In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. This piece was contributed as a guest post in 2017 by our own dear Becky, who has since joined us full time.
2017 was the year of the Great American Eclipse, and I live in its path. I also write about the Earth, moon, and sun for a living. So I was determined to not only cover the eclipse, but own it. Like many creative people, I am happiest when I am doing work for myself, and much of my job satisfaction comes from convincing (or trying to convince) other people to care about my interests as much as I do. So the eclipse was both something I wanted to experience, and something I ardently wanted Americans to experience together. But when you invest great meaning in your work, even creative work can weigh on you like freight.
I immersed myself in eclipse ephemera for months. I talked to countless people who study them and travel the world to witness them, for science and pleasure. But as the Earth turned toward the summer solstice, I realized I burdened the eclipse — and, I’ll be honest, myself — with an almost unfairly massive load. By mid-July, I worried, What if this is dull? What if my work is dull?
As eclipse day neared, I prepared to be disappointed. I thought we might miss it. The day before the eclipse, the National Weather Service called for clouds over St. Louis, where I live with my family. We decided to get up early and drive east. I slept maybe 2 hours that night. I knew I would be rising well before the sun did, and piling everyone into the car to flee for a cloudless sky. I was consumed with dread and near-certainty that it would not be worth it.
When the two minutes, forty seconds were over, each observer left her instrument, turned in silence from the sun, and wrote down brief notes. Happily, someone broke through all rules of order and shouted out, “The shadow! The shadow!” And, looking toward the southeast, we saw the black band of shadow moving from us, 160 miles over the plain, and toward the Indian Territory. It was not the flitting of the closer shadow over the hill and dale: it was a picture which the sun threw at our feet of the dignified march of the moon in its orbit.
And now we looked around. What a strange orange light there was in the north-east! What a spectral hue to the whole landscape! Was it really the same old Earth and not another planet?
So ends a journal entry describing the 1878 eclipse as observed by a group of women in Denver. No cosmological event produces such a mixture of awe and eeriness, and seemingly for as long as humans and eclipses have coexisted, we have been telling the tale.
To get you in the mood for next Monday’s big ‘un, we’re running a week of our own eclipse writing.
Even though it happened two weeks ago, the time change still feels like it has a grip on me. I wake up disoriented in the dark, and then at the end of the day, I have a burst of energy that keeps me up past my bedtime. Rinse, lather, repeat. I know that time will eventually smooth the rough edges of these spring days, but in the meantime, I’m consoling myself with this post from 2018.
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Sometimes I lose track of time when I’m in the water. There are days when it seems like I’ve been paddling through whitewater for hours, the wind makes my ears feel like icicles, and my arms are burning. When I get back to the car, only fifteen minutes have passed since I started surfing. Then there are days when the sky is blue, the waves are just right and there’s a friend to chat with between sets. On those days it seems like I’ve hardly been in the water at all. And on those days I have sometimes been late to pick up my kids.
A few weeks ago, I remembered I had an old-school solution: a watch. I’d gotten one a few years ago to address this same issue, but I’d hurt my back last spring. Unused, the watch had migrated to the back of a drawer. Last week, I dug it out and my husband kindly put in a new battery. The little black numbers reappeared. I fiddled with the buttons until the watch caught up with the time it was now.
[This post ran some years back, and I thought, hey, let’s revisit lugworms! I mean, is there ever a wrong time? Enjoy.]
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I warned you. Well, I warned someone…probably one of my fellow LWONers…that if nobody suggested a compelling way to fill this space for today, I’d write about lugworms.
Time’s up!
I’ve actually been thinking a lot about lugworms of late because of a recent diving experience in Ria Formosa, a sandy-bottom coastal lagoon in the Algarve of Portugal. I was there searching for seahorses (a perfectly fine subject for this essay…why not seahorses?? Look how lovable!) and I repeatedly noticed these walnut-size grayish mucus balls flopping around among the rocks. The current was kicking them hard, but they were clearly built to take it; some held tight, balloons tied to a fence on a windy day. Others detached and rolled through the sand and seagrass like tumbleweeds. Tumbleweeds made of mucus.
What were they? I wanted to know. So, I asked the seahorse scientist Miguel Correia, of the Center for Ocean Studies at the University of the Algarve, who had escorted me on the seahorse dives (and probably also wondered why I wasn’t writing about seahorses for this essay).
I was delighted with his answer: Lugworm egg sacs.
This first ran on April 5, 2021. In the years since, the Wisley blues remain fine and flourishing (“flourish,” from “florire,” to flower, HA!); the Siberian squill have moved around but are still in little bunches except at my neighbor’s house where they’ve grown into cities; the anemones continue to look demure and squirrel-resistent. And last fall, even though this never works, I once again planted Dutchman’s breeches; and while I come close to remembering where I planted them, I see nothing, no sign; give up, Ann. But I shall not dwell on this, I’ll just listen to the little yells from all over the garden, from the leucojum (what a dumb name, why has no one thought of a better name, how about Elegant Bells of Joy?), from every ever-loving minor bulb.
UPDATE: I checked again and yes! 2 Dutchman’s breeches have leafed out! I probably planted 3 or 5, but never mind. Have faith, Ann! Never give up!
The flowers that bloom in the spring tra la. I love them faintingly, I gaze at them, hands folded reverently, such dears they are, oh my darlings, my minor bulbs!
Minor bulbs are not the same as spring ephemerals — really their name — like spring beauties, dog-tooth violets, may apples, shooting stars, and Dutchman’s breeches, their names alone are a song. They grow in woods and each one is so delicate, so oh-please-stay-awhile that they break your heart when in the next minute they’re gone. I’ve tried planting these and it never works. (But see above – maybe!)
Neighbors and passers-by say how beautiful are the daffodils-narcissi-hyacinths, which I also love though more prosaically. Thank you, I say, but come look at my minor bulbs. Oh nice, say the neighbors and passers-by, and continue having transports over the major bulbs. But look at this one, I say, it’s called Chionodoxa, chion meaning glory and doxa meaning glory, snow glory, glory of the snow, see how the white centers fade into the blue petals, so interesting! The fact is, minor bulbs seem to interest no one but me.
For years I ignored them in the catalogs — minor, unworthy of my attention, and dirt cheap. The catalogs say to plant them in masses and drifts so you notice them. I don’t know about that: I’m kind of a minor bulb myself but I wouldn’t be better drifting all over the landscape.
The first one I planted was Ipheion uniflorum, this variety called Wisley blue, Wisley being a Victorian businessman who planted an experimental garden*. I can’t find out what Ipheion means (“Genus name origin is unclear,” says the Missouri Botanical Gardens) but the word looks Greek and if anyone knows I’d be so happy to hear it; uniflorum is one flower. So I planted maybe 5 of them so I could look at each one flower. But their character is such that they like their own company and they spread like water — I don’t know how because they’re bulbs — and now I have hundreds. I not only don’t know what Ipheion means, I can’t pronounce it so I call them Wisley blues. I step outside on a spring morning and yell, “Good morning, Wisley blues!” as loud as I can.
This little one is Scilla siberica, Siberian squill; a random internet source says scilla is Greek for exciting, which, hardly; the scillas/squills are a big family that includes lots of bluebell-like things. I planted this one inadvertently when I’d dug up, semi-legally, some huge naturalized snowdrops in a woods not obviously owned by anyone, and the little scilla came along. I’m not proud of my short career in piracy but I’m not giving this back. The scilla family spreads but this one hasn’t, just a few quiet, modest characters here and there, small but so intense and indigo you have to look at them. Such precision they have and so brave because early spring is not the kindest time of year.
I saw this one in a catalog — it’s Leucojum aestivum, called ‘Gravetye Giant’ after an Irish garden writer whose house was Gravetye Manor. Leuco means white and I don’t know what jum has to do with it; aestivum is summer. Summer whites. I had trouble taking this picture because it was a little windy out and those heavy bells kept swinging back and forth; they should have made dinging sounds. The little green dots could have been put there by some Arts & Crafts artist. Leucojum is much bigger than the other minor bulbs, a foot or so tall, dignified, very much a social presence. So while most of my minor bulbs are near the house where I can see their precision, leucojum is out by the sidewalk where it can be appreciated by people walking fast. It does like to be appreciated.
Anemone blanda, anemone is Greek for wind and like the leucojum, it blows around a bit; blanda is mild and pleasing; a mild wind flower. I tried planting these years ago and maybe they showed up once; tried again, no show, gave up. Read up on them, discovered that right after planting (shallow) they get eaten by squirrels. I was irate, felt disrespected, rose to the challenge, and ordered them again. Took advice: doubled-up old chicken wire, folded it into a tube, put the anemone tubers inside, stitched the tube together with wire, planted the whole thing, and watched hell-bent squirrel-holes appear in the mulch. They may have gotten some of them, I don’t know, but not all of them. NOT ALL OF THEM, YOU GREEDY BEADY-EYED RAT-BASTARDS! VICTORY IS MINE!
Minor bulbs: prayer, pleasure, and righteous fury, at pennies per shot.
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*In a comment on the original post, Adam Ganz says “Tiny point: Wisley is more than a minor businessman who planted a garden – it’s the research garden of the Royal Horticultural Society https://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/wisley.”
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Photos by me, and I wish they were better but that would mean getting an actual camera and learning to use it. Any reliable information has come from the website of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, an institution which is a gift unto us all.
One of the great signs of spring in Washington, D.C., is the herds of middle schoolers who arrive, on trips to Learn About America. I got to partake in this annual migration in a small way myself this year; a friend from college had brought her very own eighth grader to town for spring break. I inquired about highlights to the visit so far; they included seeing the original Constitution and eating a lot of french fries.
We had fancy brunch, then went to the National Museum of American History, then to Artomatic, a freewheeling art show that pops up in an empty office building in the D.C. area every few years.
At some point in these wanderings, I looked at Instagram – I know, I have a problem – and saw a post from the National Park Service. They’d called it: Peak bloom was here. Our cherry blossoms were ready for visitors, several days earlier than expected (and weeks earlier than average).
After dinner that night, I convinced my skeptical partner that it was worth getting in the car and going to look at the flowers in the dark. Well, mostly I reminded him that he wasn’t required to go along with my hare-brained schemes if he’d rather keep sitting on the couch.
I’d never been to see the flowers at night before, and I thought it might be disappointing. It was not. The trees were puffy and beautiful, and, if you really buried your nose in them, very lightly fragrant. And perfect.
Peak bloom is still going, two days later – no rain or high winds have come to blow all the petals away. I know my friend’s eighth grader got to see them, and I hope lots of other people do, too.
If you want to see more cherry blossom pictures, this isn’t my first rodeo. See daytime pictures in my 2014 post and my 2016 post.
If the artwork above looks familiar, the reason might be that it was part of the argument that Ann made in a recent post. She suggested that the beauty of the Florentine paintings of the fifteenth century—“stunning, literally; you look at them and can hardly breathe”—couldn’t have been due only to the usual reasons that art history texts cite: Florence’s return to a leading role in international commerce combined with the rise of humanism and rationality. The intensity of the beauty, Ann argued in both words and images, must be due to the intensity of the catastrophes that recently had befallen Florence: the flood of 1333, the financial collapse of 1346, the drought of 1346 and 1347, and finally, in 1348, the Black Death.
No argument here. Or, I should say, no argument with Ann. But the final work of art in her argument, Sandro Botticelli’s 1489 Annunciation, prompted me to think about not only where fifteenth-century Florentine art came from but where it would lead. More precisely, what got me to thinking was the window in the painting.
