An unexpected adventure

There’s a solar eclipse just about to happen in our part of the world, but it’s been raining non-stop from the morning. My hopes of watching this celestial spectacle have been dashed. I just hope that we get at least some sign of the eclipse; something more exciting than the dull grey that is visible outside now!

This reminds me of something that happened in the last week of March. I’d had a long day and had just gotten back home. After dropping my bags, I’d headed straight to the kitchen to start preparations for dinner. After dinner, I’d collapsed on the sofa. My feet had been killing me the whole day, as I had worn a new pair of heels and had walked quite a lot. And then…..

I took out my phone to check my messages. There were many messages from friends who had spotted the Venus and moon conjunction on the night sky. The pictures looked absolutely beautiful. I wanted to go down to the poolside and see this for myself. I invited my husband and son. They murmured disinterestedly. Well, I was excited and decided that I would go by myself.

The Venus Moon Conjuntion – picture shared by a friend

My painful footwear from earlier was just outside the shoe cabinet. I grimaced as I put the heels back on. It was just five minutes to go down, see the moon and come back. I could live with the pain. I headed down to the pool. I looked at the sky, but could not see the moon. I walked this way and that and tried to use the compass on my phone to look for the moon and Venus. I spotted one of my friends, who told me that I had to go out of the building to a certain spot to be able to see it.

I left the condo and had just walked a few meters, when I saw another friend who was heading towards our condo. We exchanged greetings. I soon discovered that she had also stepped out to see the moon but was heading back, as she was in her home clothes and had rushed out – just like I had – to the poolside. We decided to give it one last shot.

We were a team now, we had a goal. We set off. We reached the point where the conjunction had been visible to the whole neighbourhood earlier. But as luck would have it, we could not see a thing. We were not going to give up. We plodded on, me in my painful heels and she in her home clothes. My limping slowed down this grand endeavour of ours considerably. But did that deter us? Of course not!!!

We walked and walked all around the neighbourhood, our eyes alert and our necks tilting upward frequently. Our mouths, though, were busy catching up on all the news in our lives, our kids, spouses, travel and lots more. At some point on this looooonnngggg walk, my phone alerted me that I had walked over 17000 steps. We had walked a complete circle around the neighbourhood, but the stars merely twinkled at us in amusement, while the night sky watched us stoically. We called some friends to check again; one of them told us that the moon was hidden behind some clouds.

It was quite late. We decided to head homeward. We shared a good laugh. Though we had missed the celestial conjunction, we’d had a great time on this unexpected adventure of ours – despite the painful heels, the home clothes and all that walking.