240408 bugs, bee, silly ducks
April the eighth:
What a sense of expectancy in the air. There is no wind, as if the world is holding its breath. But the clouds are covering the sun, so we may see nothing of the eclipse. Tamar, Nick, and the chidren, have headed towards Hamilton to catch totality. But most of the Greater Toronto area is doing the same, while here in the city we are just outside totality. Perhaps they will all park right on the highway and watch. How cool.
(I am reminded of Day of the Triffids. [Everyone went blind from watching a sky show.] ) *
I was blessed! For a few minutes, just as totality was ending and the world was dark and the streetlamps came on, the sun appeared (a tiny sliver of it, actually) in a patch of blue sky barely bigger than itself, and I saw the shadow withdraw from the orb of the sun. My "eclipse glasses", although they were not "certified", showed nothing until more than a sliver of the sun was uncovered. I did not watch for long however, just to be safe. I was thinking about the ancestors seeing an eclipse, feeling, from a mythical world view, the awe and wonder of it.
In 1983, K and I spent some months in South-East Asia. While we were there, a solar eclipse was happening on June 3, with the totality in Surabaya, Indonesia. So we arranged our travels around that. We arrived by a very small plane in the Surabaya airport. There was one luggage conveyor, and as we waited for our backpacks, we watched as telescope after giant telescope came down the belt. It was an "invasion of the eclipse-heads". These people apparently travel to the path of totality for every eclipse! (This was the only time, in six months, that our bags went astray, but with Indonesian efficiency the people at the airport delivered them to our hotel the next day.) The hotel restaurant was filled with people talking about the eclipse and where to be. It was like a scene from Rick's in Casablanca, people with their heads down, poring over maps. Near Surabaya is a famous temple called Borobudur where many of the viewers thought they should be. But we decided to avoid the crowds and just go to the beach. We stepped out of te taxi and saw the beach, empty except for a pier where several small cabins were lined up, with a few women sitting in their shade. It was a brothel. Beside us was a statue of a bokchoy, arms sticking up making peace signs, no head. Beyond that a few steps was a circle of the seven dwarfs and Snow White. Then there was sand, flat and pale forever. The sea was pale and calm. We had the place to ourselves except for the two or three women far away on the pier, and a young couple who came walking by part way through the eclipse. We had armed ourselves with layers of welder's glass, to safely watch the event. When totality began the horizon took on sunset colours and the birds stopped singing. Totality lasted about five minutes. (We lent the young couple our glass to get a glimpse.)
When we returned to Surabaya, dazed and lost, we found the eclipse-heads gathered in the hotel restaurant bemoaning cloud cover at Borobadur. (The hotel food was exquisite. Indonesia has the best cooks in the world. They can do any meal from any country perfectly, and their own food is deliciously healthy.) We stayed in Surabaya for five days. It felt as if there was nothing left to be seen or done in our lives. We remember little besides the three meals a day that we enjoyed. We went on, at last, to Bali, and spent three weeks in heaven, outside of time and the world, before we gathered ourselves to continue our travels. *
Brought home a souvenir painting
We had planned, before the broken femur fiasco, to be in Mansonville, which was in the band of totality. We didn't make it, but Elf and her family built snow effigies of us and Rocky facing the westward sky.
*****
In most cities, perhaps, there are crannies, and hidden paths, and age-old neighborhoods, that most of the city's people never see, while others are there daily in their travels. This, to me. little known secret way is one of those. St. Philip's which takes the north end of Royal York Road around a churchyard, across the Humber River to Weston Road. Weston Road, itself, is one of those mysterious paths snaking across the map all askew from the grid, as if they are wormholes in space. I take this path every time I visit K.
*****
The Coopers are not sitting on the nest yet. They are not often around, just now. I assume their nest is ready and they are just waiting on eggs. Laying should begin soon and then one of the pair will have to be on the nest.
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| The two of them, side by side. |
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In other news, we have had two ticks appear, one on the pillow beside me and one on my Sudoku Book! They were walking along, so casually, looking for a home. Rocky has sensibly scratched and bitten them out of his fur and here they were looking for me. On the Advantix website they recommend combing your dog for ticks every day anyway so I am not sure that the medicines are necesssary, for me. Rocky seems to be unwell for two days after I apply Advantix.
First bugs, first bee, silly ducks:
I have been simply, patiently, moving in time, the ineffable medium through which we swim the days. I have said that we can let the time pass, do nothing, wait, breathe, eat, and sleep, without any effort on our part, because, in spite of everything we do or do not do, it goes by. It is six weeks since K's surgery. We have waited to find out if the bone is healed enough to step up rehab, and leave the "reactivation" behind. We saw the surgeon at last. He said it was a seriously difficult operation, to let us know that it was a BIG deal. It is called a "revision" surgery, but I suspect now that this one required more revision than some. But the team at this hospital is the top team in the country to perform this sort of operation. It is a privilege, I am feeling, to get this treatment. We are past the first hurdle then.
A note on Tamar and her family: They were near Hamilton on the highway at the time of the eclipse and just pulled to the shoulder with half a dozen other cars and saw the whole thing among scattered puffs of cloud.
Mama Yaga
* John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids, 1951.
* I have recounted this story before, apologies. 210610 Journey Eclipse https://mummayaga.blogspot.com/2021/06/210610-journey-eclipse.html
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