The Church Feeling

on special glasses and spending money

I felt the church feeling as I sat on a manmade hill in Wicker Park with about thirty other people and watched the solar eclipse. I really didn’t expect to feel much of anything. I walked to the hill listening to the usual titter of self-criticism: Why didn’t I buy glasses earlier, of course they’re sold out everywhere. If I stop at Allez Cafe for a treat I’ll end up spending $15 and then I’ll feel ridiculous checking price tags at Aldi to keep my grocery haul under $20. My legs are so pale, I should have just worn jeans.

I stopped at Allez Cafe and spent $14.46. I passed people stepping onto the sidewalk and donning their paper-and-plastic glasses to check the moon’s progress. I smiled at them and coveted their glasses and made a conscious effort to not mirror their behavior. It’s very hard not to follow someone’s gaze, especially skyward. I had a few thoughts about Donald Trump against my will and then thought about 9/11 for a while. I scanned the treebeds and curb as I walked in case someone had dropped a pair of glasses.

I abandoned my grocery list but stopped into Aldi to buy a can of SPF 100 for $2.74. A Google search said Warby Parker was selling eclipse glasses but there was a SOLD OUT sign on the door when I arrived. There was an old man on the sidewalk holding one of the cyborg-style viewing rectangles and I put on my granddaughter voice to ask him if he got the last one. He offered me a look through the black rectangle and I felt myself go clear, not glassy but thin plasticy. That thing is actually up there? It’s two things. And we’re a third thing, down here.

I sprayed my paleness with SPF 100 on the walk back to the manmade hill next to the Aldi. I spread my cardigan on the grass and took my shoes off and tucked my legs and feet under myself so nobody would see them. I ate my croissant and looked around at everyone looking at the sun with their glasses and tried not to mirror their behavior.

A woman a couple yards away didn’t have glasses either and was trying the pinhole method with paper. I could tell she felt a little embarrassed. A couple nearby asked if it was working and told her she could borrow their glasses, no problem. I stunned myself by immediately bending toward them and asking to borrow their glasses. I took a look - halfway there - and tried to store the image in my memory in case they didn’t offer me another glance during the maximum - I wouldn’t ask again.

The daylight started to dim and I thought about how it looked like turning down the exposure on a photo, which always looks unnatural because the natural lowering of light also involves a change in hue. No warmth here because no horizon-atmosphere filter here. I felt genuinely discomfited by the change in light. I was looking around and everyone else was looking around, too. I noticed that the pinhole woman had acquired a pair of glasses and was staring at the sun and its companion, her chin bent up, her shoulders slightly slumped.

I listened in to some of the chatter around me. I heard a champagne bottle pop. Well, probably prosecco. A woman appeared from behind me and told me that she had extra pairs of glasses, and here I could have these. I asked her if she wanted some cash for them and she said no, and I wondered why the hell I would ask such a thing as she walked back to her friends.

I looked at the sun and it did not look back, it looked with indifference at the nakedness of the moon, and the temperature started to drop. I felt sedated by the dimness and coolness and just looked and looked. Since everyone was facing the same direction, I felt concealed, and this is when the church feeling started. The pinhole woman was still in the same posture, somehow bending inward and upward at the same time. The couples and groups of friends had hushed and the suspension was complete.

Through my glasses I saw the sliver of orange undulating around the black pupil, surrounded by more blackness. I looked down and lowered the glasses and the earth returned. Again and again like this, shimmering blackness and then scattering green and blue. I thought about Annihilation and about how much I think about that movie. I felt the gazes of the people behind me going above my head, missing me entirely.

-

When I walked away from the hill, toward Wormhole to spend another $8.59 and write this, I felt a desperate longing to give the glasses to someone. I looked into the face of every person I passed and imagined myself saying “Hey, do you have glasses, did you see the eclipse, do you want these?” I looked at every person on the sidewalk and willed them to give me some sign that they wanted the glasses so I wouldn’t have to say all that. I thought about dropping the glasses into a treebed so someone could chance upon them, but by then it was all done.

-

I was listening to my medieval lofi playlist (for closing a tavern) but then it ended and I’ve been listening to myself write, with my earbuds in, for two hours. One of the people who works here waved at me to get my attention, assuming I wouldn’t hear if he said something, and then told me my hair is pretty. I’ll walk home as darkness gathers again. It’ll be chilly again, and maybe I’ll feel discomfited again. I hope so.

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