Yesterday I took a short break from what I was doing to watch the partial solar eclipse in my little corner of southern New England. I can only imagine what the experience of watching a total eclipse is like. Observing the partial eclipse was worth the few minutes I devoted to it, but it was also a bit of a let down. The world did not get very dark, and the glasses necessary to view it, which blacked out everything except the sun, made the phenomenon seem unreal. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to see it, but I also can see why people travel long distances to experience totality.
Yet this rare and oft-cherished event was not the most marvelous sight I saw yesterday. That sight presented itself an hour or two before the eclipse, during my drive from Cape Cod to Boston. It was possibly the warmest day we’ve experienced so far this year, awash with sunshine, some wispy clouds, and blue sky. As I approached the Bourne Bridge on my way from the Cape to points north I saw a large number of white birds (surely seagulls) flying high in the sky before me. Not just flying, really, but dancing, playing, joyfully circling in some kind of bird ecstasy and all the while remaining in one particular area in no hurry to leave. From my limited human perspective, it looked like they were having fun.
Later that night, I remembered these lines from Jackson Browne’s first hit song, “Rock Me on the Water”:
Oh people, look among you,
It’s there your hope must lie.
There’s a seabird above you
Gliding in one place like Jesus in the sky.
And I wonder: How often do we search far and wide for the stunningly spectacular when the merely beautiful has been right in front of us the whole time?
Don, thank you. I appreciate your reflections on yesterday’s eclipse phenomenon.
Well stated Don. Thanks for the reminder