The title is inspired by an essay by Annie Dillard called “The Total Eclipse.” Our writing assignment was to take an experience that seemed impossible to put into words and write about it. That’s what Annie Dillard did with her other-wordly experience of a total eclipse. One of her paragraphs (which I quote below) reminded me of an experience from my 40s that I had never been able to describe. So, I put it into words.

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No movement, but occasional raspy exhales concedes life. I float above a chest that quietly rises and falls. Black cotton, tiny pink polka-dots, with three white buttons at a gathered neckline. Looks familiar. I watch eyes fly open, lids blink, until brown circles roll, leaving a slit of white.

Urgent voices call out as two teens bend close to brush hair back from a face that looks like mine. So odd.

“Mommy, wake up!” One props up the limp body while the other slips the sleeve of a robe over one arm. I wonder at the warmth of their hands while I float around the room. “Hmm?” The voice tickles my throat.

I go away, then come back, and open my eyes to a pair of blue orbs only inches from mine. “Mom. Stay here, MOM!” Whose flaccid body is this? I try to spot myself on the ceiling. I’d been looking down at the bed.

“Can you stand up, Mom?” Stomach muscles tighten. “Get up,” I tell the body, but legs only tremble and twitch. A hand—my hand—waves them away, and I’m in the dark again.

I am lifted and carried down the stairs, through the hall, and into the garage. “You’ll get a hernia.” It sounds like something I’d say. Have you ever been stuffed into a car and been tied to the seat? I remember that part. And riding in a wheelchair and lying on a table covered in warm blankets. I remember asking my husband if he was okay after carrying me to the car.

Some time later, a doctor comes in to tell me that this body—MY body—is hale and hearty.

“Have you ever had a panic attack,” the doctor asks.

“A panic attack. When I’m sound asleep? I wasn’t even dreaming.”

“Has life been stressful lately?”

“There’s always something, but I’m fine. I haven’t been feeling anxious or anything. Why would I wake myself up so I could pass out. That’s crazy.”

~ ~ ~

In her essay, Total Eclipse, Annie Dillard tells us that “the mind” has a sidekick: “a dear, stupid body.” Now you may think that the two—mind and body—are inseparable. At least, that was my opinion, until I found my mind floating around near the ceiling the first time I encountered a panic attack (a misnomer, by the way). My mind was fine, merely engaging in its nighttime activities of sorting all the day’s thoughts. My silly sidekick, however, was convinced that now was the time for flight or fight! So, my mind took flight, and left my body to fend for itself.

That was years ago, but a few lines from Annie Dillard’s essay revealed an experience that was etched in my brain, yearning to be shared:

“The second before the sun went out we saw a wall of dark shadow come speeding at us … It roared up the valley. It slammed our hill and knocked us out … Seeing it, and knowing it was coming straight for you, was like feeling a slug of anesthetic shoot up your arm. If you think very fast, you may have time to think, “Soon it will hit my brain.” You can feel the deadness race up your arm; you can feel the appalling, inhuman speed of your own blood. We saw the wall of shadow coming, and screamed before it hit.”

“Has life been stressful lately? “I have since learned to sense the dark shadow as it speeds it way strainght for me. I think very fast. I touch my arms, my face, and pound gently on chest.
“Mind, remember your body. Sidekick, hold tight to your mind. Lord, help me.”

And the eclipse passes me by. 

Eclipse photo Image by kjpargeter on Freepik