A Second Sunrise, A Second Eclipse

Dallas-area photo of the end of the eclipse captured by Kaleb Fulton

This was my second total eclipse.

I saw one in 2017 in Dallas, Oregon, staying with long-time friends there, and their two kids. Standing in the moon’s shadow was an experience I had wanted my whole life, and will never forget. I could hardly pass it up anyway – it was happening one state away. I knew that if I never saw another total eclipse again in my life it would be a shame, but I would still be content… because it was just about perfect.

Yet I also knew that another one would be passing across the continental United States seven years later. People travel all over the world to see them. I kept track of this one.

This time, instead of staying with a family of four in Dallas, Oregon, I was staying with a family of four near Dallas, Texas. Once again, long-time friends, with two kids, who happened to live right under the line the shadow of the moon would be following. Their eldest kids even have the same first name.

The weather didn’t look so promising this time around. Thunderstorms were predicted for the day of the eclipse. As the day grew closer, it looked like most, if not all, of Texas would be clouded in.

I didn’t change my plans. I wanted to see my friends. The eclipse would still happen, even if it was clouded over. For a couple of minutes, night would fall in the middle of the day. I’d experience this with them, and it would still be momentous. My mindset was quite different with the second eclipse, compared to the first. This felt like a bonus.

Arriving in Dallas, it was sunny the two days prior. Of course. I had a wonderful time with my friends, enjoying small-town North Texas. I tried not to think too much about the impending weather. Forecasts said downtown Dallas would probably be clouded in, but we’d be in a narrow band of visibility in our spot just to the north.

The morning of the eclipse, we headed to the gym before sunrise. I was happy to see stars. The sky was pretty clear. After sunrise, there was only high, thin cloud that would act like the faintest of veils over an eclipse. I hoped it would hold until totality, at 1:40 that afternoon.

It didn’t. Three hours before the eclipse, heavy clouds rolled in. I had allowed my hopes to get up, and now I felt crushed. It took me a while to realize why. It wasn’t for me. It was for my friends. I wanted them to experience what I had back in Oregon.

An hour later, the overcast blew away again, replaced by scattered clouds. This was going to be a game of dodge-the-cloud. The sky would only need to be clear for a moment, and I hoped the timing would be in our favor.

We walked to a local lake, figuring the sky reflections there would be impressive, and joined other families sitting and waiting. The eclipse began. For an hour, we watched the sun gradually lose increasingly large bites of its disc to darkness.

The light around us faded. Shadows looked odd. The sun was high in the sky, but the park around us looked like it was in twilight.

Large clouds were passing fast over us, and the scimitar shape of the sun shone through them. As it narrowed to a slit, weird things began to happen. An airplane flew over, and its enormous, elongated moving shadow was perfectly superimposed on the cloud. It was surreal, and the kind of effect the sun could not create at any other time.

The ever-narrowing slit of the sun scudded behind the largest cloud yet. We had minutes left until totality. We looked at each other, and it looked like we were glowing in artificial light. The cloud gleamed pink in its thinnest spots. At least, it looked that way to me. Others saw yellow. We were all having different experiences. Weird light effects pulsed and dimmed as the cloud sped over. It grew colder, and windier, next to the lake.

I found I was hopping up and down, gently urging the cloud to depart. To allow the sun to break into free air, and remain in a large void before the next cloud moved in.

And then, with moments to spare, the sun and moon were free of cloud. The world around us dimmed to near-darkness. The sun was now winking over one limb of the moon, dimmed to the brightness of a flashlight, spreading from a thin arc into tiny bright droplets. Then – boom – darkness blossomed around us, and the sun went out.

The moon was now a glowing ring in the sky, with the sun’s feathery prominences spilling around it. But this was different to my last eclipse experience.

Last time, in a cloudless sky, I sensed the universe much more. Earth was a ball of rock; I was looking at another ball of rock, and the planets, and stars. This time, the clouds added a far closer three-dimensionality. I was still firmly on Earth and this was still simply the sky. I felt glad I was having this experience twice, because the visual effect was similar, while the sense of place was not.

Another cloud began to pass over the eclipse before totality was over. My companions groaned. But I reassured them. This was still awesome. The cloud hid only the most delicate of the prominences, and the red beams of flare-like prominences ringing the moon seemed to gain a greater foggy glow. It was remarkable, and in a way it added to the experience.

Having clouds around this time also added a different effect. We were experiencing an evening and a morning in rapid succession. The sky darkened all around us at the time of eclipse, but as the time sped by the sky to the east darkened, and to the west it began to glow an ever-lighter blue, as the edge of the shadow of the moon prepared to rush past us and move on across the continent. Our time of eclipse was fleeting. Jupiter and Venus were bright in the sky, but they were beginning to fade into a dawn. The day was about to have a second morning.

The eclipse threaded though the cloud, which thankfully never grew thick – it tenderly pulsed the brightness, and allowed us to gaze directly at details that may otherwise have eluded us. The western sky brightened. Dawn was close.

A thin, piercingly bright beam of light broke around the edge of the moon. There was still time to look, and absorb the beauty of the silhouetted moon one last time, before the beam flared and the sky began to lighten. Another airplane flew over, and this time instead of casting a surreal image of itself on the cloud, it pulled along a long, dark column of its own shadow, unnaturally sharp because of the still-tiny crescent of sunshine. As it sped by, the shadow raced from the rear to the front of the jet. The world was still not its normal self.

It would be half an hour until the surroundings brightened beyond a strange twilight. Much of the sun was still blocked by the moon. But the magical moments were over. Or so I thought.

We walked back, and I spotted one last magical effect. As we passed under trees, light spilled through the branches. And in the shadows were hundreds of little crescents, perfectly showing the crescent sun slowly fattening overhead.

It’s a cliché to say I visited for an experience, but left happiest because of time spent with friends. Truth is, I wanted both. But it was not for me. I wanted them to have the eclipse experience I’d already had.

They got something a little different. No less special.

Cell phone image taken by Jason Rubin, who was standing right next to me.