoever. Unless, that is, that damn DJ kept playing canned music during the event. That might very well bring on a homicide, and we would not be convicted by a jury of our peers.
Sis had brought sunshield glasses for all, but Hubby and I continually were unable to spot the sun while using the glasses, dimmed as it was by the cloud cover. Sis suddenly cried out, “Look!” Glasses whipped back on, nothing to see. “Don’t worry about the glasses right now; the cloud cover is thick enough you can look at the sun for a moment!” So we did, and there on the right was a nibble out of the sugar cookie that was our blessed sun. Repeatedly I looked through the glasses to no avail, then glanced at the shrinking circle of light. The former was frustrating; the latter satisfying.
For awhile the crowds were indifferent to the arrival of the eclipse, but eventually murmurs of excitement reached even us on our third-floor balcony. Sis, Hubby, and I could no longer bear to be so far from the crowds and the beach, and made our way down to the boardwalk that connected the inn to the sand. Bro stayed under the cover of the overhang for a good while longer, but suddenly appeared next to Sis when the time was right for him.
Out in the open as we were, Hubby and I continued to struggle with the effectiveness of the sunshields. At long last my knowledge of vision (thank you ISCAN, my long-time employer) made its contribution, and I stood for more than a few seconds with my shields between my eyes and the sun. I heard Hubby complain again that he couldn’t see a thing, and then it happened: I saw the remains of the sun behind the shadow of the moon. I called to Hubby, “Your eyes have to adjust to the black – keep the glasses on long enough for that to happen!” He did so, and oh rapture, oh bliss! Joy unbounded!
Now that we knew the trick to it, I felt more confident in occasionally looking away, observing the crowds, admiring the DJ and the dancers. A remarkable young man was juggling/twirling fire – flaming balls on the ends of thick, flexible wires – and I dodged my way through the onlookers to capture his skills on video. His skill with his medium was far greater than mine with my camera, but even though my video attempt failed, I’m glad I was close enough to receive the full gift of his efforts. I rejoined Hubby, Sis, and Bro on the boardwalk.
The sun continued to be overtaken by the moon’s shadow, and clearly more and more people were riveted by the sight, because I heard in the background of my focused mind the DJ saying into his mic, “How close are we?” I called out that the sun was a paper cut on a fingertip, because that indeed is what it looked like. I know he couldn’t hear me, but obviously other people near to him let him know that the moment of totality was very near. He stopped the music, his dozens of dancers stopped their motion, and all those thousands of eclipse disciples became silent, eyes glued to the sky.
The silence was broken, in waves like the sea. One person howled in ecstasy, and those nearby joined in. I was the first screamer in my area, but was alone for only a moment. Yells and cheers arose, swelled, and overwhelmed. But what about the cloud cover, you may ask? Was this merely the spectacle through the sunshields?
No. It was a damn miracle.
One minute before totality, after the sun was already a paper cut, the clouds moved in such a way as to surround the sun rather than cover it. Thus we did experience full totality, all of us there on the Isle of Palms and the rest of the Charleston area. We saw the beads, the ring, the terrifying corona, all we had hoped for. Sparrows were huddled in the shrubs, pelicans were flocking in confusion, and around us in a complete circle was sunrise/sunset, an orange and pink horizon in the middle of the day. The seconds rolled on, full of life and darkness and hope and uncertainty. It was a total eclipse of the sun, and we were a part of humanity who have marveled over thousands of years at this impossible occurrence. The sun reappeared, a spike of light on its right side. The crowd shouted and applauded, and the DJ broke his silence with the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun. He started it out acoustic, then just had to add the disco beat in the second verse, but none of us whined about it. It was the perfect song for the perfect moment, and then clouds recovered the sun as before.
Yes. For only five minutes of the entire day the sun was clearly visible, and it was for the five minutes surrounding the totality of the eclipse. It was a damn miracle.
The four of us made our way along the boardwalk towards the inn and up the several flights of the exterior stairs. On the first balcony, I spotted DC. I approached him and reminded him of his words in the morning. He didn’t recognize me (not surprised: women over the fifty are generally invisible, plus the sun had been at my back), but he remembered the conversation. I told him how much I had hung onto his words throughout the day, and he embraced me, celebrating our shared experience. Sis repeated her quote from the Psalms, this time explaining the source, and DC embraced her as well. She later told me how grateful she was that I had recognized DC and spoken to him, completing that particular storyline. Ordinarily she would be the one striking up a conversation, while I the shy sister would hang back, but it was the right day for a role reversal.
Hubby, Bro, Sis, and I returned to the hotel room and drank some champagne, toasting the sun, the moon, and each other. Sis called me out to the balcony a half hour later to look at the sun again through the shield. “It’s still going on,” she said, and it was indeed. Though the moon’s shadow yet covered a chunk of the sun’s circle, Luna was clearly receding from Sol’s path.
The end of the day was very much like its beginning. Time passed slowly; we went to dinner, watched some more CNN but this time about the eclipse, and Sis and Bro took us back to the North Charleston station. The waiting room was packed. Trump’s speech came on the television, and as soon as he began to speak a baby started to wail. “That’s okay, honey,” its mother cooed. “I don’t like him either.” The train was horribly late, all of us were exhausted. Many had done what Hubby and I did, and were forcing ourselves to stay awake until we could board and collapse. As the train approached, the station attendant organized us, sending people to different spots along the platform depending on our tickets and destinations. Once we started entraining, the process was concluded speedily. Our attendant told us that there were some 200 people in the station, by far the most there ever had been, but the Amtrak workers handled it with efficiency and aplomb, concluding our eclipse tour most satisfactorily.
Never again will I experience such a remarkable event in such a remarkable way. I must be the luckiest person in the world.
