Eclipse Waffle
June 30th 1954 was a Wednesday. I was 9, out in the school playground, feet sturdily planted in my Startrite sandals, and chock full of beans and a sense of impending awe. Miss White had issued us all with a piece of candle-smoked glass along with stern instructions not to peek around it. Poor time planning on Whitey’s part created an excessively drawn-out experience of a partial eclipse for a yardful of wired youngsters. Soon fidgetty and distracted, we were hastily herded back into the classroom as soon as it got gloomy, for a very basic blackboard introduction to the time-honoured ways of Sun and Moon. Confused and slightly underwhelmed, I nevertheless skipped home feeling vaguely important.
Another London Wednesday afternoon, in 1999, found me sitting by a hospital bed. My father lay there, suddenly befrailed and broken by the recent loss of my mother; no longer required to be the patient and Herculean carer; unfamiliar with the weight of his own fears. I tried to engage him in light and airy conversation, but he was immune, even to the buzz of the impending total eclipse which would normally have thrilled him. In these circumstances, I was resigned to letting the cosmos do its groovy thing without me in attendance, and prattled on about earthly trivia as the light from the window slowly diminished, and the ward lighting began to compensate.
Suddenly, the usually soporific ward sprang to life as the main doors burst open. Not for the tea trolley, but a group of maybe ten uniformed doctors and nurses who swept into the ward brandishing fistfuls of old X-Rays, which they proffered to anyone ambulant. “Just five minutes to go,” announced he who was later identified as a significant brain surgeon, as they made their way to the fire exit at the end of the ward. “Go take a peep for me,” urged Pop, as I was handed an A4 size X-ray of someone’s skull. And so it was that I followed the gang out onto the large fire escape balcony; where I joyfully jostled with a bunch of excited strangers, as we raised our sheets of random anatomies to witness what was the most viewed total eclipse in human history. The critical peak was over and done in around ten minutes, whereupon my new chums recovered their ghoulish viewers and hastily retreated back to their assorted earthly duties, their hearts and minds well plumped by a chunky dose of awe & wonder. Eager to share my own quite profound experience, I sailed back to the bedside, but Pop had slunk into a deep and healing sleep. My report would have to wait.
Today, on a Welsh Wednesday, another partial eclipse (‘eclipse’ being Greek for abandonment) was a more serene experience, sat with a glass of wine under a silver birch tree overlooking a glittering sea. Less dramatic than a full abandonment, a soft breeze rustled through the overhead leaves, as the twitter of the swallows began to fade. As the light of our sun softly diffused, the fiercely intense heat of the day just evaporated and rode off on the breeze, and all became momentarily idyllic and hopeful and overwhelmingly earthly, and I got a little something in my eye. And then the swallows picked up where they had left off, the sheep all went bleaaaagh, and a peachy glow heralded a cozy sunset. And maybe The Gods smiled down on us.