Speaker 1: Us was to be ours.
Speaker 2: The eclipse watchers. The poster had been taped to the
Speaker 2: lamp post outside the community center for two weeks before
Speaker 2: anyone paid much attention to it. It was printed on
Speaker 2: bright yellow paper with a black circle in the center
Speaker 2: and the words Solar Eclipse Viewing Party, hill Top Park, Saturday,
Speaker 2: August fourteenth, two o'clock in the afternoon written across the top.
Speaker 2: One corner had peeled away from the tape and hung
Speaker 2: at an angle, casting a small shuttle on the concrete below.
Speaker 2: But someone had also taped a second poster to the
Speaker 2: mailbox at the end of Maple Street and a third
Speaker 2: to the window of the corner bakery, and by the
Speaker 2: end of the second week, nearly everyone in the neighborhood
Speaker 2: knew about the eclipse. Clara first noticed the poster on
Speaker 2: a Tuesday morning when she was walking to the bakery
Speaker 2: for her usual order of one sourdough roll and a
Speaker 2: small cup of black coffee. She stopped at the lamp
Speaker 2: post and read the poster twice, then smiled a quiet
Speaker 2: smile that started at the corners of her mouth and
Speaker 2: spread slowly across her face. She had heard about the
Speaker 2: eclipse on the radio a few days earlier, a brief
Speaker 2: mention between the weather and the traffic report, and she
Speaker 2: had made a mental note to check the details later.
Speaker 2: Now it was back, standing in front of her on
Speaker 2: yellow paper, and she felt a small, warm spark of
Speaker 2: anticipation light up inside her. She had never watched an
Speaker 2: eclipse before. She had heard about them, of course, had
Speaker 2: seen photographs and books and on television, the black circle
Speaker 2: of the moon sliding across the Sun, like a dark
Speaker 2: coin passing over a bright one. She knew, I knew
Speaker 2: you were supposed to wear special glasses, that looking directly
Speaker 2: at the sun could hurt your eyes, and she knew
Speaker 2: the whole thing lasted only a few minutes. But she
Speaker 2: had never stood outside with other people and watched it
Speaker 2: happen in real time. And there was something about the
Speaker 2: idea that appealed to her deeply, something about the shared
Speaker 2: silence and the shared wonder. By Thursday, the poster had
Speaker 2: become the main topic of conversation at the bakery, and
Speaker 2: the laundromat, and the small hardware store on Third Avenue,
Speaker 2: where Clara sometimes went to buy things she did not
Speaker 2: really need but enjoyed browsing young Sophia from the apartment
Speaker 2: above the book store, said she had ordered special eclipse
Speaker 2: glasses online and they had not arrived yet. The baker,
Speaker 2: a round faced woman named Delia who always had flower
Speaker 2: on her apron, said she was going to close the
Speaker 2: shop early on Saturday and bring her two children up
Speaker 2: to the hilltop. Clara volunteered to bring lemonade. She spent
Speaker 2: Friday evening squeezing lemons at her kitchen counter, the juice
Speaker 2: running through her fingers and pulling in the glass bowl below,
Speaker 2: the scent of citrus filling her small apartment like a
Speaker 2: summer morning. She added sugar and water and a handful
Speaker 2: of fresh mint from the pot on her window sill,
Speaker 2: and she stirred it all together, tasting it twice until
Speaker 2: it was just right. She covered the bowl and set
Speaker 2: it in the refrigerator, and then she stood for a
Speaker 2: moment in the quiet kitchen, looking out the window at
Speaker 2: the darkening sky, feeling the anticipation grow stronger. Saturday came
Speaker 2: with the sky so blue it almost hurt to look at.
Speaker 2: The sun was high and hot, and the air was
Speaker 2: thick with the smell of cut grass and warm pavement,
Speaker 2: and the faint sweetness of honeysuckle growing along the fence
Speaker 2: at the edge of the park. Clara carried the lemonade
Speaker 2: in a large glass jar with a lid wrapped in
Speaker 2: a towel to keep it cool, and she walked up
Speaker 2: the hill to Hilltop Park with the jar balanced carefully
Speaker 2: on her hip. The park was a wide, gentle slope
Speaker 2: that rose above the neighborhood, and from the top you
Speaker 2: could see the whole town spread out below, the rooftops
Speaker 2: and the streets and the trees, and beyond that the
Speaker 2: distant blue line of the mountains on the horizon. People
Speaker 2: were already gathering when she arrived. They came in ones
Speaker 2: and twos and small groups, carrying blankets and lawn chairs
Speaker 2: and coolers. Delia was setting up a pick nick blanket
Speaker 2: near the top of the hill, her two children already
Speaker 2: running in circles on the grass, their laughter rising into
Speaker 2: the warm air. Sophia was there, her glasses finally arrived,
Speaker 2: holding them up to the light and tilting her head
Speaker 2: back to test them. And there were others neighbors Clara
Speaker 2: recognized from the streets and the shops, people she nodded
Speaker 2: to on her morning walks. Clara set the lemonade on
Speaker 2: the picnic blanket and sat down beside Delia. More people arrived.
Speaker 2: A young couple brought a portable speaker and played soft music,
Speaker 2: something with an acoustic guitar and a voice that floated
Speaker 2: over the hill like a gentle breeze. A man Clara
Speaker 2: did not recognize, set up a telescope on a tripod
Speaker 2: and began adjusting the lens with careful, precise movements. The
Speaker 2: hill filled slowly with people and blankets and chairs, and
Speaker 2: the sound of conversation rose and fell like the tide.
Speaker 2: At one forty five, some one called out that the
Speaker 2: glasses were being passed around. Clara took a pair and
Speaker 2: held them up, peering through the dark lenses at the sky.
Speaker 2: The sun was a small, deep orange circle, dim and strange.
Speaker 2: She lowered the glasses and looked at the hill around her,
Speaker 2: at the faces turned upward, at the children sitting cross
Speaker 2: legged with wide expectant eyes, and she felt a sudden,
Speaker 2: fierce love for all of them, for this small gathering
Speaker 2: of neighbors who had come together to watch something ancient
Speaker 2: and beautiful happen above their heads. At two o three
Speaker 2: b the moon touched the sun It began as a
Speaker 2: tiny notch, a small bite taken out of the upper
Speaker 2: right edge of the solar disk. But then it grew slowly, steadily,
Speaker 2: the dark edge of the moon sliding across the face
Speaker 2: of the Sun. The crowd fell quiet, the music stopped,
Speaker 2: the children stopped fidgeting. Even the birds seemed to sense something,
Speaker 2: their songs fading one by one, until the only sounds
Speaker 2: on the hilltop were the soft rustle of wind in
Speaker 2: the grass and the occasional whisper of someone pointing upward.
Speaker 2: Clara raised the glasses and watched the moon moved across
Speaker 2: the Sun with a patience that felt almost alive. The
Speaker 2: sky began to change, the deep blue softening to a pale,
Speaker 2: silvery hue, and the temperature dropped just enough to raise
Speaker 2: goose bumps on Clara's arms. The shadows on the ground
Speaker 2: grew strange and sharp, and the light took on an eerie,
Speaker 2: metallic quality, as if the whole world had been dipped
Speaker 2: in silver. At two twenty one, the moon covered the
Speaker 2: Sun completely. The corona appeared, a shimmering ring of white
Speaker 2: light surrounding the black disk of the moon, and the
Speaker 2: crowd gasped a single collective intake of breath. Clara lowered
Speaker 2: her glasses and stared upward with her naked eyes, because
Speaker 2: during totality it was set to look, and the sight
Speaker 2: was so beautiful that she forgot to breathe. The sky
Speaker 2: was dark, but not night dark, more like deep twilight,
Speaker 2: and on the horizon a band of orange and pink
Speaker 2: glowed where the sun still shone beyond the edge of
Speaker 2: the moon's shadow. A few of the children cried out
Speaker 2: in wonder, and someone laughed, a sound of pure, helpless joy,
Speaker 2: and Clara felt tears slide down her cheeks, warm and silent,
Speaker 2: and she did not wipe them away. She stood on
Speaker 2: the hilltop with her neighbors, surrounded by the silver twilight,
Speaker 2: and she looked up at the corona, and she felt
Speaker 2: something she could not name, something larger than happiness, something
Speaker 2: deeper than wonder. It was a feeling of being small
Speaker 2: and being held, of being one person among many, standing
Speaker 2: on a hill looking up at something that had been
Speaker 2: happening for millions of years, long before anyone was here
Speaker 2: to watch it. And yet they were here right now,
Speaker 2: all of them, sharing this moment, this brief and precious
Speaker 2: darkening of the sky, and the sharing made it real,
Speaker 2: made it madder. Total lasted two minutes in thirty eight seconds.
Speaker 2: Then the first liver of sunlight returned, a brilliant white
Speaker 2: arc on the left edge of the moon's disk, and
Speaker 2: the crowd cheered softly. Gently. The light grew, spreading across
Speaker 2: the hill like a slow exhale, and the colors returned
Speaker 2: to the sky, and the birds began to sing again,
Speaker 2: tentatively at first, then with increasing confidence. Clara sat back
Speaker 2: down and poured herself a cup of lemonade. The liquid
Speaker 2: was cool and tart and just slightly sweet, and she
Speaker 2: drank it slowly, savoring each sip. Around her people were
Speaker 2: talking again, their voices animated and warm, describing what they
Speaker 2: had seen. Delia's children were eating sugar cookies and arguing
Speaker 2: about who had gotten the bigger bite. Old mister Hensley,
Speaker 2: who had been sitting quietly in his folding chair, was
Speaker 2: telling Sophia about an eclipse he remembered from nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 2: his voice steady and shore, and Sophia was listening with
Speaker 2: the kind of attention that made old men feel young again.
Speaker 2: Clara stayed on the hill until the moon had moved
Speaker 2: completely past the sun, and the sky was blue and
Speaker 2: bright and ordinary again. She helped Delia fold the picnic
Speaker 2: blanket and pack the cooler, and she carried the empty
Speaker 2: lemonade jar back down the hill, its glass warm from
Speaker 2: the afternoon sun. The streets were quiet as she walked home,
Speaker 2: and the air smelled of warm grass and honeysuckle. That night,
Speaker 2: Clara sat by her window and watched the stars come out.
Speaker 2: She thought about the eclipse, about the silver light and
Speaker 2: the silent crowd, in the two minutes and thirty eight
Speaker 2: seconds of totality that had felt like a lifetime. She
Speaker 2: thought about her neighbors, about the lemonade and the sugar cookies,
Speaker 2: and the telescope on the tripod. She thought about the
Speaker 2: way the light had returned, slow and sure, like a
Speaker 2: promise kept. And she smiled. And she pulled the curtains
Speaker 2: closed and climbed into bed and lay there in the dark,
Speaker 2: listening to the soft sounds of the night, feeling the
Speaker 2: warmth of the day still held in her bones, and
Speaker 2: she slept deeply and peacefully, the way you sleep after
Speaker 2: you have witnessed something beautiful and shared it with people
Speaker 2: you love.