In the Path of Totality

We were together.

Of all the ways I could try (and fail) to describe the eclipse, perhaps the closest I’ll come are those three words.

We sat in a crowded park on an unseasonably warm April and watched the moon speed across the sun at 3,683 kilometres an hour in the year of our lord 2024.

As shared cultural experiences go, it was the finest I’d ever witnessed. It wasn’t a mass shooting or an election night surprise. You didn’t have to buy tickets or find parking downtown.

All you had to do was look up.

And in that extremely brief moment, it was like watching the fabric of the universe reveal itself. For all the ways in which science can rationalize the chaos of life on earth, this was in the realm of the Gods. Even the best pictures of the eclipse look nothing like what we saw that afternoon in the park.

That’s as poetic as I’m getting.

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My friends Bouny, Steve and their children let me tag along at Parc Jean Drapeau. They brought sandwiches, quesadillas and soda water. I brought chips and candy. There were 100,000 of us standing shoulder to shoulder: city folk, suburbanites, tourists, teenagers on a school trip and children in every direction.

The little ones lined up for ice cream while some of the field trip kids snuck into the woods to smoke cigarettes and use curse words. “Let’s fucking gooooo!” one of them yelled.

DJ Champion’s beats pulsated through a crowd of sun-worshiping hippies and senior citizens. The mayor gave a speech. I can remember almost none of it.

But these things I will hold onto.

A cold fell over us just before the moon blotted out the sun. I felt myself shaking from a mix of fear and excitement. When darkness finally washed over the city, birds stopped singing and I swear half the dogs in Montreal went crazy.

People wept. They held each other, they screamed and clasped their hands in prayer. Most of us applauded wildly towards the heavens. Tears formed in my eyes. I thought about our daughter Wednesday who, at two and a half, would have insisted on looking directly at the sun the entire time. Still, I wish she could have been in my arms.

I tried to text my Marie-Pier but the cell network crashed from too many folks doing the same. An hour later, when the signal returned, I asked Marie-Pier how it went on the south end of Decarie Blvd.

“I felt so insignificant and so significant at the same time,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “I was on the balcony and I could hear people cheering all over the city. A car pulled over and the driver got out to stare at the sky.”

Still reeling, I went to Twitter and typed: “Where were you and what was it like?”

Over in Shefford, Hal Newman told me “a rooster started crowing as totality enveloped us in darkness.” I quite liked that image.

At the top of Mount-Royal, François Aubin said he heard “a tsunami of cheers” coming from the west side of the mountain. “I first didn’t quite understand why, but then it came to us and we all screamed and gasped at the same time! City lights went on, birds sang afterwards like it was morning!”

Entire neighbourhoods erupted into cheers, restaurants and bars sat empty while, out in the streets, waiters shared protective glasses and stared into the eclipse. It was as though reality itself paused so we could see our place in the universe for a moment.

I’m aware this sounds ridiculous.

Just a few days have passed and everything is out of alignment again. This won’t happen again in Montreal until the year 2205. I don’t know if there will be a Canada when that day comes. If it comes. In some ways that’s a reassuring thought. It also scares the shit out of me.