Chasing 100% Totality! April 2024

I was ready for April to scamper in like a lamb, with gentle showers that would bring May flowers.  Instead, April blew across the country like a lion.  In the very first week, it dropped sleet and threats of snow followed by bone-chilling rains, and that was no April Fool!  It rattled the earth deep underground from a New Jersey epicenter to the NW corner of CT. I would not be surprised to hear that a few of the Wedgewood porcelain dishes in Topsmead butler's pantry even rattled...!
 
But true to April frivolity, the weather promised 60 degrees and clear skies by Monday, April 8, when the sun and the moon were coordinating to produce an annular solar eclipse that would travel in a lovely southwest to northeast arc from Mexico, across the middle of the continental United States, up and across northern New York, Vermont, and out through Maine. 
 
On Monday afternoon, April 8, with solar eclipse glasses shielding their eyes, folks on Topsmead lawn were oohing and aahing as the moon took an hour to cover the sun up to a maximum totality of 93% at 3:27:01pm. As another hour went by, the sun slowly reappeared.  Back to a normal afternoon on Miss Edith's veranda. 
 
I passed up joining the Topsmead eclipse viewers and chose to chase 100% totality rather than be satisfied with 93%.  I drove over to the Finger Lakes of New York State with a friend, planning to sneak into the totality of the eclipse arc at a farm in the somewhat less populated area between Owasco Lake and Cayuga Lake.  On the way, signs began to appear on Rte. 17 (aka The Quickway), saying, "Total Eclipse, April 8, Arrive Early and Stay Late."  Upon arriving, we joined five more friends and were delighted that the morning had started out sunny and optimistic for a clear afternoon of eclipse viewing.
 
We settled into Adirondack chairs at the top of a hillside looking west over the undulating fields. I passed the time munching on eclipse cookies (really Double Stuff Oreos) and reading, courtesy of the Litchfield Historical Society https://blog.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/?p=1506, about the total solar eclipse in Litchfield on January 24, 1925, the same year that construction on Miss Edith's Topsmead cottage was finished.  According to Bob Orintas, the son of her chauffeur, Miss Edith went to the Waterbury Country Club to witness that eclipse, and she thought it was thrilling. 
 
Sadly, by early afternoon, the My Radar app on my iPhone confirmed light high clouds just as the eclipse was due to start.  Even worse, the radar showed a cloud bank threatening light rain moving in slowly from Ohio and due to arrive right about the time of totality-3:23:19pm.   "Look!  It's started! Put on your glasses!"  Through random breaks in the clouds, we caught glimpses of the diminishing sun as the moon moved slowly across its face. "I can see it!  There!  Oh, it's gone behind the clouds again. No wait, there it is."  Our last peek before the clouds thickened overhead was of a fingernail sliver of sun.  Then we noticed a dense darkness approaching low in the southwestern sky.  "Ah," we thought. "That must be the rain finally arriving." 
 
But no!  It was the shadow of the eclipse--the absence of light--the totality.  What should have been a dazzling light show from the sun's corona and ring of fire was hidden completely by the clouds.  We were engulfed in a tactile darkness, our faces visible only in the light of our cell phones.  The heavy dark blanket quieted the birds, stilled the breeze, and stopped the riffling tree leaves.  The black silence lasted for a minute and 25 seconds. 
 
Then the heavy shadow moved off over the field into the northeastern sky, on its way to Syracuse, NY; Burlington, VT; Houlton, ME; New Brunswick, Canada--our faces becoming visible again...now our bodies...now birds...now the breeze...now the riffling tree leaves....we stared at each other...no words.  It was only when the afternoon's normal light was re-established that we realized how dark it had been during that minute and 25 seconds.
 
As my brain began working again, I thought that sometimes darkness can be justified if it serves to remind us how important light is. 
 
Margaret Hunt
BlogMistress