Still True Today

I happened upon this journal entry a couple of weeks ago - written more than three decades ago - and was amazed at how much still applies to my life. I believe there's a pattern here...

June 28, 1985
         I realize, now that I have time for it, how much back-logged junk I have to clear out of my life.  Here it is, summer, stock-taking time, time to catch up, time to plan ahead, and everywhere I look, there are things I should do, things I want to do, things I have to do before I can do other things.  How am I going to tackle it all?  Set priorities?  Be systematic?  Do the important things first?  I tend to do whatever I stumble upon first, interrupted by whatever I get distracted by while I’m doing that.  As my graduate student said, “You sure do manage to fill up your life."

When I started writing this, I intended to make a list of all the things I needed to do and try to figure out how important each one was to my well-being (and “the future of all mankind”).  I get tired just thinking about it!

There is the personal stuff – the bills to pay, the mementos to put away or file, the papers to organize.  This has been sitting around and piling up on my desk since Christmas or before.  There are magazines to read (throw-away stuff) and books (and books and books) to read, and the library to pick up and organize.

Then, of course, there is the writing, the novels I have wanted to get to for the past year or two and haven’t been able to discipline or force myself to sit down and do them.  And there are letters to write – to friends and relatives – and visits to local friends and shut-ins.

And, of course, there is the work stuff – papers to read, old journals to peruse and clear out, micrographs to file, old slides to evaluate, not to mention papers to write and letters to colleagues and manuscripts to revise and resubmit.

If I enumerated each of the subprojects in each of those paragraphs, I would be listing all night long.  There is so much to do, I wonder how many years it would take just to get caught up, forget about taking on anything new.  Yet I feel like I must clean up my life, streamline it, take care of the most important stuff and get rid of everything else.

Details vs. essential structure:  What is the essential structure of my life?  Oddly enough, it lies partly in the complexity of it, in wanting to see and experience and record, as broadly as possible, the range of human activities and emotions.  And for that, I chronically complicate my life.

Still, I want to hone.  What is the crucial thread?  The slow, steady (fractal-like) movement toward understanding (a sort of enlightenment or salvation, for which the things and relationships of my life have been part of the path), toward which end I have tended and for which I will have to divest myself of every extraneous concern.

Charleston Eclipse, August 21, 2017

Friends' eclipse T-shirts

Wow! Where has the summer gone? It's been busy--catching up on email and regular mail and other delayed housework after spending a few months revising and polishing a couple of books that came out this summer (June and July).

Neighbors' eclipse T-shirts; eclipse viewing station on lawn

The big event of the summer has been the Great American Eclipse, which I was lucky enough to see from the front yard of my home in Charleston, SC.

Here's my journal excerpt about the experience, along with some photos taken with a little Cannon camera.

August 21, 2017   ~ 1:40 pm

The eclipse has begun. I saw a bit of it about 20 minutes ago with the eclipse glasses I got this morning from a friend, Nancy Hild. The sun just came out from behind the high-piled cumulus clouds, and now the eclipse is nearly half complete. Thunder rumbles in the background.

It’s not quite as hot outside as it was about an hour ago when I was packing groceries into the trunk of the car. Decided to go grocery shopping after picking up the glasses from Nancy because I’ve gotten way down on milk, fruit, and veggies, and the BiLo is on the way back from her house.

The sun is still out from the clouds. Some wispy cirrus strands float across the sky in the blue space between cumulus clouds. Now the sun is about half gone.

Now clouds are drifting across the sun, and I can’t see it with the eclipse-glasses. But interestingly, if I look up at the clouds with regular sunglasses, I can see the “partially devoured” sun through them without hurting my eyes.

Now the sun is out again. It’s playing peek-a-boo with the clouds. A crow just flew over my roof, squawking loudly. Insects fly around the bushes. I just don’t spend enough time outside, these days. As a child (lo, these many years ago), I used to spend at least half the day outside.

I can hear the TV in the front room of the house. Haven’t had it on for about two months. I just turned it on to get eclipse news. First was the eclipse in Oregon. Then I put away groceries and came outside to watch it for myself.

The eclipse shadow is now more than halfway across the sun. Just went inside to check the time (2:12 pm). The eclipse is nearing totality in Missouri. More than half of “my families” are on the path of the eclipse: Briana and Blake (with Jeremy) in Pocatello, Idaho; Judi and Danny Lane in Blue Springs, Missouri; Elisabeth and her family in the outskirts of Nashville; and I am here in Charleston.

With the eclipse-glasses on, I see nothing but the sun, no background images whatsoever: no trees, no clouds, nothing but an orange disc, increasingly deformed. When the clouds thicken between me and the sun, I can see the partial eclipse with ordinary sunglasses. The rim is becoming thinner and thinner. I hope that, when totality arrives, the sun will come out from behind the clouds; I hope we will be able to see the corona. Looking at the sky right now, though, the probability of that seems to be about 15%.

The wind is picking up; it’s cooling me and fluttering pages of the journal. Now, there’s just a thin rim of sun on the left side of the disc. It still seems like full daylight, though. One of the neighborhood dogs is barking and howling incessantly.

Now the sun is just a thin, half-circle sliver. I’m surprised at how much light it still sheds, although the heat has gone down. Earlier, I was sweating profusely but not any more. The temperature is quite mild, and a soft breeze soothes the skin of my arms and blows through my hair.

Now, a big, blue patch of sky surrounds the dimming sun. We may get lucky! I have my camera in case there’s a chance to photograph totality.

Sun dancing in the sky

Beginning of totality

The eclipse just passed. I think I got a few pictures of totality, although thin clouds still veiled the sun at the time. For a while, the sun seemed to dance around in the viewfinder. then it settled down to a thin rim with red beads near the bottom, and finally a bright, white signet-ring emerged.

Signet ring.

The end of totality with flare beads

Sun emerging from the moon, cloudy sky

The sun's bright rim on the right side of the moon is nearly covered with clouds. 

Now (~3:00?) huge, dark clouds are coming in from the north, a deep, ominous gray. A fly has fallen into my coffee, the wind is up, firecrackers are crackling the air, and I think I’ll go inside.

Shortly after totality, black clouds covered the emerging sun, and it began to rain after I went into the house. Thank Heavens, we were able to see this eclipse here in Charleston!