Although it wasn’t total in Toronto, there was about 75% coverage and a friend of ours decided to invite some people over for a picnic and watch it from a blanket spread on the grass.

I never much thought about it, but I suppose eclipses have always made me a little nervous. Beyond the typical anxiety about accidentally looking up at the sun and having your sight destroyed forever (as if a punishment for seeing a Goddess disrobe),

or the fear of suddenly being seized by a compulsion to look up at the sun and having your vision destroyed forever, there is also the certainty that somebody is going to draw an apocalyptic line from the prophecies of Nostradamus to the activities of Donald Trump, always leaving you to wonder, “Is this going to be it, are these my last moments on earth?”

And so there was a slight unease in the city, as if something in our organized, convenient and mechanized lives had been thrown just a bit off kilter. What we had always relied on, what had always remained fixed in our lives, was about to shift out of place.

Looking up through the glasses at the retreating sun was weird. It seemed like clockwork, the perfection of the orbs, the synchronicity, all suggesting something made by design rather than accident, and I found that I could not watch for too long. I suppose I was worried about my eyes, but I think there was something larger to it, as well—I had to look away. It was all too big and mysterious, boundless in all directions.

And on the street passing by were people we’d call over to have a look, and they did. Cars stopped, strangers smiled and people gathered around our little blanket.

It reminded me of a city-wide power failure. Released from the secure and known, people were at a kind of liberty, uninhibited and accessible in ways that Tuesday afternoon Torontonians typically are not.

And as the eclipse reached it’s full extent, you could see that the light in the city had changed. It had grown thinner, like somebody had started to turn the dimmer down, and the air felt cooler and lower to the ground, as if a fog was rolling over the streets. I noticed that I didn’t hear any birds at all, and the recognition of this secondary vanishing made me feel like I was on the edge of something.

And so it was that we watched.

All gathered together, by chance and design, each one having traveled through bad weather and heartbreak, each one certain there would be more to come. And at this spot we took comfort in one another. Each one of us so small– our lives precarious, vulnerable and now,  in the midst of something that reached so far beyond us, so very much the same.

It’s as if the adult world has been rendered small, simple and fun, and as we boarded the ferry for the three minute journey to the airport, we felt like children getting on a ride at the CNE. It was first thing in the morning and a dense fog hung mysteriously around us, covering everything.

We could not see where we were going, and this created an atmosphere of adventure and whimsy, and in this context all the businessmen looked particularly ridiculous. Each one of them in a suit that suggested the distance between the corporate status to which they aspired and the disappointing status that they’d actually been assigned, they sat in isolated, self-important concentration. Brows furrowed over spread sheets and columns of data, their too-large fingers hunted-and-pecked on miniature keypads, and it was all a little heart-breaking. Like kids pretending at being adults, they attempted to project that what they were doing was of vital importance, but you could tell that inside they all knew better.

Inside they still wanted to discover a waterfall.
Swim with a knife clenched between their teeth.
Find the hidden treasure.

To our son Jones, who is nearly two, everything is a wonder. He is on the edge of language, and his words, mysterious and uncontainable, are still holier than ours. Excited, almost breathless, he exploded onto the ferry with bright, astonished eyes. He ran around pointing, naming everything he saw. The businessmen all kept their heads down—there was important work to be done—but an older couple watched, smiling as this new world broke into day around our son, aware they were in the midst of a tiny God now bringing his universe into being.

Last year there was a play-off game between the Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays that was perhaps, one of the weirdest, most entertaining, anarchic ball games in the history of the known universe.

Part ayahuasca trip, the game culminated when Blue Jay superstar Jose Bautista absolutely crushed a three-run homer that for all intents and purposes, ended the game, time and the universe.

It was that epic.

The Rangers were ruined.

You could see the post-traumatic stress disorder forming in their glassy eyes. You could see the days of boozing and aimless driving. You could see that recovery was going to be impossible.

And if that wasn’t enough, Bautista performed a now legendary bat flip that saw him standing motionless at home plate, like a statute of a Greek God, as he watched the ball sail to glory,

before dropping the mic by tossing the bat, as if it was now something repellent to him, about a mile away.

This got under the skin of the broken Rangers, and it stayed there.

Jose Bautista has big, rat-like ears, the physical rectitude of a matador and a self-confidence that radiates from him like some sort of X-Man power. He is arrogant, this man, and although he’s an intelligent and astounding baseball player, he’s still a prick. I mean, he thinks of himself as a corporation and acts accordingly. He knows how great he is, and if for some reason you forget it, his body language will surely remind you, and if that doesn’t, well, he’ll tell you. You get the sense with Bautista, that he really does see the rest of the world as, “The Little People.”

At any rate, this bat flip, this losing in the playoffs to the Jays has stuck in the collective craw of the Rangers for the better part of a year.

Sunday was the last meeting of the two teams this year (barring a playoff match-up) and the Rangers pitcher hit Bautista with a pitch. This was pay back, and although Bautista gave him the slow, threatening stink-eye, he didn’t do anything, until he did do something. This something was a hard, illegal take-out slide of Ranger second baseman Rougned Odor on an ensuing play.

Now this sort of thing has been happening in baseball for a hundred years, but only recently was this kind of slide (in which you try to knock over the second baseman rather than achieve possession of the bag) made illegal. Odor, the second baseman, shoved Bautista in the chest. Bautista, who could buy and sell the little man, moved toward him like a God toward a mortal, and as he was pulling his fingers together to make a fist,  Rougned clocked him in the face with a stunning punch that saw Bautista’s $13,000 glasses, helmet and ego go flying.

It was awesome.

Of course, there are all sorts of people who are upset about the savagery of the act, but not me. It was cathartic and shocking, a David and Goliath moment that saw the preening, entitled 30 million dollar a year athlete get what his behaviour actually warranted. It was, for a moment, a kind of justice, a blow for the little man, and it made me happy.

Tall, powerful and with flowing, blonde locks and a fastball that exceeds 100 mph, he has the distinct aura of the divine about him. He had a tough time early in the game, but seemed to gather confidence and strength as it wore on.

David Wright, veteran third baseman and captain of the Mets served as his human interpreter at the press conference after the Mets victory:

Alice Gwyn, Yahoo Sports: “Thor, you seemed a little confounded on the mound out there as the game started. The Royals kept getting hits off you no matter what you threw. How did you adjust?”

David Wright, human translator:

Thor says, “I could not believe that even as I shattered their puny mortal weapons, sundering them like match sticks with my offerings, they still managed to get little, dinky hits! It was black magic, I tell you! I looked to my captain and said, “What dark arts are these? Surely Loki is behind such enchantments!”

But in truth, never once did I stop believing in my mighty immortal powers, powers which you can see were reflected in the final score.”
Joe Ainsley, New York Post: “Good effort out there, Thor. The first pitch of the game was quite an eye opener. Was the high and tight fastball that levelled Royals lead-off hitter Alcides Escobar meant to convey a message and change the tone in the series?”

David Wright, human translator:

Thor laughs heartily! He throws his golden locks behind his head, saying, the pitch was meant to convey that Alcides is a pitiful mortal and I am the immortal Thor! The Royals, a team that little changeling girl Lordes wrote a song about, needed to know they were in New York now and that things are very different in New York. I smote him. He will not be a factor in this series again. The pitiful human mewling from the Royals dugout after that, little kittens scared of a thunder, made Thor laugh. Verily, it was a good time.”

Benedict Summers, New York Times: “Thor, I have to say, it was good to see the God of Thunder so in control of things tonight, and wow, you are really, really crazy numinous tonight, blinding. Anyway, what would you say was the single most important thing to you being able to pitch such a gritty, consistent and powerful game?”

David Wright, human translator:

“Being a God and immortal status, for sure. I just reached deep into my well of divinity and kept throwing pitches of fire that I knew mortals would not be able to hit. Just stuck to my game plan. Also, the presence of the great Billy Joel at the game, and the playing of Piano Man,

was both touching and inspirational! It was like I was back in Valhalla at the hall of Bilskirnir! Thor, God of Thunder, thanks you all very much, but he must now go and feast and ice the immortal arm!”

( Thanks to Yael Friedman for the idea!)