postcards from a solar eclipse

Solar eclipse photos, some eclipse flash fiction, and a hint of things to come

Glimpses of a solar eclipse

This week’s Rough Draft is something a little different because I’ve been traveling and haven’t had the time to write the kind of post I’d usually share. Over the past four days I’ve spent nearly 28 hours in a car driving between where I live in Kansas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I went to view this past weekend’s annular solar eclipse. My husband is an amateur astronomer, and we used the eclipse as an excuse to take a quick vacation and also catch sight of this somewhat rare occurrence.

What I didn’t expect was that it was almost as fun watching people watch the eclipse as it was to watch the eclipse itself. We found a spot in a park near the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market that was pleasantly uncrowded and set up a tripod to take photos. There were others there too, setting up cameras and lawn chairs or just milling about with eclipse glasses. We exchanged excited chatter and questions about cameras. It was nice to find the kind of ease and shared excitement that runs through a space when everyone is there to experience the same thing. We all watched as the moon slowly obscured the sun, finally blocking it enough to cause a shadowy cast to fall over the park and a “ring of fire” to peek out around the moon’s edges. One group even came prepared and played Johnny Cash as the moon moved fully in front of the sun.

Just as the eclipse reached its height, a pair of women who had come to Santa Fe following the hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque happened upon the camera we’d set up. Assuming they’d missed the eclipse, we eagerly pointed out the incredible display still taking place and showed them what was visible in the camera’s viewfinder. They were ecstatic to have happened on the park at just the right moment, and exclaimed over and over what a blessing it was. “It’s good energy for change,” one of them told us, and then added, “for good change.”

I don’t know if I necessarily believe in planetary shifts in energy that affect us all in the same way, but what I do believe is that via strangers, the words we need often find us at the right time.

Right now I feel that applies to my writing, my work, and really my whole life. It felt good to have encouragement in that regard reflected back from a stranger during such a beautiful moment.

Here are a few photos from our viewing of the eclipse:

Using our eclipse glasses! The weather was perfect in Santa Fe and altogether we spent about an hour and a half watching the eclipse transpire.

While the eclipse glasses were great, it was almost more fun watching what was happening through the viewfinder on our camera. Eyepiece is covered with solar film so we didn’t fry our eyes while viewing!

What we saw through the viewfinder at the height of the eclipse.

While the moon was in front of the sun, it was possible to see the shape of the eclipse in the light that made it through small holes in paper or metal, if you could find the right focal length. The better defined the holes were, the sharper the image appeared. We tried with cardboard that we’d punched some holes in, but found that the edges were too fuzzy to see well. A couple nearby called us over so we could see the crescent shapes cast by a colander they’d brought, which worked quite well!

I tried using a donut hole to create the same effect, and it worked. Kind of. You’ll just have to trust me that those blobs of light are eclipse-shaped!

The photo my husband took at the height of the eclipse, from his actual camera. Incredible!

Some eclipse flash fiction

During the summer of 2017, my region experienced another eclipse - a total solar eclipse that caused the area to become totally dark for a short period of time. I was taking a flash fiction course at the time, and our instructor had us use the eclipse as a prompt. This is a shortened extract of what I wrote at the time; I thought it fit well with an eclipse-themed newsletter. Enjoy!

The wind is in her ear again. She dusts off the worn indigo canvas knapsack and heads for the prairies of Nebraska. She is looking for the place where, at the appointed time, that trickster of dimension, depth, will place the sun behind the homely grey rock of the moon.

She has heard that it will look like silver fire. She has heard that stars will be visible midday; that it will be like seeing the end of the world. This unsettles something in her - that the apocalypse may be visible for just a moment. That it may be beautiful.

The miles thrum away beneath her tires. Here there are fewer houses and more cicadas, singing louder and longer as they blunder nearer to a midday twilight. The hills throw back their shoulders and smooth into fields of gray-green tallgrass, entire pastures undulating with a steady pulse. Limestone outcroppings jut up on hillsides and ridges like rows of broken teeth. The stones whisper their tales of an ancient ocean, teeming with remnants of life.

When she is the only vehicle in sight, she leans out the window, turning her face skyward. The sun is fierce against the sea of grasses, whitening their edges like foam at the cresting of great waves. Now its brightness is hiding a full moon, all of the stars, maybe even comets. How has she never realized that they are always there? She shivers, reveling in anticipation of the few minutes day itself will disappear behind the lonely moon - the one with human footprints on its surface. It is a dark joy bearable perhaps only for its brevity.

A smile plays along her lips, and she tilts her head into the wind, listening for the soft old voice of the sea.

A hint of things to come

If you’ve made it this far, here’s an ambiguous-but-with-a-deadline teaser for something I’ve been hinting at on my Instagram for some time now. I had mentioned at one point that I had some behind-the-scenes projects brewing that I would be announcing “sometime soon.” This newsletter was one of those projects.

There are two others, which go hand in hand, and I’ll be sending out a special newsletter later this month with the full details. It’s not book-shaped, but it is storytelling-related, and I can’t wait to tell you more!