The folding chair sank into the damp artificial grass in my back garden as I adjusted the cardboard camera contraption I’d spent two meticulous hours constructing.
I had carefully taped aluminium-foil over one end, poked a pinhole straight through the centre, cut a view hole and lined the inside with white paper just like I had done many times before when I was a kid growing up. (Photo Below)
“An Extraordinary Cosmic Spectacle,” the news bulletin had boomed, beaming with dramatic excitement.
I don’t know how YOU feel about yesterday’s solar eclipse, but I feel terribly let down in more ways than one.
I sat there in the garden, cardboard viewer clutched in hand, waiting for the moon to perform its grand celestial dance. But right at the eleventh hour, as the celestial event reached its crescendo, the sun decided to slip quietly behind the dense canopy of my neighbour’s overgrown trees.
To add insult to injury, a massive, leaden dark cloud rolled in, completely swallowing what little sliver of light was left. The cardboard camera that I made was next to useless—just an empty, glorified size 20 shoe box sitting in my lap while I stared at a dark patch of pine and grey sky.
Defeated by the foliage and the dark clouds. I thought maybe it would at least go dark and eerie to lend the afternoon some drama. I braced for the unnatural twilight, the quiet hush of nature, maybe even birds falling silent in the trees.
But no—it stayed as bright as a button and the birds fled by like they were still feeding their young. The neighborhood remained bathed in stubborn, normal daylight, completely unfazed. The only time it actually went dark was when my eyes started closing and I started going to sleep out of sheer boredom.
Eventually, I packed up my box, tossed it into the recycling bin, and turned on the evening news to see what all the fuss had been about. The broadcaster annoyingly announced that: “the next major total eclipse in our neck of the woods wouldn’t occur until 2090.”
I’m 73 now, and if they think I’m going to stick around for another 64 years just to see another boring solar eclipse, they are very much mistaken. Bollocks to it!
John Edwards
I read your experience with sympathy…the folding chair, the cardboard box, the disappointing cloud. But I had a completely different experience that same afternoon.
In my area, the partial eclipse was scheduled from 12:50 to 2:40 PM. I sat on my terrace next to the woods, just wanting to feel the moment. The birds fell silent, the light dimmed slowly, and then, out of nowhere, a violent downpour crashed down on me. Thunder, terrifying lightning, rain soaking through the mesh roof. No forecast had predicted it.
And the moment the eclipse was due to end, the rain stopped abruptly. The sun reappeared, the birds started singing again.
The rain lasted exactly as long as the eclipse. Coincidence? Maybe. But I felt it as a sign from the Universe, a message I haven't yet deciphered. You got silence and trees; I got water and thunder.
An eclipse is more than a celestial alignment. It's something that leaves its mark on you down here. And I, soaked to the bone and heart pounding, walked away... not the same.
😅 Oh John, I feel for you, man! You spent all that time making the box and it ended up being useless. But you know what wasn't useless? The knowledge that if you wanted to create something, you could! I think that's a valuable thing. For my part, I didn't even bother watching it, I'm too lazy!🤣 And that is the difference between us, my friend. I saw it on the telly, though. I thought it looked like any other solar eclipse I've seen on the telly before! 😁 All in all, I don't think we missed a lot.