In a 1982 essay, Annie Dillard wrote, “Seeing a partial solar eclipse has the same connection to a total solar eclipse as kissing a man has to marriage.” She describes the strange spirituality of wholeness she witnessed on the mountainside of central Washington.
That's amazing! And I understand her analogy. You can't know how wonderful and strange some things in life are until you experience them. One astronomer put Dillard's point in more scientific terms to a reporter for the Montreal Gazette: You are very far from there. ” The astronomer personally traveled to see her 10 solar eclipses around the world.
From a basic perspective, I understand why people go to great lengths to experience Monday's solar eclipse. For example, the editor of this piece drove at least seven hours each way to northern New Hampshire to see this piece. In 2017, parenting and science writer Melinda Wenner Moyer took her family to see the solar eclipse until the experience felt “magically surreal and worth every mile.” I wondered if dragging it 4,880 miles across the country had been a mistake.
But let me make a point for the rest of us, the non-eclipse chasers at home. A partial solar eclipse will be visible across the United States. Look at it!maybe not as It's cool, but it also makes it cool.
This is my partial solar eclipse experience in New York in 2017. I went to the roof of my apartment building in Chinatown, where my employer at the time, a wire cutter, took the test at his home, and with his co-workers we observed the solar clumps. Taken away by the moon. it was good? Going back to the Dillard example, I don't think it changed my life or anything in terms of how I got married, but it was a good experience in terms of an experience I'd like to repeat. It's certainly a unique twist on your work day.
There are ways to make the most of a partial solar eclipse. Anne Finkbeiner, a writer who focuses on astronomy among other things, chronicled her experience observing a partial solar eclipse from her home in Baltimore in the 1990s, and what happened after she turned her eyes toward the ground instead of the sky. She describes “baby eclipses,” hundreds of tiny crescents that formed in the shadows when vines and leaves acted like pinhole cameras. “I didn't have to do anything; God and physics just gave it to us,” she wrote, adding, “It wasn't a great epiphany, more like a goofy joy. It was,” he added. That's really fun!
And another layer. It has already been established that a partial solar eclipse is not the same experience as a full solar eclipse. But do partial solar eclipses occur? Fewer experience? This is the length of time that the Sun is covered by the Moon in a total orbit only when evaluated in terms of times of the order of 3 minutes (although this time may be even shorter in some places still on Earth). Masu). wholeness). What happens when you factor in all the time, effort, money, and travel costs to your surroundings to spend three minutes there? ) The New York Times reported that one Illinois hotel, a typically inexpensive Super 8, is charging nearly $1,000 for a one-night stay. During the event. “A total solar eclipse in the United States would be like 20 or 30 Super Bowls happening at once,” a member of the American Astronomical Society's solar eclipse task force told Time magazine. The piece warns of traffic jams and advises eclipse chasers to extend their stay in town, arriving early and leaving late. I'm simply not a person who likes being in crowded places. Living in New York provides ample opportunities for this.
I didn't completely just sit back and accept the partial solar eclipse as my own eclipse experience. I briefly considered flying to Texas and staying with a friend. (For some reason I forget now, but this weekend wasn't ideal.) I also thought about traveling to Montreal, a city I truly love. (Although, it's still considered winter at this time of year. We just had a snowstorm in town, and to be honest, I don't want to be there at that time.) My point is; Not only do I not like it, but I think it's next. I prefer my trips to be determined by conditions other than the position of the moon and sun.
A partial solar eclipse may not be the same as a full solar eclipse, but that doesn't mean it won't still be cool. Returning to Dillard's metaphor again, marriage is a wonderful thing. But you know what's amazing? kiss!