Nows and Forevers

I am three and done. Monday afternoon was the third solar eclipse of my life: The first was in May 1994, 30 years ago next month, when I was under a partial eclipse in the early afternoon in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I always wanted to see a full solar eclipse, and I finally got my chance in August 2017 when I drove about eight hours for 55 seconds of totality in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

It was everything I thought it would be and more. Immediately, I knew I had to see another one and it felt like 2024 would be a long, long time to wait. And it was, but there was a benefit to the Great American Eclipse of 2024: I only had to drive two hours from where I live now to see 3 minutes and 24 seconds of totality.

It was, once again, awesome. It was a different feeling, to be sure. I had already seen totality, felt and seen the sun ebb, watched the shadows fall and then darkness erupt around me. It was vivid, if less than a minute, in 2017. I had three times as much totality Monday and yet it felt short, somewhat rushed. I’m glad I went and it was an experience I’ll never forget. But I don’t have the same feeling as I did seven years ago. It’s hard to explain. I was happy I saw it, felt privileged to be alive in this moment, and wished a little bit I had been able to see it not in a neighboring state I care little about but in a place that meant something to me.

That’s because the final moments of the eclipse in 2024 actually fell in a place that means a lot to me, where I used to live and where I still have strong memories. I actually thought about going back to see it there, but decided against it. Why go so far when it’s already so close to where I live?

Reading the Facebook forums about the eclipse, many can’t wait to see another one. They’re making plans to go to one or the other of the next ones, in Spain and Egypt. But as much as I loved the experience and can say I have seen three eclipses, I don’t have any desire to see another one. And the next one in my hometown in Connecticut is in the latter part of this century, and I’m not going to live that long to see it.

I’m fortunate. Three eclipses are three more than most people get. Other than my father, who went with me in 2017, I don’t know of anyone in my immediate family to ever see one. I’m sure that my great-grandparents could have seen the 1925 one, which was where they lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts. It cut a path from Scranton, Pennsylvania, through the Hudson Valley of New York through Connecticut, that corresponds to more than two-thirds of my life and four generations

I’m sure my grandparents and my mother never got to see one.

But that’s it. And that’s more than four minutes of totality, two separate times where I got to see the sun rise and set twice in one day, actually within the space of several hours. I got to share both totalities with special people in my life. I saw God’s handiwork and it was, like all things, Good.

Yet I don’t desire to see another one.I have the memories. That’s enough.