The eclipse is not so simple.
Nova Scotia was to be in the partial path but the general family consensus was it had to be the Zone of Totality or nothing. Hot on the quest on the drizzly, sleety Sunday, we headed through three provinces praying for decent weather on Eclipseday. We woke to clear skies and after a sticky bun from a local bakery and a walk on a local trail, we drove over to the coast of PEI hoping to scope out a good spot.
Of course, everyone had differing ideas about where the perfect spot was. We required no other people and a view of the sea. A half-hour of driving back and forth and bickering along the coast road ensued before we were satisfied. We finally parked in a cornfield next to a graveyard on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean and sat back to wait for the moon to do its party piece.
To say the eclipse itself was extraordinary is an understatement. It was the closest I have come to a pure religious experience and I was overwhelmed by the amount of emotion I felt. It’s easy enough to understand the panic that would have overwhelmed those in bygone times when their life-giving sun disappeared from the sky to be replaced by a silver ring with a black centre.
We watched as the dark shadow moved across the water towards us, the bright afternoon sunlight suddenly falling to dusk while an unreal sunset stretched out across the breadth of the horizon.
And then came the dark and the total silence.
It lasted about 3 minutes, 15 seconds.
Nowhere near long enough to absorb and process what was happening around us. After the dark, the light came galloping back, matte and filtered and toned with a different ochre cast than I had ever seen before. Awed and humbled we drove back in a stream of vehicles that stretched in front and behind as far as the eye could see.
While The Lies Beneath was published in the same week as the launch party and headed straight into the Irish bestseller charts, The Almost Truth, was published on the same day as the eclipse with the launch to follow. I can’t think of a more auspicious beginning for any book and as a result, this one should reach dizzy heights. I’ll be watching with interest. Wishing all three authors meteoric careers. It’s always an honour to read their work.
Clo Carey April/24
Photo Credits: Clo Carey
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Teetering on the Edge 