A major celestial event occurred at our house this week. It’s not the one you’re thinking of. Indeed, the total eclipse of the sun turned out to be a partial bust. Thick clouds rolled in approximately half an hour before totality – or the ninety-five percent of it we were granted in our part of the Hudson Valley – and didn’t part for a good sixty minutes.
Can we talk about eclipse safety glasses for a moment? By the way, if anybody in Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and a small part of Portugal needs a pair for the next total solar eclipse on August 12th, 2026 we’re offering a deal.
I think the glasses indulged in overkill. Nature gave us a view for a few seconds here and there. But even so that ball of flame in the sky appeared tiny and as dim as a really bad night light. I used them to look at the full sun the next day and still I could hardly see anything.
I’m no more interested in burning out my eyeballs than the next guy. But if ophthalmologists and optometrists want us to resist the temptation to toss aside the glasses and stare directly into the sun they need to offer more incentive than a filter that creates a reasonable facsimile of inoperable cataracts.
If it sounds like I’m bitter and disappointed you’d be wrong. I certainly would be if I’d spent a thousand bucks on lodging but, but while my tone might suggest otherwise, I brought a Zen-like attitude toward the afternoon.
Far more Zen-like than when I occasionally head to the tropics during the winter and encounter several uninterrupted days or even hours of rain. Then, I’m fit to be tied. But I had a revelation a while back, a long while back; come to think of it I may even have been under the influence of mind-expanding snacks – don’t judge me it was the early 1970’s. But the revelation was this: clouds and rain when you were meant to be snorkeling along a Caribbean reef, or bare ski slopes when you paid lots of money for lift tickets is nature’s way of telling us that bliss can’t always be guaranteed on your own terms.
The only way to be assured happiness as you pursue your favorite pleasures is to embed yourself in nature full-time. Hence the culture of ski bums or people who spend winters sailing warm seas.
Unfortunately, having to earn a living serves as a deterrent for most of us. But nature is indifferent to our complaints. There’s a way to make it happen; there’s always a way.
The celestial event to which I was referring was cocktails on our deck. I inaugurated the season Tuesday evening (totality plus approximately twenty-four hours) as the temperature soared into the low seventies.
I like to think that the ritual – even though it increasingly appears that there’s no such thing as responsible drinking because any alcohol is now determined to be bad for your health – is my way of honoring nature’s edict.
The combination of a cocktail and a salty snack together with diaphanous clouds and the setting sun – as if to prank us the star reappeared in full glory about thirty minutes after totality – filtering through the not quite bare branches of newly budding trees is an almost foolproof recipe for contentment.
I’d also earned the moment, having already spent a couple of afternoons picking up sticks across several acres so they don’t cause the intrepid gentleman who mows our lawn to quit. If there’s any chore that would seem free of merriment this is the one.
It involves bending over – I have one of those pick-up tools but it meets its match with tree limbs that are a few inches around – loading fallen branches onto a cart and carefully wheeling them to the forest’s edge (half the time they fall off, doubling the work) and emptying them into the woods.
There are reasons why I indulge this genteel form of torture. Somebody’s got to do it, though my daughter would argue otherwise. She thinks I ought to let the place go to seed, literally. Let the land revert to nature and a thousand wildflowers, or rather weeds, will bloom and feed birds and butterflies alike.
I suppose I’m old-fashioned. I enjoy the civilizing effect of a lawn, especially since we’re surrounded by woods which seem on a ceaseless journey to reclaim the land whether we indulge it or not.
Also, I’m cheap and loathe to pay someone else to perform the task. But what makes it bearable, even pleasurable, are its ritualistic properties. I perform the chore every spring at this time.
The weather cooperates, at least occasionally. Birds in search of mates and nesting opportunities provide the soundtrack. A couple of lovely wood ducks have landed on the pond. The physical exhaustion is another word for exercise. Feeling virtuous is an underrated emotion.
So the eclipse didn’t turn out as spectacular as we’d have liked. Its peak may have occurred when my wife served us Oreo cookies with bits and pieces of the chocolate sandwich removed to mimic the moon’s passage across the sun.
But what we were deprived in natural wonder will be redeemed in the weeks ahead as the weather warms, the drinks are cold, the foliage explodes and the setting sun makes no promises and plays no tricks.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
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