Eclipse

The moon turned red the other night - it was eerie and beautiful. I've seen it a couple of times in the past, but this was the first time I'd seen the entire phenomenon without any ambient city lights.

The first time, several years ago when I lived in Starkville, I found out it was going to happen from a story on CNN. The boy and I drove out into the country, trying to get away from the city's glow. We drove and drove, until finally we ended up on a tiny dirt road surrounded by empty fields. It was perfect - it reminded me of home. The boy, however, was uncomfortable - he was afraid something was going to happen to us out there on that deserted country road. I tried to assure him we would be fine and to get him to just watch the eclipse, but he was nervous and antsy. We'd been there about fifteen minutes when a truck drove past us, and that was all it took - he refused to stay one more minute. We headed back to Starkville, with me watching the eclipse through the car window as we drove.

The second time was a few years later - I watched it with some friends from the sidewalk in front of their apartment.

This time, though, we were at my parents' house, so far away from civilization that the darkness presses in on you at night. We watched most of the eclipse through a haze of cloud cover, but at one point the clouds broke for several minutes and everything became clear. The moon was surrounded by dozens of stars, all twinkling and shining more brightly than usual. It reminded me of the perfect night skies created with special effects in movies; I had never seen anything like it in reality.

None of my pictures came close to how it actually looked.

Posted by Callie at February 23, 2008 01:12 PM