Transit of Venus

June 5, 2012.  The evening was just dripping with beauty.  We took the children to the 1904 World's Fair Pavilion where the St. Louis Astronomy Club was meeting to watch the event.  They had about 20 different telescopes set up for the public.  The tall grasses moved gently; the fountain, lawns, steps, and outlining trees all made a picturesque scene.  We saw several versions of the sun.  The first one, through a hand-held device made it look green, and then sure enough, there was Venus' shadow, a simple black beauty spot on the sun.  We looked through a huge telescope in white light, so the sun became a devoid ball, except for that black speck.  My favorite was the red sun, with solar flares bursting, and Venus in high contrast. Jonathan tried looking through the telescopes too.  I don't know if he really saw anything; he said he did.  The next Venus transit will not happen until 2117, so while I am planning to break out of the nursing home or have my downloaded consciousness appreciate the moment, I thought it might be best to take advantage of the opportunity now.

We wandered around afterward.  Jonathan and J.D. ran down the hill and played around the trees, with the sun saturating them in that glowing light it has on lovely evenings.  Jonathan and I walked hand-in-hand in the fountain that said: "No wading or swimming."  People were biking, laughing, playing, waiting politely in line to gaze at the sun.  A college-age girl and boy walked by holding hands.  She asked him: "Do you think it's the end of the world?"  (Solar events bring out the apocalyptic in the best of us I guess).  He said simply: "I hope not."  I told J.D what they had said.  He replied that he wished the end of the world would be like this: peaceful, happy, beautiful.  No one afraid or in pain.  Not the terror or thriller versions in almost every apocalypse.  Just the best day, the last day.  I think too everyone there basking in the exquisite gloaming was in some small way thinking of his or her mortality.  To know you'll never see something again makes it special, makes us think relatively of the short duration we live in contrast to time's unyielding advance.  We are that little speck against the sun. Passing through.  But to pass it well, perhaps that becomes our undying beauty in the universe's memory.