After many years as a journalist, I’m slowly grasping that sometimes, a little distance from a news event might be needed to grasp its real significance. That seems true for last month’s solar eclipse, which grabbed headlines for a few days and is now mostly forgotten. Here in Louisiana, there was an especially good reason to put away that story quickly. Clouds and rain made viewing in our part of the world a bust.
But weeks later, I’m inclined to think our group effort at skygazing still had a lot of value. On Eclipse Day, I’ll admit, I wasn’t so sure. Instead, I was nagged by a question: What if you gave an eclipse party and everyone showed up but the guests of honor?
The quandary plagued me as I helped our office prepare for the eclipse, stirring up a gallon of lemonade for the break room. From a bakery down the street, I’d ordered eclipse cookies — circular treats iced half lemon and half chocolate in a nod to sunlight and shadow. My boss brought eclipse glasses, and everything was ready but the weather. After days of flawless spring days, our local skies clouded, shrouding sun and moon behind a curtain of gray. Then it started to rain. In my neighborhood, our blockbuster astronomical feature turned out to be a dud.
Yet I couldn’t help thinking, as my coworkers and I gathered for an eclipse that became a no-show, that our afternoon watch party hadn’t been a total loss.
The gathering itself meant a rare opportunity to connect with colleagues I usually glance only in the hallway as we dash from one deadline or business meeting to another. I caught up with Chip and Kay about their teenagers, comforted a work friend who is nursing a sick mother, and got the latest news from my CEO about his houseful of dogs.
In a country where social isolation is widely lamented, get-togethers inspired by the simple wish to share something good are a real bright spot in any season, as I was moved to remember while I talked at our eclipse watch party with people I treasure. The grim skies outside didn’t seem to matter. In basic fellowship, we had sparked something luminous on our own.
It was also nice to look from our office windows, glazed with raindrops, and marvel at the kind of weather we could only hope for during last summer’s drought.
Even in a world where the march of the moon can be predicted as reliably as a bus schedule, we’re not, it appears, in charge of the universe. It’s an easy thing to overlook, though the ashen skies over my workplace on Eclipse Day last month brought it home to me.
That reality can be a source of liberation, too. The bum weather at my eclipse party reminded me that not everything can be planned. Then again, miracles seldom are.