Eclipse diary
The 99 cent store on my block was sold out of eclipse glasses when I went inside. Having lived in this neighborhood for two years now (though with one year in between), I know the owner very well — any time I see a 99 cent store I will inevitably go inside, thrilled by the idea of deals and savings.
“Do you have any of the glasses left?” I asked her. Recently, they’ve begun selling beta fish in small green plastic boxes. I had thought about buying one the other day, but ended up buying two postcards instead, one for my friend Richard, and one for my mother — holographic renditions of the city spelling out “I LOVE NEW YORK”.
She’d stepped out from the front and was now heading toward the door in the back, leading into the sunshine. “We’re all out,” she said. But now she turned back toward me, taking the glasses from the top of her head: “Do you want to look?”
I followed her outside. In the back, one of the workers’ sisters were also gathered outside, teenagers with braces and straightened hair. Piles of household slippers and mops, pinwheels and bags of soil, surrounded us as we looked up into the burnt orange disc peeking out from the dark. After a couple of minutes, I went back inside, not sure what to do with myself. I knew that it was going to last for a little while longer, at least 30 minutes or so, but I dreaded the idea of going back to my house, to being alone with my work.
People kept coming in and asking about the glasses. Do you have them? Do you have them? Older women with powdered faces and shopping carts, young kids wearing backpacks, fathers holding babies in their arms. The owner said, someone went out to buy some. He’s supposed to be back in ten minutes. We’ll see.
We all paid her and held our receipts in our hands. I looked at things aimlessly: a mug set for mother’s day with a small purple bear that read “I LOVE YOU MOM”, some fake nails, silver rings with jewel-encrusted butterflies. A guy walked in, talking about how everyone was on TV talking about it. “It’s so beautiful, they’re saying, in Mexico. Everyone’s crying.” He used his hands to create rivers of tears streaming down his cheeks. He wanted to cry, too, was what he seemed to be saying. All of us did.
Ten minutes had almost passed as a man walked through the door, holding packs of glasses reading “Solar 2024 — Made in P.R.C.” The room filled with communal joy; the moment felt redemptive, or something. Or at least I’d like to think so. I’ve always been given toward sentiment to a somewhat nauseating degree.
I pushed my way out of the door. Everywhere people were standing unmoving in the greying light — outside of the supermarket and the discount store and pharmacy and coffee shop, gathered like flocks of pigeons. I walked to where a few trees were now blooming pink and white, and squinted up through the lenses. Now the disc was just a sliver, almost gone. I started back toward my apartment, just a couple of blocks away.
Recently, I’ve only seen my neighborhood when it’s dark, when I’m by myself and looking to bury myself in forgetting. But now there were people everywhere, all of us seeing each other. Faces I’d gotten used to: the old woman with plum-dyed hair, the man who chain-smoked cigarettes as he walked around, morning and evening, in the same orange and black flannel, the owner of the gyro shop, my old neighbors with the Chihuahua named Prince who never shut up.
As I got to the street across from my apartment, I saw a woman staring straight into the sun. Every so often she’d turn away before quickly looking back up again. A lightening streak of silver ran through her black hair. Hurriedly, I offered her my glasses.
“Oh, thank you, honey,” she said. I watched her face as she put them on. A tear slipped out from beneath the frames, then another.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said as she took the glasses off. Her voice broke. “It makes me emotional. I keep wondering, ‘How do people hate each other?’ I’m 54 years old and I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
I handed her my glasses again. I didn’t have anything to say; I just wanted her to talk. How do people hate each other? She kept asking. After a couple more minutes of looking, she passed them back to me.
“We have to love each other more.” She shook her head. “That’s all there is to it.” She thanked me and walked back up the stairs into her apartment, still crying.