“Life is made up of a few moments all strung together like pearls. Each moment is a pearl, and it is up to us to pick the ones with the highest luster.” – Joyce Hilfer
There are private moments, shared moments among family and friends and every so often there are moments that are shared by a community, a Nation, the World. We all have a string of pearls that symbolize events in life and each string is unique but there are pearls we all carry from the same event. Who among us born in the 50s doesn’t remember where they were when Man landed on the Moon or Elvis died? Or for the younger folks, they must all remember how they felt when the US was attacked by terrorists during the biggest tragedy in our country’s history, 9/11. Some of our pearls are from events we’d rather not remember.
On August 21st, 2017 an event was unfolding that many were excited to experience and Winnie was included, a Puggle was about to witness a Solar Eclipse. Folks across the country were traveling in droves to the Western United States to find the best Eclipse viewing place. We traveled to Sweet Home, OR and found a perfect spot by a lake called Foster Reservoir. Birds were singing to the rising sun. We were all a jitter in anticipation, Winnie was just excited to be on a road trip. By 9:35am the shores of the lake were filling with eager viewers all brought together by a unifying desire to see nature’s rare showing of total darkness during the day.
For us virgin eclipse viewers, not knowing what to expect meant we were guaranteed not to be disappointed. Winnie sat on my lap, almost bored now as she had fully explored the area around us and found not much to get excited about. By 10:13am the eclipse had begun and the energy from the viewing crowds was palpable.
By 10:18am, the full eclipse was being experienced by all, the hush was surprising. Not even the birds were singing. The collective hum of oooohs and ahhhhs among the humans revealed how spectacular the event was. Meanwhile, Winnie was taking a nap on the tailgate of the minivan.
In a few minutes it’d be over and we’d all be individuals again, going back to our lives, back to our personal strings to make private pearls.
The beauty of the pearls we made outta that moment will always be on each of our strings and no matter how time separates us, the unifying power of the pearl will keep an invisible attachment for all time.