The Eclipse Gave Me Attitude Superpowers

Deep sigh.

Start a business. Check. 

Get away from a badddd situation. Check.

Move to a little art cottage surrounded by trees and squirrels and nice neighbors. Check.

It's been the busiest, craziest year of my life, but also the best. That you could choose to be surrounded with mellow, kind people, that you didn't have to put up with the stinkers, the babies, and the whiners.

The struggle never was necessary.
I hadn't known. 

I've felt strong, too. I've journaled, arted, did yoga, ate more carefully. Felt like God was smiling down on me much of the time. When it looked like certain death or financial disaster, help was fast in coming. Truthfully, it's been a blessed time.

I thought witnessing Eclipse 2017 in 99-plus totality might bump my personal life into high gear.

I should've been suspicious to the contrary when my chalkboard-painted short bus, "Chalkie", appeared to be covered with oil on the back panel. What could it mean? 

Shortly thereafter, my reliable 15-passenger vehicle, the one I've taken all over Idaho, seized and died, in rush hour traffic.

Though the oil was changed just weeks ago, the dipstick showed none.

Good thing I hadn't filled the tank with diesel, and four extra gas cans, too, in preparation for the eclipse or something.

Except I had.

God's speaking to me, I thought. I must not be meant to travel 3.5 hours to be with family in Mackay for the big event. 

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Okay, then.

Except it wasn't. I could've caught a ride with my grown kids, but had the dog I inherited when my daughter got married and moved out. She'd never fit in the backseat with all of our gear, plus, she'd hate the three hour ride, and so would we.

I tried to accept missing "totality". Logic spoke, hey, you spent money prepping your bus, your bus didn't make it, that's fuel you'll never use in this lifetime. Tough break. Cut your losses, spend no more.

But logic (or something like it) also suggested that this eclipse, here in my region, hasn't happened in a very long while, and wouldn't happen again for me, unless I became an eclipse chaser, which seemed unlikely.

I packed again, fueled up the remaining running car, figuring I could sell eclipse-themed art to neutralize additional unplanned costs.

Eclipse Eve, I climbed a mountain to Lower Cedar Falls, got my Diet Mountain Dew bottle filled with the freshest, purest water I'd ever had. I sunburned my nose. I strained my muscles on both ascent and descent.

Preclipse, I felt good.

But I also learned I'm no longer accustomed to large groups of people, as my sister's welcoming home was packed to the brim with adults, kids, and dogs. I didn't like that I didn't like it. Made me feel anti-social or spinster-y. Yet I kept looking for excuses to go outside, go for walks, be alone for lengths of time.

I had to take in that this is me, now. The me I remember feeling like as a middle kid in a large, verbal family... the one who can people for a while, and then can't.

When the big moment rolled around, I was exhausted, sleep-deprived, grumpy.

I hoped the appearance/disappearance would give me a cosmic boost.

As moon covered sun, I exclaimed, and surprise tears emerged.

Our God is a very big God.

But I didn't feel much different, after.

I was still tired, still grumpy.

Still me.

The day won't be wasted, I thought. Of all the booths selling stuff in town, curiously, I hadn't seen any eclipse art.

I had some. And I was gonna sell it.

I set up my table with a purple tablecloth, placing art on its purpled surface.

The visitors could've cared less. Yet the sweet, salt of the earth locals stopped, contributing to the cause. One was a grandpa named Richard Reynolds, we'd seen him the night before, pulling an open trailer filled with family in lawn chairs, as if in a parade. For an added bonus, they threw candy at us. Happiness overload.

Another customer was Scott, a man who'd had a stroke in his twenties. He was younger than me, and trembled with every deliberate move while handing me currency.

Others were also locals, as the CA. and FL. and Canadian plated cars rolled by, gawking like we were the foreigners. I waved. They didn't wave back.

"They wave here!" I yelled after them.

None of them heard me.

"How much?" one man, accompanied by a crowd, asked.

When I replied, he coughed into his hand, "too much", and the woman beside him laughed.

That's when my dark eclipse attitude began.

"Go ask those guys," the coughing man said, pointing to a group of guys that must've been friends he wanted to sic me on.

"No thanks," I told him, glaring.

"Oh, c'mon," he chided, 'they're good people!"

You're not, I thought, fully eclipsing now.

"Go talk to 'em," he continued, as his silly girlfriend grinned in admiration, "they'll buy your stuff!"

"We're done here," I said, gathering my things and starting to walk away.

I needed to neutralize that rude guy's "ick".

Approaching the nearest Mackay home, I handed a man standing out in his yard puttering my small, colorful eclipse canvas, and said rather lifelessly, "I'm giving out free eclipse art."

As he started to say, "cool!" I tossed a "Happy Eclipse" over my shoulder, and hoofed it back to my sister's house, a soft well-used couch, and the usual adult, kid, and dog chaos.

Perhaps Eclipse 2017 is going to teach me not to put up with crap, to shut it down.

Driving  home, I still had several canvases in my car. A few miles past Craters of the Moon, a family from India was posing near a historical site sign, with a tall, slightly snobby-looking older gentleman looking on. I walked up to him with the best piece of art, framed and signed, told him what I was doing, and he peered critically at my work, as if inspecting.

He took too long, and it felt like judgment. I wasn't in a crap-taking mood. I'd eclipsed.

"You don't want it?" I said, "Fine," and went over to the much more welcoming Indian family. I had enough pieces to give to each person, presenting the best one to the mother of the group.

I climbed behind the wheel of my car and drove down the highway, feeling changed.