I am a Bowie girl and I am excited about the eclipse.
I haven’t come to see it out of fomo, I am very little interested in being where the people are and I have been, thanks to the blessed holidays, 15 days disconnected from the world in a lost village in Asturias. This has meant that I have been safe from everything people have said or have not said about the eclipse. A few months ago my family and I bought some glasses and we have gotten excited on our own, telling each other our own stories.
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Since I barely opened social media on vacation I hadn’t realized the fuss around it until I had to write this column. And I was amazed by the haters of the eclipse. By those who claim they won’t see it and by the columnists who pride themselves on not distinguishing Venus from a streetlight. By the Ibai Llanos who make a fortune with stupid influencer boxing events and make jokes about not seeing the event of the century. I don’t know if they were bothered that there was an event they couldn’t capitalize on or that this event eclipsed theirs, the fact is that like almost all things that spark passion, there are always party poopers trying to bring it down from the other side.
This is how the eclipse has gone from being an astronomical phenomenon to an economic one: “it is an almost unique event”
- Editorial: JASMIN GÓMEZ FATTAH Madrid
The hidden face of the eclipse: animal beheadings and blood potions for “spiritual cleansings” of Santería in Madrid
- Editorial: DANIEL SOMOLINOS Madrid
- Editorial: PAULA GOSENDE
In high school I took Astronomy as an elective. I signed up for the stories. Because I was obsessed with them and because Physics, Mathematics and Science contain within them the narration of the world.
We were a small group. We weren’t freaks, although I wouldn’t have minded being one and admitting it. We were just curious girls and boys; girls and boys hungry for the world, overwhelmed by excitement. There were already haters who laughed at Astronomy, of course. But it turned out that it ended up being the most fun and interesting elective of all (we went on night field trips to see the stars) and, over the year, many people who hadn’t wanted to sign up at first started joining us. Believe it or not, there were also ibais llanos in that high school who ended up crying with the stars.
But above all, I remember a classmate who is now a planetary geologist and science communicator, Laura Parro. A few years ago, Broncano interviewed her on La Resistencia and she brought him some of her “little stones”. Broncano could have perfectly been one of the astronomical haters at the school, but that day he decided to listen and the interview turned into something really cool, which helped bring Science closer to many people who just went to have a laugh. Laura was also taking tests to try to become an astronaut.
I remember thinking then about what the Astronomy classes at a public suburban high school had yielded. And I still think about it today, upon learning that the International Astronomical Union has named an asteroid Laura. Now there is a lauraparro crossing the sky and there are also some other girls like us watching it on their astronomical nights.
Science should never be a joke or something to simply get past. Every time I see someone laugh at Science I think of their terrible hidden fear. People reject what they don’t understand instead of letting themselves be amazed by it.
Now that Technology, which used to be an ally, is starting to become an enemy of Science (just talk about Elon Musk and his rockets exploding against the Moon), I think more than ever we must return to the anxiety for knowledge.
I go out to see the eclipse not only as that teenage girl I was, eager for life and knowledge, but as the woman I am today who does not want to be domesticated.
I don’t go out because someone told me to, I go out to see an extraordinary and terrifying spectacle that has amazed humanity for millennia. A spectacle that made the Aztecs go crazy, before which many people have asked all the questions in the world, I go out to see how the Sun is eaten by the Moon. I go out to realize that, although Elon Musk and his colleagues insist on making us believe that the sky is and will be theirs, the universe is the only thing that no one will ever be able to own.
In that rebellion from above there is all the capacity for wonder that something can contain. The unattainable, the unknowable, the untamable, the precipice, what if you look at it too long can blind you. I recently read a book with the best title in the world, called: It lasts an eternity and ends in an instant. That is how it is and will always be. The eclipse, like life.
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