Before reading Dillard, I thought of everything I know about eclipses. There's all the scientific information, but I also thought of my personal experiences with them. I can think of two here, right here in Bozeman, but I cannot be sure if they were solar or not. The first eclipse of some sort happened when I was in first grade at Morning Star Elementary--and all I remember of that is we weren't allowed to go outside at recess, and we had to keep our blinds closed all day.
Important moments for a six-year-old. I always kind of wished they'd given us those special glasses to watch the eclipse ourselves, as some of the grown-ups were allowed, but I guess you can't trust all of the 1st-graders to keep those on.
The other eclipse, this one was lunar, happened when I was in 7th grade, and happened to coincide with our moon journal, so we were forced to watch it. It was beautiful, although it happened during the night, and for me, did not inspire a scream.
However, it was an unsettling moment, to see the moon turn red, as if behind a veil, and stay that way for awhile. I can see how seeing an eclipse in full force could inspire, not just a gasp of shock, but a terrified scream, and how, afterwards, nothing is the same.
"A piece of the sun was missing, in its place we saw empty sky." This quotation about the eclipse experience captures the unsettling, almost grieving feeling, perhaps connected to our acceptance of the reliability of the cosmos. The sun sets, the moon rises, the earth circles, the moon orbits, and these are truly the only seemingly reliable things in our world...and nothing is truly ever the same when this core belief is shaken.
Dillard strikes me most with her ideas of OUR ideas, and the little pieces of life we carry along with us without even knowing. How the synapses of the brain fire in weird ways, how our mind follows the most interesting roads just by itself.
"It was a painting of the sort which you do not intend to look at, and which, alas, you never forget. Some tasteless fate presses it upon you; it becomes part of the complex interior junk you carry with you wherever you go."
Dillard also explores the complexity of our brains, and the capacity of memory for so many seemingly useless information. Do I really need to remember the polka, my 6th-grade boyfriend's phone number, the capital of California? Couldn't my limited brain space be used elsewhere, like for, I don't know, school?
Yet, with Dillard's quote, I am reminded that what may seem useless may be useful someday...maybe in a different life, or place, different dimension. Or maybe it isn't useful at all, but it makes up the fabric of who I am and who I will be.
"The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit, till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the nearest puff." A. Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
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