We were excited for the eclipse last week. It fell on the day we were helping to plan Lance and Kirsti’s wedding celebration. It meant they had flown in from California and we were meeting at her family home in the Woodlands. It was great to have our two families together and we were having a joyful time.
We were busy looking at wedding venues and creating pro and con lists when a picture popped up on my screen from an Eclipse Watcher friend. It made me look up from my computer and look outside. It was not very noticeable, but I stood up and walked into the backyard. I cast a quick glance toward the sun, but that was not effective. After my eyes recovered I turned my attention to the shadows. I could see the funny little moon shapes associated with an eclipse. I called out to everyone that the eclipse was happening and they all came out to see.
We were two hours away from the area of totality and the ring of fire, but it was still an impressive transition. The temperature continued to drop. The birds grew eerily silent. The shadows got stranger. The light was different in a way that was hard to explain. Then we went on a hunt to “see” the eclipse. We made holes in paper, which made shapes like tiny crescent moons on the ground. That was so fun that we searched the house for other holy things. A wiffle ball was delightful as it was tossed in the air and spun around it was like a little planetarium. Some mesh shorts created a galaxy of crescent moons. While I was making a pinhole viewer Cindy discovered the colander.
I came out hearing the oohs and aahs of those gathered. Then I said, “Wow, they look like little pineapples!” Proving that my mouth is faster than my brain. As the words blurted out of my lips my mind registered a couple of facts. This was not our colander. Our colander has a series of holes in it. This colander has a fancy design in it. The middle of the colander has round holes. The top edge of this colander has pineapple shapes cut into the metal. By the time the synapse in my brain connected the words were already in the air.
We all burst out laughing. For those of us in the backyard, it will always be the Great Pineapple Eclipse of 2023.
We talked about mystery and what it must have been like to experience something like this before our current understanding of orbits, gravity, and the solar system. Pineapples were first encountered by Columbus in 1493 and Westerns gave it the name “Pineapple” mashing up “pine cone” and “apple” to create a hybrid word. They could just as easily have called it Hoyriri, which it had been called for over 2000 years. They did not bother to learn from the people who had cultivated it and spread it across what we call South America. It was all a good reminder to me to do my best to slow down my tongue, especially when I don’t understand. Sometimes I need to learn a lot more, watch a lot more, and listen a lot more before I formulate a judgment. We are all too quick to dismiss, to minimize, to frame the world through our own experience. The world could be a kinder place. It’s up to us.