Eclipse Mania

On Monday, the moon will steal between the Earth and the sun, a total solar eclipse in North America. The path of totality, the strip of the continent where the moon will completely obscure the sun, begins in Mazatlán, Mexico, crosses over more than a dozen U.S. states, from Texas to Maine, and ends in Newfoundland, Canada.

For umbraphiles (“shadow lovers,” in Latin), as eclipse enthusiasts are known, this is a big deal. They’ve had hotel rooms in Buffalo and Carbondale, Ill. booked for months if not years. They’re following weather reports closely, praying for cloudless skies.

The first time I heard of an eclipse, I was in sixth grade. My science teacher, too aptly named Mr. Lux (“light,” in Latin), described the mechanics of the event, but what stayed with me, an anxious child, was not the idea of a world plunged into daytime darkness but the risk of permanent retinal damage posed by looking directly at the eclipse. I couldn’t believe I was permitted proximity to this much peril, this much responsibility over my safety. One glance skyward and I could damage my eyesight forever. Why was I just learning about this now?

I didn’t think much of eclipses again until the very branded “Great American Eclipse” of 2017, for which I procured safety glasses and witnessed a few moments of the sun mostly disappearing on a crowded street corner in Manhattan, near my office. The experience was brief, strange, uncoordinated. A quick astronomy interlude then back to work.

This time around, I’ve been considering the eclipse the way I did the coronation of Charles III: It’s not an event of organic fascination for me, but there’s enough hype and chatter afoot that I want in. I’ll read up and geek out so that I understand its significance, so that I can be a part of the pop-up community that materializes when big things are happening. That’s the blessing and the curse of endless information: If everyone’s talking about something, you can join in on the fun! Also, everyone’s always talking about something; why won’t they ever shut up.

Or, as a friend of mine put it grumpily, “Is this a disturbance in the heavens or a pure product of a grotesque news cycle where everything has to be a topic of ‘the national conversation’?”