We never heard the shots.
We did hear and see the ambulances and police cars speeding by us as we walked through a Germantown park on Easter Sunday. I turned to Bob and whispered, “I don’t miss living downtown” as a helicopter swooped north above us. I wanted to see Ada’s tree standing in a memorial grove of bald cypress behind our friend, Yoko’s, townhouse. Her three year old granddaughter ran ahead of us, holding her ears against the sirens. We were invited for lunch, and had just finished a lesson in creating Ukranian Pysanky Easter eggs.
I love discovering new things, and though I’d spent many Easters as a child dyeing eggs, I’d never heard of this particular art form. Yoko lit a candle and demonstrated her technique – first you put a special pen, a kristka, into the flame, then dip it into wax and simply draw your design on an egg. Believe me it is not that simple, especially if you want to apply more than two colors. It takes a steady hand and a lot of patience. If you’d like to give it a try, here is the Martha Stewart method: https://www.marthastewart.com/1514689/tips-and-tricks-to-pysanky-eggs
When we got home, our solar eclipse glasses had arrived on our porch. We are all packing up, Grands included, for an overnight stay this coming weekend in Carbondale, Illinois. So many people are making the pilgrimage, we’re actually staying outside of town and driving in that morning. It feels almost biblical; chasing the heavens in order to see the sun disappear behind the moon, to feel the chill and hear the night insects begin chirping. If clouds permit, this will be my last solar eclipse, unless of course I’m still kicking at 95 and find myself living the dream in Florida.
The next really BIG solar eclipse in North America will take place August 12, 2045, covering: U.S, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname and Brazil….plus the U.S. gets a big coast-to-coast eclipse. Totality as long as 6 minutes 4 seconds will be seen from Reno, Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, with Port Saint Lucie, Florida, where totality will last the longest in the U.S. Expect big crowds at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. “
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2024/03/30/its-exactly-nine-years-until-the-next-us-total-solar-eclipse/?sh=2f59172f6779
That night we listened to the local news only to find out that a mass shooting had happened at 3 in the afternoon at a restaurant only a block away from the park with Ada’s tree. All the sirens, all the noise made sense. A convicted felon had pulled out a gun and killed a family man and injured his wife and daughter and several other diners over some minor altercation. Two complete strangers on Easter Sunday.
A year after the Coventry School shooting, our TN legislature is trying to pass a “Shooting Alert Button” Bill, instead of discussing the real reason gun violence is an epidemic. When will our country say enough is enough? In nine years another total eclipse of the sun will move across Alaska. Maybe we could ban assault weapons by that time?
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