The Eclipse

Our little moon, making a stand.  
Saying, for a moment, “not today, Sun.”

We love our moon so much.  It’s not that we don’t love the sun, but the sun is foreign, powerful, bright in ways we don’t understand.  We can’t even look at her without special glasses. The moon, she’s one of us.  The sun keeps us alive, but the moon is where magic lives.  She was forcibly blasted from the earth 4.5 billion years ago, and like some poor orphan sister, she didn’t get all the stuff she needed.  The things that make the earth so cozy for us:  an atmosphere, water, air, gravity, plants that photosynthesize, IPA, coffee, the Internet, dogs – the moon doesn’t have any of that stuff.  

But she follows us around like a puppy, endlessly circling, going nowhere.  We ignore her during the day, and wonder whether it will be sunny or not.  We don’t ask whether it will be a moony night.  But when the tide is low, the babies are born, and the dogs howl, we remember that she’s out there, with her ghostly, invisible hand in our lives.

Earthlings visited her once and left a flag; I’m not sure why.  Not that there’s anything wrong with the flag (at least… well, I won’t get into that here.  Because this is about the moon, our faithful little sister.  But jeez, what ever happened to 'take only pictures, leave only footprints'?  Do we really think we can own the moon?)

And, truth:  she’s moving away from us.  With each orbit, imperceptibly farther away, like a child growing up.  Eventually, we won’t experience total eclipses of the sun.  Right now is the perfect time, when the distances work out so that the tiny moon can completely obscure the huge distant star.  As our relationship with the moon grows more distant, that won’t work.  (I know – you’re acting that out right now.  I did too.  Holding the penny, the orange, the soccer ball.  Experimenting with distances between them so that the penny can blot out the soccer ball.)

So, my kids and I set out for a basic quick family trip.  The kind where you learn little things about one another, like this:  we all find strange comfort in staying at cheap motels on the outskirts of town, the part of town that isn’t particularly walkable.

On the morning of the eclipse, we drove a few miles from our campsite to get deeper into the path of totality, and parked by the side of the road.  In Oregon, the high desert is so beautiful that every field involves gorgeous scenery.  Our particular view revealed amber waves of grain, Mount Jefferson, and the high desert where the scarce water creates a precise, thrifty order.  "The plants," my daughter said, "are so organized here."  We sat, playing with our cardboard glasses, and waiting.  It was fun – a science field trip that I was able to lure my kids on.  The eclipse was the bonus, but time with my kids was the main event.  Not much was apparent with the eclipse for quite a while.  If you looked through the glasses, you could see the moon beginning her little march, but without the glasses, meh.

But weird, tiny things began to happen.  This:  a group of bicyclists rode by in spandex, and in the very short amount of time that they were passing us (30 seconds?), we overheard a man say, “Yes, I have a friend who’s blind, and he does tandem mountain biking.”  I’m still thinking about that.  And then, a little kid, whose family was parked across the street from us, wearing a shirt that said something like, “I’m from Oregon and I have a gun”, said “You won’t even be able to open that car door, it’s 3,000 times heavier than normal.”  It seemed like, as the sun slowly disappeared behind the bold little moon, everyone became a little more interesting than normal.

And suddenly, when darkness fell, I started crying and couldn’t stop.  I’ve been thinking about it for 10 days now, wondering why.  I expected an amazing scientific event, not an emotional one.  Maybe it’s because, with the sun disappearing, I felt vulnerable.  We can’t rely on the things we need.  It can get cold and dark in the middle of a bright morning.  Maybe it was inherited fear, embedded in my cells, from ancestors who didn’t understand that the eclipse was temporary, that the sun would come back, that we would still have light and heat and fuel for plants to grow.  Maybe, looking across the high desert landscape at the horses running into the barn, I could relate to their fear.  Or maybe, as the sky turned hauntingly yellow, and then dark, it allowed my deeply repressed panic for our little earth to surface.  Things are changing so rapidly that I don’t think we’ll be able to live here in the future.   The apocalypse is upon us.  And yet, in spite of it all, there was this moment, this beautiful, tender moment that I had the good fortune to spend with the people I love most in the world.

We shall not be moved

When Obama was president, I had the luxury (and the good spirits) to have a funny blog.  I wrote about the quirky people and circumstances that cross my path, and all was light and fun.  It’s not funny around here anymore.  We’ve been hiding out in our basements, waiting to see if North Korea is going to call 45’s bluff, because we’re in nuclear warhead distance, as it were, of N. Korea.  They talk on the radio about what to do.  (Note:  Eclipse glasses won't do a bit of good in the nuclear bomb situation.)  We don’t even have basements here.  So we have been lying around in our crawl spaces with the rodents.  And, until a few days ago, the skies were dark with soot and smog from the fires in Canada -- a preview of what’s to come if we don’t start taking climate change seriously.  (I wanted to say that with more emphasis, like, “Dead-ass seriously” but that didn’t sound quite right.)  And, it's been unbearably hot, like in the 90’s.  No rain for months.  We were already at that, “fine, North Korea, bring it on, we can’t breathe here anyway,” point.

But the heartbreak ratcheted up to a new unspeakable level this weekend:  white guys with tiki torches and their rally against oppression.    The kind of oppression that healthy young men with names like Bob and Dave suffer routinely.  Where they make 20 percent more money than the women they sleep with, where businesses are closed for the religious holidays they celebrate, where citizenship, the one they happened into by being born, protects their freedom to rally and spew their angry, small-minded, hate-filled rhetoric.  Those oppressed guys.  You know the ones.  I started crying about the whole situation and couldn’t quite stop.

Anyway, just like North Korea, I realize that I’m in a good spot to take some risks. I’ve enjoyed the good fortune of being born white and middle class and all that comes with it.  I’ve raised two beautiful humans, and been able to live in one of the most gorgeous places on the planet, and I’ve had all the thumbs and legs and friends and brain cells that I’ve needed (so far).  Life has been good to me.  

No one is counting on me for anything at this point, except for my dog, who enjoys kibbles at precisely 6:30 am and 5:00 pm, uncannily, as if she wears a watch.  (She doesn’t even wear pants, so there’s absolutely no way she’s getting a watch.  Have you ever seen a naked dog in a jewelry store, trying to buy a watch?)   Although I know she loves me madly, if I disappeared, she would find someone else to give her kibbles.  In a day or two, she would have forgotten all about me.  That’s the beautiful thing about dogs:  they move on with a grace that we can only dream of.  They live in the present moment.  My point with all of this is simply that I’ve got the freedom that Janis sang about, in a good way. 

So I went to a counter-protest yesterday, which is a confusing phrase.   I was there to protest the people who are protesting that this country is rich with diverse cultures, ethnicities, and religions.  The protesters want this country to be populated only by people from European countries who celebrate Christmas and wear polo shirts and MAGA hats.  They believe, I suppose, that expressing hatred towards people who are different from them is the way to make America great. The counter protesters want all beings to have a place at the table:  a roof overhead, clean water, satisfying work, acceptance, a chance to love who they love in peace, and with the support of their community.  That's what the counter protesters are for.

I took the bus with two lovely friends who thought to bring milk and bandanas and almonds.  I thought to bring change for bus fare, which seemed pretty good.  Because this is our world, where we mostly feel safe and white among white people, we chatted about art and what to make for dinner with a special kind of peppers that I’d never heard of as we rode into the city.  Because the assumption, of course, is that we’ll always make it home for dinner if we feel like it.  I wonder if Heather Heyer thought she’d also be home for dinner on Saturday.   Probably.  

We disembarked in Seattle, and walked toward the park where the counter protesters were gathering.  The opposite of “protest” is “agree”, so I’m going to call us The Agreeables from now on.  At the park, we encountered the mix of humanity that

You have to appreciate a broom
that doubles as a peace sign

you’d expect to see – the grey pony tails with peace signs attached to brooms, young anarchists wearing masks and carrying “Fuck You” signs, and the people like us, whatever that is.  

We tried to listen to the speaker, but as usual, there was a crummy PA system and a lot of crowd chatter, so it sounded like what my dog hears.  “Blah blah blah blah blah let’s go for a walk Blah blah blah blah kibbles” But instead of a walk, it was solid blah blah punctuated by applause.  We eventually did go for our walk.  We filed out of the park and tried to join in the garbled chanting. I didn’t want to chant some of the things because they seemed so negative.  (After all, I thought, we are The Agreeables!)   There’s also something that freaks me out a bit about being in a crowd thick with people chanting, even if I have no problem with the words.  I tried to get singing going but, as you know, I have an inside voice and, well, I’m not much of a singer either.  For a little bit, we all sang “We Shall Not Be Moved”, and that was pure goodness.  (Side note:  our culture needs to learn more songs, and be able to pull them out when it's time. It's time.)

From Crosscut.com

The police blocked us from going the way we intended to go, which is toward the actual protest.  The Agreeables wanted to face off with the guys named Bill and John whose lives are riddled with oppression. I don’t know exactly how that would have gone –  but the police were having none of it.   They pepper-sprayed people and shot off loud noise-making bombs; the sound, like a dozen cannons, bounced off the tall buildings, bringing the adrenaline level of the crowd up a hundred notches.  We backed up and dispersed for a bit.  I thought maybe we should go somewhere out of harm's way and wait to let things unfold.  I was all, "hey, guys!  Let’s take a break from protesting and have a cocktail at the Virginia Inn!" But my much braver and more ethical friends reminded me that to be an ally, you can’t just leave when the going gets rough, because duh, that’s privilege in a nutshell.  Which was an excellent point, so we stayed with the march.  

There was a guy with another muffled PA system leading a chant that I can’t recall right now, but we said it over and over until I literally began to laugh so hard I almost wet my pants.  That’s the kind of protester I am.  It wasn’t really funny at all – our purpose was anything but funny.  Our purpose was to show the haters that they can’t get away with it here, and we mean business.  Not a laughing matter.  But all I could do is imagine that we would walk around endlessly, circling a park that was blocked from us by cops with weapons and pepper spray, following a funny little man garbling out, “SAY IT LOUD, SAY IT CLEAR, NAZIS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.”   Like that scene with the goldfish in Me and You and Everyone We Know.  Driving at one speed, forever, so that the goldfish doesn't fall off. But I also started laughing because suddenly, unexpectedly, irrationally, I was struck by a giant dose of hope.  

I think we’ve got this.  I think there are so many more loving, engaged, smart people, than tiki torchers.  So many people have moved past the developmental stage where strength is measured by blowing things up or ripping a toy out of someone's hands.   Most of us live in a world where strength is related to integrity, being candid, humble, consistent in word and deed, and loving our loved ones as generously as possible. And then, trying to reach beyond our little tribe to love the rest of the world as generously as we can.  That's where our power lies.  Let's use it.

Horoscopes. The "Things We Never Tire Of" Edition

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20): A friend told me that she never gets tired of people toggling blue ribbons on dowels to give the impression of water.  At first I thought it was ridiculous.  But then I remembered that I never get tired of it either.  I will never be heard saying, "whoa, I'm so damn tired of people waving the blue ribbons on dowels -- when will it stop?"  Pisces, you water-y sign, conjure water in whatever ways you can.  And never tire of water.  It's all we've got.

Aries (3/21 - 4/19):   I never tire of popcorn, Aries, and I hope you don't either.  I wish it were considered real food instead of merely a movie snack.  It magically transforms from a hard yellow kernel to a white piece of fluff, which is what I hope will happen to me one day.  Then there's taste, salt, texture, and handy size.  When I was in college I had a friend who used popcorn as a litmus test for friendship.  "She's okay, but I wouldn't have her over for popcorn."  Which makes sense -- popcorn is a little more intimate than a taco.  Aries, this week, make popcorn-worthy friends and do what you can to keep them.  Our lives are only as good as the people we cherish.

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  The invisible, transparent wall on the Mexican border is all done.  That is some fast government work!  I'm glad they made it invisible, because, as the POTUS reminds us, people are constantly heaving 60 pound satchels of drugs over the wall, and you could put someone's eye out with that!  I think you could put someone's eye out with this administration, Taurus, so that's not your horoscope.  No sirree.  Because that would be wrong.  Here you go.  I never get tired of watching William Wegman movies.  Especially the Hardly Boys, but I don't think you've got that kind of time (27 minutes). 

Gemini (5/21 - 6/21):  Did you ever watch Lost?  I watched season one and two and got super interested, and then it got more and more complicated and dystopian, and I couldn't follow it.  That's a bit like what's going on with the White House.  Things are happening so fast, and there are so many random players brought in for just one episode (like The Mooch!) that I want to go back to Season One again.  But what I never get tired of, Gemini, is seed catalogs.  And seeds themselves.  Imagine, all that potential stored in a tiny little capsule.  Which, Gemini, reminds me of you!  So much potential.  Sprout!

Cancer (6/22 – 7/21):  But there's another wall that I'd like to talk about, this super ugly wall going up in my neighborhood. Something there is that doesn't love a 6 foot tall plastic fake rock wall.  My question for you, Cancer (oh wait!  That's not how horoscopes are supposed to go.  But these are special times, and Cancer, you're particularly special.)  So, what's the most effective way to get the designers of the invisible wall to contact my neighbor?  Back to your horoscope, Cancer.  I never get tired of changes of state: condensation, evaporation, freezing.  Oh, and mushrooms.

Happy little disco bee

Leo (7/23 – 8/22):  One thing I never get tired of is the joke setup involving some collection of people or creatures walking into a bar.  "A guy walks into a bar.  The bartender says..."  But I saw a particularly hilarious the other day: A lawyer, a spy, a mob boss, and a money launderer walk into a bar. The bartender says: "you guys must be here to talk about adoption." Leo, talk about adoption in the most unlikely situations. This week, adopt a good attitude, a stray kitten, or a starving artist.

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22): I never get tired of seeing people act out celestial events.   I have a vague memory of trying to explain the solstice to a group of kindergarteners using a flashlight, a handful of children, an orange, and a basketball.  I can laugh quietly in my head just thinking about it, 20 years later.  Virgo, this week, bring back the planetary skit.  See if you can inspire random groups of people to revolve around an orange.

Mason bee in dark times

Libra (9/23 – 10/22):  I never get tired of hearing about the path of totality, where the planet will turn dark, animals will catch a 2-minute nap, birds will sing bedtime songs, and humans will wear cardboard sunglasses.  And to think our tiny little moon is responsible!  Libra, this is a great bit of inspiration.  The moon can stop the sun, which is 400 times its size, in it's tracks!   Okay, actually, I get a tiny bit weary of the Path of Totality, even though I'm so very excited about the eclipse.  So I'll change this 'scope to something a little more surefire:  the scene in Monty Python where they use the coconuts for hoofbeats.  I think there's a connection there, between the fake horse sound and the moon facing off with the sun AND WINNING.  Do it.

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21): I never get tired of dreaming.  By day, I live a boring life where I crash around in the bushes for a while and then sit on a computer writing reports.  That sounds like the life of a drunk person, but it's an actual job.  But at night, the dreams!  Last night I dreamed I was creeping along on the eaves of the coffee shop, trying to get from the upper parking lot to the front door, when the roof came right off in my hands.  My first thought was, "wow, second time today that's happened."  (!!)  Anyway, with the roof off, gorgeous details in that old shoe store were revealed, including pressed tin wainscoting and weird botanical stencils. I was taking photos and eating cake when the police arrived to arrest me for my roof-removal spree.  Anyway, it's probably time to call my sister, who interprets my dreams.  Here's how she does it.  She says, "Take out an index card.  Ok, on one side, write down what happened in the dream.  On the other, write down what it means."  I know.  Scorpio, dream big this week.  What else is there?

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21): I had another great dream the other night where I took my car in for an oil change.  A friend asked where I took it, and when I said I just parked it in Seattle on Second & James, they gave me the lecture, like, no no no, that's not how it's done, you have to make an appointment, and take it to a place, and so on.  So I flew in to the city to find my car, where I encountered a woman who promised to help if I would tag along on a few errands.  It turns out she ran an actual circus, and we had to go around the city, finding people and giving them special gifts.  She's pop into a bright little tent, hand the occupants a tube of glitter glue, and remind them that the show starts at eight.  In this pleasant way, I passed another night of my life.  Sag, spread glitter and good cheer this week.  We're counting on you!

Capricorn (12/22 - 1/19): I never get tired of the scent of vanilla.  It's weird how vanilla has come to mean bland, lacking an identity.  Because when you open up that little bottle of real vanilla and bring it to the nose, ... pause while you go do that... it's completely transformative.  It can shake up your whole day.  Also, because it reminds me of one of my favorite books, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, when Mick Kelly dabs vanilla behind her ear as perfume.  

Aquarius (1/20-2/18):  I never tire of tracking packages.  Even when I already know, "due to arrive at the end of Wednesday", I still like to look.  Updates like "Left the facility," make me strangely happy.  (Not as happy, of course, as "out for delivery").  Aquarius, don't be like me.  Just wait patiently, and spend your time actually doing stuff.