In 2017, there was a solar eclipse. My mom and I drove to St. Louis to see it. We wanted to experience the darkness of night at noon. It turned out we misjudged what the “path of totality” meant; St. Louis’s location on its edge did not mean total darkness. When the moon passed in front of the sun, we experienced an eerie blue-green twilight.
I’ve tried to write this story so many times. A lot of it is easy enough to get across: the early dawn drive, the waiting, the sweltering day, the not-darkness, the disappointment — the horrible diner we went to afterward, where I cruelly said, “What are we doing here?”
At first, I thought eclipse story might go into what became my first novel. They share an important summer 2017 timeline. I remember reading about the eclipse in July, in my roommate’s copy of the New York Times — they had a special section on it. There seemed to be a consensus on how important a total solar eclipse was. An eclipse, I read, was the perfect thing to experience in a time of uncertainty; its inherent subversiveness was a reminder to lean in to the unexpected and even the backwards. It was an invitation to embrace tumult as a way to usher in change.
This characterization of this special celestial event meant a lot to me. I was experiencing the most comprehensive change I’d had in my life up to that point — finishing school, moving cities, trying to earn a living, living on my own where I knew no one. Each day felt confusing. So many things scared me. Being scared at all was probably what scared me the most, because I didn’t understand why I was so afraid of, when it boils down to it, just living a life. Being in the world.
I don’t know if I really thought that seeing an eclipse would somehow magically give me clarity on the course my life was taking. But it still felt like a turning of the tide, my mom’s and my decision to wake early and drive ten hours in one day. We stopped for coffee in Bloomington, Illinois and chewed pieces of eclipse gum as we pulled in to St. Louis. We parked near the arch and set up camp to wait among the steadily forming crowd. We followed the progression of the moon with our eclipse glasses. It was remarkable how, when even just a sliver of sun remained, the day still was bright as ever. We couldn’t wait for it to get totally dark.
Like I said, we didn’t end up experiencing totality. The change was still profound; the temperature dipped ten degrees, and crickets suddenly were singing. People laughed and looked around at each other. I waited for dusk to become night. But the sky brightened, the heat and humidity returned, the insects fell back asleep. Dusk only turned back into day.
My mom and I didn’t say much as we packed up our things, but we both were wondering what had happened. Had we been wrong? I recalled zooming in on the map, and seeing St. Louis nestled right against the path of totality, but not strictly inside it. Carbondale, which we had first considered going to, had been squarely in the middle of the path, but was expected to be overrun with people, and too small of a town to comfortably handle the surge. We decided St. Louis was a better option, being larger, closer to us, and surely, good enough to experience the eclipse’s effects, with 99% totality.
It felt silly to actually be upset, as we had just experienced something so extraordinary. The sky had dimmed! We were sweating, when just moments ago, we’d had chills up and down our bare arms! But I couldn’t help feeling we had done it all wrong. We’d gone to the trouble of driving so far from home to see darkness, and hadn’t seen it after all. We had missed our chance.
My mom and I tend to pick up each other’s moods. As we walked in the pulsating heat to a diner that hadn’t looked so far away on the map, we didn’t speak, and I wasn’t sure who started it, the silence, but it was probably me. At the diner our mood plummeted. The only good thing about our food was that it was dirt cheap. I was the one who finally made the bad mood vocal. “What are we doing here?”
“Please don’t be mean to me,” Mom said. “I’m doing my best.”
In grad school, eclipse story became a story about my mom. People could tell that’s what it was, but they didn’t know what the story was trying to say about our relationship. Are we the same? Opposites? Are we living parallel or perpendicular lives? People thought we should get into a bigger fight, that perhaps the mom should give an opinion about the daughter’s life. Say something honest that the daughter doesn’t want to hear. I knew that made sense in terms of how stories function, but I also knew I wouldn’t do it. My mom isn’t like that. She doesn’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. In actuality, I’m the one often telling people what they should or shouldn’t do. And when I write, the first thing I’m doing is trying to understand what already is. I’ve always known eclipse story was important, but I could never quite understand it.
It’s no surprise then that the story has never totally worked. Something is always missing. The diner scene is best in short story form — made for details like the man without teeth sipping soda through a straw, and the packaged cookies kept in a cloudy plastic container that, when someone came in to buy them, were just dumped into a white paper bag. The physical experience of the eclipse was good, too — the color of the light, the temperature of the air. The uneasiness as it passed over.
I think what has never translated is the disappointment, and the sense of blame that accompanied it — and why those emotions mattered, and how they actually revealed something else. What are we doing here? Probably I phrased it like that because it didn’t exactly blame her, but I still knew she would take it that way. And she did. From that day on, my mom would tell everyone it was her fault we ended up in St. Louis instead of Carbondale, no matter how many times I tried undoing what I had done, insisting it wasn’t true, that we had decided together.
The other problem with eclipse story was there never seemed to be a satisfying conclusion, because in many ways eclipse story has always been an unanswered question. What would have happened if we had gone to Carbondale instead? How would we feel differently? What would change?
So far, the story has ended with us driving home from St. Louis. It’s slow-going, because we’re, ironically, caught in the traffic coming up from Carbondale. Our windows are rolled down, letting out the bad mood. I apologize for the way I acted in the diner, insist I’ve had a great day with her, that nothing is wrong — but still, my mom vows that for the next eclipse, we will find total darkness. We will do it right. I look it up — the next eclipse over North America is April 8, 2024, seven years away. “It’s a date,” Mom says.
So I’m trying this story one more time, now that I found the answers in Newfoundland.
Welcome to the Rock!
I first heard about Newfoundland in this episode of Parts Unknown I watched with Tom that aired in 20181. For my mom, it was seeing the musical Come From Away in 2022 with my sister-in-law, which she loved; the show is about the role Newfoundlanders played in hosting thousands of stranded “plane people” when American airspace closed for three days following 9/11. We then watched it together once the show was on streaming platforms. Somewhere in the realm of 2022 and 2023, when looking at the map of totality for the 2024 eclipse, I noticed something very interesting. Newfoundland was in it.
My mom gasped when I suggested it. “Let’s do it,” she said immediately.
We understood, after a certain amount of research, that we would be visiting in what was resolutely the off-season. Things might not be open, the sun might not be out. The puffins that nested on the island every summer would still be out in the ocean, as would the whales. We decided it didn’t matter. Newfoundland was where we wanted to go, and on April 4th, we landed in St. John’s.
From the airport, it only takes about 10 minutes to drive to downtown St. John’s, where we’re staying for two nights. It was supposed to be three, but we had a hellish late-night cancellation occur in Toronto (thanks, Air Canada!!). Thursday evening is cloudy and damp, and after unloading our things at the Roses Heritage Inn, we walk to the Duke of Duckworth for fish & chips and seafood chowder. The entrance is tucked away on a lane for foot traffic only.
We sit at the bar and people-watch. A girl asks the bartender if they’re “still doing the photos in the Guinness.” It turns out you can send a photo to the Duke’s computer and somehow it prints into the foam??? The girl takes the pint back to the table with her friends, who all sound thrilled. It turns out it was someone’s dog’s birthday, and the girl got the dog put in the foam. As we’re getting ready to leave, a guy in a red plaid shirt comes up to the bar to order a photo Guinness. The bartender goes to the computer and comes back. “So we actually can’t do photos that are explicit,” she says.
“Explicit? Is it really? My buddy sent in the photo, I didn’t even see it!”
My mom is slower getting to the door than I am. She’s laughing when she reaches me. Apparently the plaid shirt guy had tripped a little as he was gathering the drinks to take back to his friends, and said to Mom, “Watch out for that hole in the floor!”
“You’re gonna use that now, aren’t you,” I said. “Oh, definitely,” she says.
We head to O’Reilly’s next for live music. It’s on the early side, so we have our choice of seats. We sit on the side of the room that’s still empty and order pints from the server. I sort of had an idea that live music was part of Newfoundland’s culture, but I didn’t know exactly what kind of music. The first act to go on is just one man who has a guitar and a banjo and sings along with whatever instrument the song requires. He plays for about half an hour and this is when I first start to feel a sense of bliss, because the music is not recognizable to me but it’s still familiar and fills me with comfort as well as longing, somehow? Sort of like love?
This is exactly what we took in; some songs were about being at sea, some felt more Irish, some felt like folk, but altogether it felt like something we just didn’t know, that everyone else in the bar did. At one point, a couple dances around the floor in front of the stage, so neatly in time and step it feels choreographed.
There’s a break between the first act and the next group, who our server tells us is called Rugged Shores. More pints, more people arrive. A man in a red plaid shirt asks if it’s alright for his group to take up the seats around my mom and I. Of course it is! Not to mention that I have recognized the man from the Duke of Duckworth, so really, we’re old friends. I inform my mom, who gets his attention when he comes back from the bar. “Hey!” Mom says. “You’re the one who told me about the hole in the floor!” “Oh yeah, but that was just a joke,” he says. “I know,” she says. “Hey!” one of his friends says, sitting down. “You guys were at the last bar!” The plaid shirt guy cuts in: “I already figured it out, we already talked about it!”
Rugged Shores takes the stage. They are a duo who inform us they are normally a trio, but “Jeff” couldn’t make it because he threw out his back. They go on a riff about how perhaps it happened at work, it’s just that Jeff works in IT. “It was a really big PDF file.” I laugh out loud. “What’d he say?” Mom says. The problem with some Newfoundlanders is they are near-impossible to understand. One of the duo has a guitar and a strong singing voice, and the other has a violin. The violinist is the one who made the PDF joke. When the first act had left the stage, I felt a little sad, thinking, how could it get any better than that, but that was because I wasn’t even tHINKING about violins. Is there anything better than live music with a violin? No!
Our newly larger group is a great audience for Rugged Shores, who at times stick to the Newfoundland tradition and at other times play stuff like Creep by Radiohead. Mom has Canadian fives on the table. She asks when I’m going to go and leave a tip. “Remember that was always your job when you were little? You would go leave the tip.” It’s true, my memories of being in cities as a child all involve leaving dollar bills in guitar cases. “They like it when you tip while they’re playing,” Mom is saying. “Not just after.” Alright, alright, I’m bringing over the five. The violinist nods at me in thanks, but the real treat is when I return to our group and everyone claps. I bow.
At some point Rugged Shores asks for requests, but has to turn one down because Jeff isn’t here. “What does Jeff even do?” Mom says to our friends, as in, how could this get any better? “Oh, he just has this incredible low voice,” plaid shirt says. “Might play mandolin as well,” someone adds.
Plaid shirt guy asks for a song called Nancy Spain. Rugged Shores acquiesces, so this time it’s plaid shirt guy going up there, money in the jar. Now the first set is finished and the duo goes to the bar for a break. This is when plaid shirt guy scoots over to get to know us, ask us what we’re doing here. Our server had asked us too, so we’re now starting to understand that people can see us. People can tell we’re not part of the regular landscape.
Plaid shirt guy was not expecting our answer. “I’ve heard all kinds of reasons for people coming here, but never an eclipse.” “Why do people come here?” I ask. “Because they hear that we’re nice,” he says. “Well, that was a reason too,” I say.
But no, he thinks our reason is incredible, both because it’s so unique, and because he hadn’t known an eclipse was happening. “On Monday, you said? You’re telling me this is happening here? Here, in St. John’s?”
“Well, it will happen here, but not in full totality. Here it’s like 99%. We’re driving to the Bonavista peninsula for totality.”
“See, I love talking to you like this, because it’s Bah-navista,” he corrects me. I had said Bone-a-vista.
“While we’re on the subject, is it New fund lund? New found land?” Mom asks.
“It’s Newfund-land,” he says. “You say the land.”
“Newfund. Laand,” I say.
“This is like, where we live, there’s Green Bay,” Mom says. “Except some people say GREEN Bay. But it’s Green BAY.”
“Okay,” he says, “What is different about those??”
He’s right, emphasis is a different issue than pronunciation. We go back to the matter at hand. He’s so glad he’s been informed about the eclipse. “It’s incredible. Look at me, over here, not talking to you, and now I’m so glad I talked to you. You know what I mean? It’s amazing! I need to tell my girls about this. I have two girls, 3 and 6. The older one loves space.”
“She loves SPACE?” Mom repeats. “You need to tell her!”
“I know! I’m telling you, you’ve just made me the world’s best dad this weekend. She’s going to be so excited. Oh, goodness, I tear up talking about my girls. I don’t know why. Oh, gosh. So why — what is it about an eclipse that you need to come here? What do you love so much about it?”
He will be the only person to ask us this, and it’s a good question. What has so possessed us about the chance to see an eclipse that it’s become a seven-year saga?
“It’s just so unnatural,” is the first thing I can think to say. “To experience the earth — in a way that isn’t how it normally is.”
“Things change,” Mom says. “We went seven years ago, and things changed. Crickets came out, it got cold. It was really cool.”
He likes our answers. He can’t wait to tell her, he’s going to tell her tomorrow. Rugged Shores is getting ready to re-take the stage, and plaid shirt’s group is getting ready to go. I get out my camera to take a picture of the stage, and ask plaid shirt guy if he wants to be in it. “In your photo? You want me in it?”
After I take the photo we bid each other goodbye. We bid all of each other goodbye, the whole group. One person says, as a parting, to me, “I didn’t talk to you, but it was nice seeing you!” I want to start using that somehow, like the hole in the floor. But will a stranger in the future take it as meaningfully as I am taking it now?
“Do you want to go?” Mom asks me.
“I kind of want to stay until they’re done playing,” I say.
“Okay! I just didn’t want to be keeping you here if you wanted to go.”
“I don’t want to go. I’m having a great time.”
“Me too!”
“This is one of the best days,” I say. “What are some of your best days?”
“Tom and Patsy’s wedding,” she says. “Best day ever.”
“That was a really good best day.” Then I tell her about another one of my best days, when my Bennington cohort had a dance party at Hill House with frozen martinis and salt and vinegar Pringles, and when Alyssa and I walked home at midnight, there were lightning bugs all lighting up the fields in the dark.
“How cool is that,” Mom says.
Now a man is gesturing at me and mouthing something. “What? Are you talking to me?” He tries again but I’m still not getting it. I have to go over there, and I’m not even mad about it. I’ve never been this perceived, but in such a positive way, that no interaction feels like it could possibly go poorly.
“Do you want to dance with me?” is what he’s asking. “Okay, but I don’t really know what I’m doing,” I say, thinking of the couple from earlier with perfect rhythm and steps. “You don’t need to, I just freestyle,” he says, so that’s what we do. When the song ends, his companion, an older gentleman, says, “Well that was fun to watch! Do you have a background in theater?” How does he know that? “It’s just the way you seemed. You seemed very comfortable there.” In fact, there’s something he’d like to try. The song playing now feels more traditional, and he leads me back out to the floor to dance the way the couple did earlier, hand in hand and keeping in step.
The younger guy is clapping when it’s over. “That was beautiful!” Now it’s Mom’s turn to try. Why the hell not? And — what’s this? The couple that danced during the first set, like, three hours ago — they’re back! Like, back in the bar, which they had left long ago, and back on the dance floor! “I can’t believe you’re not asking me to dance with you,” the younger guy says to me, as I watch everyone. He’s right! How rude am I? I extend my hand to him.
He asks me where I’m from. He knows America, but where? When I say Wisconsin he’s like oh, cool, okay. I’m surprised he knows where I mean. “Well, the the thing about Canadians is, we know geography,” he says. And it’s true, literally every person who ends up asking us where we’re from (which is everyone) will just nod in understanding when we say Wisconsin. Now he asks if Mom is my mom. “That’s so cute! I love that.”
“How do you know him?” I ask, about the older guy, because he does not seem like his dad, the way Mom seems like my mom. I was not expecting his answer. “His grandson is on my hockey team.” “You play hockey?” “No, well, I do, but I’m the coach.” Oh, so he is talking about a child.
When the song is over I ask the dancing woman where she went. She looks surprised. “You were here earlier,” I say. She still looks surprised but answers like it’s a normal question anyway. “Let’s see, where have I been. I booked some flights. I’m going on a cruise tomorrow.” Okay, that’s an answer that doesn’t make sense to me so I’m just gonna leave it.
We have a solid dance floor crew now, which makes Rugged Shores’ closing number a real hit. It’s Come On Eileen. I mean, come ON! Talk about giving the people what they want. We get the rest of the bar on their feet.
“Oh, God, Margaret, it’s almost 2 a.m.,” Mom’s saying when it’s over.
Our dancing partners are staying at the bar for a bit longer. Imagine being them. Like imagine being at the bar with your grandson’s hockey coach until closing time, dancing with women who are strangers to you? And somehow it doesn’t feel predatory it all? Like, as an experience, it was so incredibly wholesome? In fact, we’re hugging them goodbye. You made our night! No, you made OUR night. Is this what life is like? Is this how life has been all along and I just didn’t see it? You can just go up to people and dance with them and learn things about them and then call it a night? Just leave it there?
It’s misting on the walk back to our hotel, which is good, we need the walk and the mist. I’m in the phase of a night of drinking where I’m philosophical. The thing about the eclipse is that, it’s just about life, how things just happen the way they need to, because if we hadn’t gone to St. Louis, we probably never would’ve come here, and we needed to come here, we needed to be here. We needed to meet all these people and talk to them. Amen, Mom says. Honestly, my entire life, my mom’s vibe with me has always been: yas! go off!
Friday, April 5th! Are we hungover when we wake up? The answer is not no. But we’re okay after egg sandwiches and coffees at Toslow. After walking downtown a bit, we drive to explore nearby Quidi Vidi and have an afternoon hike. We also go to an artisan market where we befriend a few lovely craftswomen — one of whom tells us stories about making sandwiches for “the plane people,” and the other of whom will also be in Bonavista on eclipse day. We hope it won’t be cloudy, but, if it is, we hope we’ll still see something. “I’ll be thinking of you!” she says.
We have two dinners — the first is Thai food at Bannerman Brewing. Fuck me up, fried tofu! Then we go to Chinched for a pate sampler platter and oysters, even though we’re really full from the Thai. Our bartender is very cute and chatty. Like, we learn he loves to sing karaoke! His signature is Careless Whisper. He seems like an excellent person to ask what their favorite bar is.
“Oh, Christians,” he says. “100 percent. Always a good time. Always an interesting crowd. Like, every kind of person goes there. But definitely. Christians for a screech.” “What’s a screech?” “You know what? Go to Christians, and ask them when the next screech in is.”
It’s 7:30 when we arrive at Christians, and by that, I mean it’s early. We’ve got full lighting, and just a few people sitting at the bar, so everyone stops talking and looks at us.
“We’ve been told to come here and ask when the next screech in is,” I announce to the whole bar. The bartender asks if we’ve registered. Registered?? Is this a sporting event? “It’s fine, I’ve got a few open spots.” He tells us the ceremony starts at 9 p.m. sharp — once he starts, the doors are locked. He can’t have people coming in every other minute interrupting the show. We can sign these forms with our names clearly legible and then get our drinks and wait. He would love it if we didn’t need to get drinks leading up to showtime. The couple nearest us at the bar suggests we try Lukey’s Lager, because it’s a beer made exclusively for the bartender. So at first I think his name is Luke, but then the three girls on our other side call him Brian. So is this a first name Brian, last name Lukey situation? We never learn for sure. Lukey’s Lager ends up being my Ideal Beer and I’m sad I can’t buy it anywhere else.
While we wait, we get the usual questions from the couple nearest us, Nikki and Mike. Where are you from? What are you doing here? “Wisconsin kept us going during the beer strike in the 90s!” Mike says. “We drank, what was it called — Old Milwaukee?”
People progressively start arriving for the screech-in. Molly, another American, sits on Mike and Nikki’s other side. She’s about my age and traveling alone. We love that for her! Most other arriving screechers are accompanied by a group, even if they’re the only one getting screeched. Many Newfoundlanders, it seems, take it upon themselves to be the sponsor of a screecher.
As things are picking up, Mom and I are watching Brian, mostly. We decide that he’s the perfect bartender. He is no-nonsense: What do you want? But he also never complains: Yep, I can do that. No matter what someone asks for — and at one point, a woman asks for a shot that requires 3 different alcohols layered in a shot glass. She needs four of them. No — only three. “I will be annoyed if now she says she needs a fourth,” Brian says as he prepares them, just for Mom and I to hear. It’s like he can read our thoughts about how he doesn’t complain, and felt the need to be honest. Brian also uses cool stemmed shot glasses. All his glassware is cool, actually, and I tell him that. He seems to appreciate that I noticed. Like, a blonde girl comes up to ask for a gin and tonic and she gets a beautiful crystalline juice glass. The three girls next to us ask for picklebacks. I don’t think I’ve seen someone order picklebacks since working a St. Patrick’s Day double shift in Chicago in 2018. When Brian serves them, he says, of the shot glass, “Don’t steal that, because I only have ten of them.”
We’re also watching a young man that I would like to call Brian’s Assistant, even though, I’m sure it would be more normal to just call him a barback. This young man just has such Assistant energy. He is almost as no-nonsense as Brian. He is wearing overalls over a gray crewneck sweatshirt and his hair is shoulder-length. Every time Brian tells him something, his response is, Uh-huh. Uh-huh, yup. Uh-huh. He never asks questions. He only accomplishes tasks. Mom and I are obsessed with him.
“I need the door locked, but upstairs open.” “Uh huh.” “It’s locked?” “Yup.”
The bar is filling up rapidly as we approach showtime. Brian is making drinks right up til 8:58 p.m., which is exactly what he wanted to avoid. But he gets the job done. Then he dons a hat, blasts some Newfoundland music, and starts the show.
The screech-in, we’ve gathered by now, is a ritual for “come from aways” who want to become honorary Newfoundlanders. So, Newfoundlanders don’t participate, because it would be redundant. Our friends Nikki and Mike therefore take on the role of videographer and supportive spectator. The ritual is about 30-40 minutes and involves a number of tasks like eating bologna, kissing a codfish, and taking a shot of “Screech.” It was very devil-may-care for Mom and I to agree to all this without knowing what Screech even is. Seconds to showtime, I learn that Screech is rum. Probably, genuinely, have not done a shot of RUM since I was eighteen.
“Is that your mom?” Molly asks me, as Brian flambés bologna with Screech. Yeah, that’s my mom! “That’s so cute!”
Nikki was a real one and recorded the whole thing but I’m just gonna include the Newfoundland Fun Facts that closed out the show.
We’re Newfoundlanders now! Ay by! After the ceremony, the bar goes into bar mode. Lights are off, Brian is outta here. People are flooding in now that the doors are unlocked. Our new bartender is a cute young guy who blasts Stick Season, followed by Love Story. The entire bar shouts the lyrics to both songs. The music continues on the same trajectory the entire night, like, the songs don’t necessarily make sense side by side but you’re going to love it anyway. Nikki and I are dancing to Levitating. Do I genuinely in seriousness because I want it order another shot of screech? Who’s to say, really?
“Seeing you guys, it’s making me emotional. I miss my mom.” Nikki lost her mom during Covid. Mike, who has been socializing with the whole bar, rejoins us and says, somehow unrelatedly, “I love seeing you guys together. It makes me miss my mom. I didn’t even lose her recently. But I still miss her.”
“My mom died in 2001 and I miss her every day,” Mom says. “I didn’t get enough time.”
We toast to moms. I’m the only one with a mom. What will I do when it’s me? What on earth will I ever do without my mom?
“You should move here,” Mike tells me. “Especially since you’re a writer. You wouldn’t mind the isolation.”
We stay at Christians hours later than we thought we would. Even Mike and Nikki leave before us. We hug them goodbye. I tell Mom that we should stay until we each finish a glass of water. I go to the bathroom and when I get back, there’s a great commotion. The other bartender on duty broke a glass, and not only that, but it broke INTO the ice bin. I’m hoping for her sake that it isn’t one of Brian’s nice glasses that come in sets of 10. Mom is annoyed about it because the cute bartender was just starting to talk to her, and then the other one had to go and ruin it by breaking the glass. Anyway, the glass breaking marks our exit. We hug Molly goodbye. All these friends we’ve made! There may not be enough time in life to get to know everyone very well, but there is certainly enough time to get to know a lot of people very well for one hour. We kind of thought our bartender friend from Chinched was going to show up here after his shift, but, alas.
“Thank you for making me drink a glass of water,” Mom says on the walk home. All around, we’re going to be in better shape — this time it’s only like midnight. We meet a street cat on the way home who jumps into my arms when I bend down to meet her. “She’s not a street cat,” Mom says.
Saturday, April 6th! We check out of our hotel and head to The Rooms, St. John’s cultural / history museum. Here we get further confirmation on the strong ties between Ireland and Newfoundland, and also learn about the long history of Native inhabitants, particularly the Beothuk population that was driven to extinction after contact with early European settlers. Tale as old as time, huh?
After the museum it’s time to drive westward! We worry that St. John’s will be missing us keenly, having been the life of the party for the last two nights. “Everyone’s going to be saying, ‘Where are they?’” Mom says. Honestly, true. But! It’s time to get into position for the ECLIPSE!
The drive to the Bonavista Peninsula is ~2.5 hours. We stop for pizza en route (who remembers Cowgirl Pizza from my Montana newsletter?? This pizza stop has that same energy). We arrive at our Airbnb in Southern Bay at ~ 6 p.m.
I will tell you right now that our Airbnb host Rob is the hero of this trip. He has left all kinds of welcoming treats for us, along with his phone number. When I text him the next morning to thank him for everything, he calls me and we talk for 15 minutes about my plan for the day, which was to drive a loop of the peninsula. Rob tells us all the stops to hit for cool geological sites and which restaurants are open and where we can get an eclipse t-shirt. He tells us how to prepare the squid he has left in the freezer. He tells us he’ll get his cousin to bring over some eggs from her hens (Serama and Silkie).
Today (Sunday, April 7th!) is the only day we see blue sky, aside from the day we ultimately fly home. And honestly, if we had been able to *choose* which day to have sunlight, I still would have chosen this day that we drive the loop.
Some businesses (like the Port Rexton Brewery) have extended their hours for eclipse-goers like ourselves. Two Whales coffee shop even opened for *eclipse weekend only* (including a “special dinner” scheduled for the night of!!), when they normally wouldn’t open until May. We love the Eclipse-going spirit that is running abound on the peninsula! Everyone’s interested in talking to us about where we’re from, but unlike in St. John’s, they don’t need to be told why we’re here. Although, there is a consensus among everyone that we should return in the summer. We buy all kinds of souvenirs from whoever’s open, including, for Mom, a bright yellow RAIN HAT, an item that she has been wanting for QUITE SOME TIME to go with her rain coat and rain pants that she has at home.2
On the eve of the eclipse, we’re eating fried squid and cod (procured by Rob, prepared by moi) at our little home, reading all kinds of news coverage telling us what to do for best eclipse viewing. One article interviews a physics professor who went to St. Louis for totality in 2017 — they recommend being ready to drive if conditions are cloudy where you are.
This particular article sends me down a little thought spiral, because, first of all, who is this imposter professor of physics who says St. Louis was in totality?? Or… what if this whole time, what we experienced in St. Louis was what totality entailed? And now we’ve been on this goose chase for darkness that doesn’t exist? We had figured it wouldn’t really matter if it was cloudy on eclipse day, because even on a cloudy night, you still can tell that it’s night. Now, we’re not sure what kind of change we can expect, if it will be noticeable after all.
Still! We have faith. We play cribbage that night and Mom absolutely creams me.
Monday, April 8! Eclipse Day! We start our day with Serama and Silkie’s eggs, then coffee at Two Whales. The coffee shop is abuzz with eclipse chasers, discussing which cities will have worse cloud cover than others. It’s funny how much we get into it, because it’s like, oh, Bonavista has 77% expected cloud cover, while Trinity only has 73%. As if there’s going to be some major difference between those. There are people from as nearby as St. John’s and as far away as California, a range that somehow contributes to this energy, like we’re a specially designated eclipse-chasing team. Some people decide to drive west to Gander for a chance at clearer skies. We practically salute each other in goodbye.
Things are feeling eerily familiar all of a sudden. I imagine yet another eclipse story, told far in the future: She wanted to go to Gander, but I wanted to stay put. Because that’s the truth, I don’t want to chase any farther. I found where totality was and now we’re here. But I don’t want to ruin it for Mom. When I say this to her, though, she looks relieved. She wants to stay put too.
So instead of spending the day in the car, we enjoy our coffee. Then we go for a rather strenuous but very special, long hike on the nearby Skerwink trail.
Back at our Airbnb that afternoon we confirm what time totality will occur. The clouds have not broken. Like, forget about 73% — as 5 p.m. approaches we’re at 100%, baby.
“Well, I’m going outside,” Mom says.
“I’m glad we stayed here,” I say, as we gather up blankets.
“Oh, good,” Mom says. “I was so worried I was doing exactly what I did last time, when I said, no, let’s not drive to Carbondale.” Already, she’s re-written our conversation slightly, as if I wasn’t the first one to say I wanted to stay here.
“You know, I wish you wouldn’t tell it that way, anymore,” I say, ready to repeat a variation of my Grade A philosophical ranting from the other night. “Because we both decided. And maybe at the time I was upset because I just didn’t know how to deal with the disappointment but I’m not that way anymore. I love our eclipse story. We wouldn’t be here having the trip of a lifetime if we hadn’t gone to St. Louis. I’m so glad we’re here.”
She smiles and pulls me into a hug. “Me too.”
We go out and stand on the back deck that, we later learn, Rob built himself last summer. The anticipation is always what takes hold of me, about the eclipse, I think. That’s what I couldn’t quite explain to plaid shirt guy. How you’re sitting there, filled with expectations — even if you’ve tried not to be, you are — about what’s about to happen. But you also know the way it will happen will be different than what you expect, and there’s a fear and a thrill to that. To just waiting.
“Hang on,” Mom says. “I think it’s getting darker.”
I look around. It’s sort of dark, sure, but that’s because it’s after 5 p.m. on an overcast day.
Then it happens.
Almost out of nowhere, it’s dark as night. It comes on quickly, but noticeably, like getting a blanket thrown over our heads. We’re laughing like children. Oh my God. Oh my God. The automatic lights on a nearby tree have switched on. Cars drive by with headlights on. I can’t see Mom’s face. “I can’t see you,” she’s saying.
At the horizon, there’s a weird reddish glow. I keep asking what it is. I don’t know, Mom says. We keep confirming it, like we’ve gone crazy. It’s dark. It’s really dark. I can’t believe it’s this dark.
Then her face becomes more clear. The first blanket layer is pulled off, then the next, until we’re back, blinking in the gray-white daylight.
Afterward, we drive back to Two Whales for the special dinner, which is a choice between chili or baked pasta. “So? How was it?” I ask the owner. I ascertained he was the owner this morning. He is very soft-spoken, which makes him a funny person to have this conversation with, because I want to be, like, yelling. He jokes about how he and the staff all took photos in their eclipse glasses, pointing up at the cloud cover like they could see what was happening. “But it got dark!” I say. It’s what I keep saying. I’m a broken record. “Yes!” he says. “I thought it was really quite cool, to be honest.”
Rob has texted, asking to confirm plans to go mussel picking tomorrow. I call him as we’re leaving Two Whales. We talk on the drive home. About the eclipse, about the trip in general, about our day. He’s thrilled we hiked the Skerwink trail. Was it muddy? Was there snow on the trail? A bit of snow, and more than a bit muddy, but it was alright. We had a great time.
“I’m just so glad you guys are making the most of everything. Here you didn’t have good weather, you didn’t have sunshine, but you still found so much to do. I mean it sounds like you really really have made the best of it.”
Mom is driving. I am vaguely aware I should have put Rob on speaker, because I want her to be hearing this.
I’m doing my best.
That was what I didn’t know how to say to myself all summer long. I thought there were all these unseen penalties waiting for me when I made wrong choices. But the penalties were only ever self-inflicted. And so it was for the eclipse. What are we doing here? Like it was a failure — we should’ve just known, the first time, how to do it all right.
What I know in 2024 that I didn’t know in 2017 is that there is almost never a clear way to do it right. Now, I think going at all is the closest way to go correctly.
So, would everything be different if we had gone to Carbondale? The answer is yes. The thing we wanted — total darkness — had existed. My mom and I will tell you now that the difference between 99% and 100% totality is day and night.
But the eclipse in St. Louis did exactly what it needed to do. It taught me everything it was supposed to: Carve out time with your loved ones. Go all in. Accept the limits of your situation. Find humor. Be grateful. Recognize that things will often happen how they should, even if it wasn’t what you wanted. Because it will get you here. And by the time you’re here you’ll know the only right thing to do, ever, is just to take it all in. Learn the slang, love the music, hug the people. Talk to Rob on the phone and ask him questions.
“When I saw you guys were coming, I just thought, how cool. They are so adventurous.”
Adventurous. I look over at Mom. Rob notices me take a beat, considering the word. “Wouldn’t you say so?”
This is the story of the eclipse, what the story has always been: my mom and I wanted to go. If something is happening, we want to be there. At the source. I’m so glad I talked to you. Yes, we’ll dance with you. Why the hell not?
This has been —
xxx your twin flame
The whole episode is worth watching, but from 38:15 to the end of the video, you can actually see Bourdain get “screeched in,” at the very same bar and by the very same man that screeched in my mom and I. Our own screech in actually included an emotional toast to Bourdain.
When she wears the whole ensemble she looks like a cod fisherman.
Okay this brought me to tears! I love you and your mom! Thank GOD you went to St. Louis!!
Loved this story , you are such a good storyteller! And say hi to your mom! Xxx