Jones is four now, and the clouds are high in the sky. White against blue, they are great island chains in an unknown ocean. They move quickly, shifting, rolling past the fading moon.
Walking up the sidewalk, a lollipop in his mouth, Jones is telling me that bees are not allowed to live at daycare. He interrupts himself to wave and say hi to a bird.
His tiny, perfect voice.
“Hi, bird, hi!”
And then it is on to ants. He squats down each time he sees one, gets as close to eye level as possible. He is on his hands and knees now, waving at the ant, “Hello, are you a friendly ant?!” It doesn’t really matter if it’s a friendly ant or not, Jones will try to pick him up. “Look daddy, this one misses his mommy and died on a bush.” Such careful attention stretches our walk, stretches time into something else, and we will not be getting to daycare until a little later this morning.
Jones, some form of god, destroyer and preserver of ants, friend to birds, reaching out to everything that lives. Sometimes bringing thunder, sometimes bringing light. How does it all work? How does one know they are doing good in this world? A teen rides her bike slowly down the sidewalk, and just before she passes us, unseen sparrows, startled, rise up from tall grass–every one thing touching every other thing.
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.
As a child it’s a time of unquestioned magic. Delirious with excitement, we charged about like maniacs while wonderful things fell all around us. Time had no meaning. Everything and everybody was imperishable and glowing, weightless.
As adults, now visited by disappointment and loss, sidetracked and mortal, Christmas has a depth that often feels like weight. Everything ages– we miss people and sometimes, we miss the people we were, too. Vulnerable in ways we never quite imagined, we watch the children now, and knowing that all things change, a subtle undercurrent of nostalgia and melancholy runs through the holiday, and even as we’re living the moment, we’re aware of its passing.
This year, our families were with us, intact and safe.
It’s a stunningly beautiful thing, that, and to consider for one moment all the small, unseen miracles that took place in order to keep us together through the years, distance and unimaginable fires is to be filled with respect and gratitude.
At any rate, all families are miracles, and on this Christmas there were probably around 20 of us sitting around a long, make-shift table. Our two nephews are about 11 and 13 now, and we’ve had the privilege of being close to them and watching them grow.
They look like angels. Talented and mysterious, they hover on a periphery as if a beautiful visitation.
Their parents told us that they wanted to do a small performance after dinner, and when the time came they quietly, shyly, even, stood at the end of the table– one wearing the fur hunting cap that he got for Christmas, the other with bracelets of candy on his thin wrists. Then, after glancing at one another and nodding, they began to snap their fingers in rhythm and sing.
I had never heard them sing before. I’d never even thought about it. And so, right there, something I had never considered, something I had never imagined, was taking place before me. And they sang beautifully. It was utterly stunning, as dislocating and awesome a discovery as if suddenly finding a majestic snow-capped mountain where the 7-11 had always been. It was, I thought, magic.
They were singing the old John Lennon song “Beautiful Boy,” and they were singing it to Jones, our four month old baby boy. They weren’t up there looking for attention or validation, they weren’t pushed by their parents. They were self-directed and acting out of love. It was a pledge, I think, a rite of welcome. Jones would always be protected and loved by everybody in that room and the family beyond. It was such a pure and astonishing moment, so holy, that it felt like time expanded in all directions and was really just one big circle that contained us all.
It was not an easy year for us, but Lord, we were so lucky, and there was Jones, sitting on the lap of his beaming mother, and all around him, for as many years as could be counted, family, each one a loving star in his cosmos.
