We’re driving into Ohio tomorrow to put ourselves in the path of totality for the solar eclipse. Detroit’s getting a 99% partial eclipse, but partial is not total, and believe me and the rest of the internet when we say: that extra percent is worth it.
The 2017 eclipse was, in hindsight, a major turning point in my life. See You in the Cosmos had come out that February, I’d just adopted Matisse, and Julia and I had met but not yet started dating. As I wrote then, I went in looking to cleave time into a Before and After. I think now that maybe I went in that way because I could already feel the After upon me, even if I couldn’t yet see it.
What might be in store this time around? Oh, I dunno, how about the baby coming mid-July. Or that I, just this morning, sent the first fifty pages of the new manuscript to my agent. But whatever the After – this After – holds, I have an even more pressing sense that the next seven years of my life will look very different than the last seven. And that I won’t know the full weight of that difference until after the After.
And that’s sincerely and un-sarcastically great.
St. Louis Public Radio put together a neat Spotify playlist of eclipse-themed music. We’ll have it on loop in the car all the way to Ohio. And likely all the way back.