My formal 2024 solar eclipse apology

Since April 8, when I witnessed a total eclipse of the sun, I’ve been feeling progressively more melancholy. It isn’t because I was underwhelmed, or because my vantage point wasn’t ideal, or because of some depressing epiphany I had while watching the moon turn our planet’s star into a wispy white halo. I’ve actually been struggling to find the right words to explain my sullenness all week.

I’ve been scribbling random thoughts in my iPhone notes app as they’ve emerged. They’ve come up as I sat in a Lyft, ate pretzel bites at the airport and slumped in my aisle seat while listening to “Weird Fishes” on the flight home from Indianapolis to New York. I think these ideas, though not all related, share a certain yearning. What I realized is, the 2024 solar eclipse felt so intrinsically dream-like, confusing and surreal that, the more time passes from those few minutes of totality, the more my body accepts it as truly a dream. And it feels sad to distance myself so quickly. We usually get to have at least a few months, maybe even a few years, before yesterday becomes cemented in the past. I’m not quite sure I had a few hours.

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