Eclipse

All that you touch

And all that you see

All that you taste

All you feel

These are the opening lyrics to the Pink Floyd song “Eclipse,” the finale of the classic, masterpiece Dark Side of the Moon album. I found myself humming this 3/4 time signature song a lot last week. In case you missed it, there was a lunar eclipse last week. If it weren’t for my buddy Dave O’s text the night before, I would have missed it!

And all that you love

And all that you hate

All you distrust

All you save

Dave said that the eclipse would peak at 4:03 a.m. Upon further research, I confirmed this and also noted that it would be “starting” at around 1 a.m. Hmmm. 4:03 a.m. I can DO that!

And all that you give

And all that you deal

And all that you buy

Beg, borrow or steal

For a variety of reasons – none of them particularly interesting or noteworthy – I have been getting up very early (and sleeping poorly) these past few months. So 4:03 a.m.? Right in my wheelhouse. I woke up in a start at around 3:40 a.m. that morning. Again, nothing unusual there. Went to the bathroom, went to brew my first cup of Tim Horton’s coffee, sat down to check my phone for late-night texts and emails. Looked at my watch. Hey, wait! That eclipse thing!

And all you create

And all you destroy

And all that you do

And all that you say

I put on my headlamp and headed downstairs and out the laundry room door onto the dark deck. Looked up to the west, toward the river. Above the woods-line, there it was! It looked like a big piece of tissue paper was covering the moon. A looked at my watch. 3:59 a.m. A few more minutes till the “peak” of it. My first instinct – hey, let’s face it, OUR first instinct – was to take out my phone and take a picture of this. I have a cheap Android with a bad camera. It was pitch black out, other than the amazing thing unfolding up in the sky. A picture was useless, a bad idea. So this post has no picture accompanying it. Just words.

And all that you eat

And everyone you meet

And all that you slight

And everyone you fight

A better idea? I shoved that phone back in my pocket and just stared up at the night sky. Watched that tissue paper slide across the moon. Looked at stars in the sky surrounding this miraculous lunar eclipse. Let the silence envelope me. Heard the crunch of the cold deck under my sneakers, a distant whine of a coyote deep in the woods. And just experienced this for a few minutes without distraction, before shuffling back inside to the warm house.

And all that is now

And all that is gone

And all that’s to come

And everything under the sun