With Its Diadem

I took an evening walk last night, one week after the eclipse. Without thinking I headed west, toward the setting sun. 

I think of our nearest star differently now, having seen it, well, naked is not exactly the word. Exposed isn't either. Transformed? Chastened? I won't use Emily Dickinson's phrase "without its diadem" because a corona is a diadem if ever I saw one.

It's more that the sun and I (and millions of other people) now have a special bond. We've been through something together. So when I watch it sink low in the sky and redden the horizon, I think of when the horizon reddened in every direction. I remember the cool air and the bird song and the glowing white ring.

It's nice to be reminded of all that.

(Photo: NASA)

In the End

Back home now after two 12-hour drives that bookended a day of planetary splendor. First, I want to credit the supporting cast, the resplendent redbud trees that lined the highway and gave my weary eyes something to feast on, counteracting the white-line fever. 

And the clouds themselves, which provided a light show late Sunday as crepuscular rays slanted down to the flat, black, Indiana fields, already plowed, waiting to be planted.  The clouds that politely parted on Monday, letting the sun and moon steal the show. The clouds that returned Tuesday, making for a muted and pleasant drive east.

But it was Earth's star and satellite that stole the show. Our own sun, in a form I'd never seen before. Not blotted out but transformed, covered enough to let its true splendor shine forth "like shining from shook foil." 

Since Monday afternoon I've been trying to put the feeling into words. It was awe-inspiring, yes. Once-in-a-lifetime, yes again. Most of all, it was comforting. It was light winning out in the end. 

(Monday, April 8, 3:04 p.m.)

Total Eclipse

The temperature dropped.  Birds sang their roosting songs. And then, the sun went away. All that was left was a ring of fire. 

Our safety glasses came off, someone blasted "A Total Eclipse of the Heart," and for almost four minutes we gaped in amazement at the darkened world, the weird twilight, our hilltop transformed.

I looked up and around, to the left and the right, marveled at the 360-degree "sunset." I felt a shiver up my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. And then, it was over. 

"This was the universe about which we have read so much and never before felt," wrote Annie Dillard in an essay called "Total Eclipse," "the universe as a clockwork of loose spheres, flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds."

I looked at my photos, none of which captured the corona, and there, glimmering in the lower right-hand corner of one, was a single white dot. It was the planet Venus — in the middle of an Indiana afternoon. 

Effort and Ease

I often get ideas in yoga class. Breaking my concentration to write them down seems most un-yogi-like, though, so I try to file them away to retrieve later. 

Last week the inspiration arrived during shavasana, the final, resting pose, when you spend a few minutes lying down and (at least for me) trying not to fall asleep. The teacher read us a passage about kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing ceramics with gold lacquer, celebrating the cracks rather than hiding them. Obvious post potential in that, but I'm saving it for another day.

Today I want to explore a suggestion I heard in class several weeks earlier: the need to balance effort and ease in each yoga pose. While some contortions seem more effortful than easy, I can see the wisdom in maintaining these two poles. If you're slacking, pick it up. If you're hurting, tone it down.

Some of us find it easier to slack, others to overdo. But neither attitude gets us where we want to be. To find freedom in movement requires attentiveness and relaxation, strength and flexibility, effort and ease.

Surely this isn't just advice for yoga, but for life. 

Still a Baby

The new year is no longer the shiny new penny that shows up from time to time in my change purse. It has dulled around the edges. But when I look at the days proportionately — 18 out of 366 — 2024 is still in its infancy. A resolution stands a chance with odds like that.

Which is why I trundled out to a yoga class at 8:30 on the coldest morning of the year yesterday. Not just for the stretching and the strengthening, but also for the meditative aspect of it. 

The trip was worth it. The class was small, and the instructor was experienced. She took us through a variety of poses and encouraged us to use our breath to get into and out of them. Studio lights were low, music was soft. When I left, the new year seemed young again. 

(Ah, to be as limber as a baby! Photo: CCC)

I'm Hooked!

I noticed it as soon as I finished the project, a baby blanket. I knew then that I would have to start crocheting something else before too long. 

It's funny how I can go for years without needlework but then it blossoms back into my life and I can't live without it. The crochet hook between my fingers, the yarn moving through them, keeping it taut (or trying to). Seeing a skein of wool become an afghan.

Crocheting siphons off energy that would otherwise become rumination or worry. Crocheting calms and soothes. I'm due for another project. Another blanket, two colors at least. One of them pink. 

Sharing Epiphany

Today is Epiphany, celebrated as Christmas by some and as a day of wonder and awe by others. I'm one of the latter. For me, this is a day to celebrate the aha moments of life.

Which brings me to an op-ed I read in yesterday's Washington Post. In it, James Naples, a surgeon and medical residency program director, shares how he conquered the yips, an unexplained loss of skill that affects high-performing athletes, performers and, apparently, surgical residents. 

Early in his training, Naples explained, he began to struggle through even basic procedures. "My head had gotten in the way of my hands." Then he met a new senior surgeon, Dr. E., who in the three minutes it took the two of them to scrub for an operation, totally changed the younger surgeon's trajectory. The older doctor was warm and open and approachable. There was only one thing to avoid doing in the upcoming procedure, he said. "Everything else is fixable." 

The effect on Naples was profound. The younger surgeon realized it was okay to make mistakes, that it was part of the learning process. Now he's mentoring new doctors, encouraging them to share their fears and doubts. '

I'm not a surgical resident, but the lesson that "all mistakes are fixable" resonates with me, too. "What thing worth doing — in our jobs, families or communities — is not susceptible to the folly of perfectionism?" Naples asks. "With honesty and empathy, we all can help others find peace with fallibility." I'm grateful that Naples had his epiphany and shared it with the rest of us.

(A photo not of surgery but of an Epiphany surprise.)

This Time With Music

This should have been yesterday's post. But yesterday I hadn't yet watched a televised recording of what I witnessed in person the evening before, albeit from a distance.

It's been our habit lately to watch the 4th of July fireworks on D.C.'s mall — the same ones that appear in living rooms across the land — from a ridge in Arlington, across the Potomac. While this provides a hassle-free and far-off glimpse at the gorgeous display, it doesn't supply a soundtrack. 

I got that yesterday, when I took in the replay of what I watched live Tuesday night. This time there were no toddlers jumping on and off my lap, but there was Renee Fleming singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and the National Symphony playing "1812 Overture." 

It was fireworks with music. It was what I'd been missing.

Memorial Day Movie

I briefly tried watching the National Memorial Day concert last evening before switching to the Memorial Day Marathon on Turner Classic Movies, where I found a film I'd never heard of called "Hell to Eternity."

This 1960 movie tells the true story of Guy Gabaldon, a Marine who was raised by a Japanese family and who singlehandedly and peacefully took 1,500 prisoners on Saipan, aided by the Japanese language he learned as a child. 

It's a rare film that depicts the incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps during the war and features Japanese actors playing Japanese characters. Also, while there are plenty of combat scenes, the movie ultimately glorifies not the fighting but our common humanity. 

Not a bad way to see in Memorial Day 2023. 

(From left, actor Jeffrey Hunter, the real Guy Gabaldon, and actor David Janssen from the set of the film "Hell to Eternity," courtesy TCM.)

The Beauty

I've lost track of how many times I've trekked around the Tidal Basin to see Washington, D.C.'s cherry trees in bloom. More times than I can count, for sure. I've seen the trees with toddlers in tow, with Mom long ago, but for the last many years, I've seen the blossoms alone, usually before or after work.

Yesterday I went down early, as if it were still a workday for me, wanting to beat the crowds. I snapped photos of people, not just blossoms, because it's the people I notice year after year. Old and young, nimble and slow-moving. The amateur photographers and the serious, long-lensed people, too. 

There was a woman in a strapless dress with a pink parasol. She made a lovely focal point for this amateur photographer, but she must have been cold. I was wearing three layers. 

If you look closely at her, you'll notice the water lapping nearly at her feet. Some parts of the path were completely submerged and pedestrians had to detour up a little hill until the trail reappeared. There have been articles lately about the peril the blossoms face with rising sea levels and early blooms. 

But when I saw the trees again, I wasn't thinking about the peril—just appreciating the beauty. 

The Deep

The sounds of a party filled the place: laughter, conversation, the clink of glasses. But step away from the main room and it was another world. 

Sharks patrol their waters with ruthless intensity. Rainbow fish flit to and fro, a blue starfish pulsing in their tank. Porcupine fish bristle. And stingrays glide through the water like so many fluttering handkerchiefs. 

At the entrance, schools of sea creatures swim to the left of us, to the right of us, and above us, too. It was a dramatic entry into another world, a world of the deep.

January 6th

It was only after I had posted yesterday that I remembered the date: January 6, the Epiphany, Little Christmas, a day set aside (by me, at least) to celebrate insight, discovery, the sudden revelation.

But since last year, January 6th has taken on a different meaning, one of anger and fear and ignominy. The opposite of light and wonder. 

You could say that last year's January 6th was a revelation. It revealed a dark truth about this nation. But I'd rather keep the day free of politics, let it stay in my mind the capstone of the season, a day to reflect with hope on the year just dawning. 

Eighty Years

Shortly after publishing yesterday's post, I realized that yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Eighty years ... 

I looked back to see what I'd written on the 70th anniversary, and there was something I'd forgotten about: a special showing of the movie "12 O'Clock High" at a Lexington, Kentucky, cinema, which Dad had organized and hosted. 

I remember that now, how excited he was about it, how he had a little display area out in the vestibule of the movie house, with uniforms and medals and other memorabilia loaned by members of the Kentucky chapter of the 8th Air Force Historical Society.

Now, the World War II veterans are almost all gone. One of the more famous, Bob Dole, just passed away at the age of 98. My dad was not one of the more famous, except to me and the rest of us who loved him. But Dad was World War II to me, and since he's been gone, I read as little about it as possible. 

(Photo: Genealogy Trails History Group)

All Souls

With Halloween and All Saints Day behind us, we come one again to a more humble celebration in the liturgical calendar: All Souls, the day set aside each year to honor the dead. Not just the famous or the pious but everyone. 

That's a lot of souls. According to the Population Reference Bureau, about 109 billion.  And every one of them once a life, a presence, a story. 

I don't know about you, but this day feels more sacred to me than all the others. 

Bye Bye, Brood X!

There's no way of knowing who he or she will be, no way of pinpointing the last cicada in Virginia. Will it be a female dragging herself to a Kwanzan cherry tree to lay her eggs, perform her final duty. She walks so slowly up the trunk, settles herself with infinite tenderness. 

Or will it be a male, singing forlornly to the ether, no ladies left with whom to mate but warbling his most beguiling tune anyway. Beguiling to other cicadas, that is, shrill and sad to us.

The rest of their brood has been swept off of decks and stairways. Cicada carcasses have piled up at the base of crepe myrtles or road berms, marking where the insects met with predators — birds, dogs, automobiles. The tiny corpses litter the yards and driveways. 

Except for a few stowaways, Brood X is becoming a memory, a moment, a thing of the past.

And yet ... even now the young are burrowing into the dark soil, tunneling down to their long sleep. In their species memory is a golden era, filled with flitting and humming and loving. They know, if they bide their time, it will come again. 

The Shot

In the end it's no more than a pinprick, but into it has gone the world's hope and desperation — the former more than the latter, I believe, but you never know. 

The second will come four weeks from now, and then ... what? A sort of freedom, to be sure. But still no old life as we know it. 

Maybe in time, when enough of us have had what I was lucky enough to get yesterday, and that due not just to science and ingenuity but also to the kindness of a friend, who alerted me to the arrival of vaccines in a hospital where I had not checked for them. 

It was a longer drive than I would have liked ... but it was worth it. 

Baby Girl!

Our second grandchild arrived in the wee hours of the morning: a little girl this time! Like her cousin, she was born slightly before the due date, an awesome accomplishment that has me wondering ... will both these children be punctual beings, or more than punctual, will they always arrive early? An amazing thought!

Childbirth in the age of Covid means we are scattered about the region and the country, sharing the news with middle-of-the-night texts, sending hearts and flowers and congratulations notes, waking and cheering and giving thanks and falling back to sleep (or trying to) with images of infants in our heads. 

Suzanne was a sweet big sister right from the start, as she demonstrates here, in one of the first photos I have of her holding Claire. 

Now she's holding a baby of her own, long awaited, cherished and treasured by many. I hope mom, dad and baby feel the love we're sending their way. I bet they do!

Lift Off!

Surely we needed this, needed the collective holding of breath, the general release when the rocket rose from the launching pad, up into the Florida sky, away from this earth with its virus and lockdowns and riots. Surely we needed something to make us raise our eyes from the here and now, into the heavens.

The Falcon Rocket, along with its two human passengers, lifted off an hour ago, at 3:22 p.m. — the first launch in almost a decade and the first ever from a rocket built by a private company.  It plans to rendezvous with the International Space Station at 10:30 tomorrow, meaning that these astronauts, both veterans of other space flights, will not be hitching a ride on a Russian craft.

As I write these earthbound words I hear the roar of jets making their final approach to Dulles. The dreams of flight that were realized more than a hundred years ago are propelling us still — and, as today's milestone makes clear — they will continue to do so.

Three Years

As if I needed another reminder of time's quick passage, today I celebrate three years at my "new" job. Three years sitting on the fifth floor of a steel and glass building, staring out the windows but mostly staring at my screen. Three years traveling to report on stories, visiting places I never thought I'd see, meeting people around the world.

I won't say it seems like yesterday that I began this new adventure. In many ways it seems longer (which, I guess, is a vote against time's quick passage). But it seems longer in the way that new and familiar things often do.

Already the years are speeding up here. The time between my first few months, when I could barely tell one project from another, and this time last year seems like quite a stretch compared with the past 12 months.

On the whole, though, I'm feeling quite lucky on this three-year anniversary. I work harder than I have to, but it's work that engages, and sometimes even inspires. Can't ask for much more than that.

100 Years

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Today we celebrate 100 years since the end of the Great War, World War 1, which killed an estimated 10 million soldiers.

My grandfather fought in the cavalry, and when I went with Mom to Europe many years ago, she shuddered as our train passed through Verdun and other battle sites.

The past not that long past to her, because it lived on through the memories of her father.

World War II is the war that lived in my memory, and in a way similar to Mom's — because my father fought in it.

But it is World War I we memorialize today, the War to End All Wars (oh, how I wish that were true).   Here are the last paragraphs of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front:

He fell in October, 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.

He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.

(World War 1 trenches, 1916. Photo: Wikipedia)