An Eclipse

Yesterday's experience, heart open, staring up into the sky through a filter designed to keep my eyes safe from radiation, bound on both sides by the people I love most in this world, is an artifact I want to tuck away into my heart for forever. The sky was awe-inspiring, as well as the show it put on down here on earth, where we tiny, solitary humans found ourselves gathered together to see a celestial display like few of us have ever viewed before, a shared mass, a momentary acceptance of the magnificence of our universe.

I am able to fully remember and appreciate those moments, that sweet two minutes and twenty-nine seconds because I made the choice to be completely present. No phone, off the grid, limited communication thanks to so many factors, including a glorious lack of coverage, and a phone that was giving up the energy ghost. But I didn't miss anything. I found everything.

What did our ancestors do before the were attached by the thumb and fore to a world trapped in a tiny box? Shit, what did I do before that? I was a reasonable human who knew how to talk to the people around me. Don't get me wrong... I'm not hating on my iPhone. Or your Droid.

But yesterday left me hungry for more. More of the authentic. More of the genuine. More moments disengaged from technology. More moments engaged with the ones I love. More moments in the woods, in a hammock, playing a ridiculous game of twenty questions with a slightly ailing six and a half year old and an indulgent thirty-five year old who plays silly games with me when I really want to. I want more real, tangible moments to be stowed away in a journal, written away in the filing cabinet of my mind, knowing these are the moments that are precious and last. I want more present, more real, more now. I want more moments of sunlight that bounce out of me like crazy beams of joy, like the corona yesterday. I don't think I could have experienced what I did yesterday, and to have not been changed by it.