Today, five weeks after coming out to my parents the three of us saw the total eclipse. Perfect weather and temperature at a location in the center line of the eclipse, doing something together I didn't even imagine before that conversation on July 16. At the time I was mainly concerned about how to carry on after setting off the transgender bomb - it didn't occur to me that would draw us closer together.
I took a week off work, hit the road with my parents four days ago. But before we got in the car, since it was time for my estrogen patch (2x per week) I had my mom place it on my hip - I showed her how. I've been looking for subtle ways to show them the changes I am going through and the medical topics driving it.
After a day's drive and nice stay in Kalispell Montana we headed into Glacier National Park which neither of them had seen before. We drove Going to the Sun Road on our way to the eclipse - that really is the name of the road with the best views of the park. The road was built in the early 1930s and has incredible sweeping views of mountain scenery out of a storybook, each time you think something can't get better you drive around the next bend. After that we headed south to some small historic towns, Virginia City Montana, and then into Yellowstone for just a couple hours (we will spend all of tomorrow there). My mother hadn't been to Yellowstone and never imagined she would get to see it. My dad last visited when he was 18. A large bear showed up as they were about to pitch a tent so he slept under a 1939 Plymouth. I took a picture of my dad standing next to the Madison River where he went fly fishing in 1949. And then we drove to the small town of Rigby Idaho where I had rented a house (AirBnB) to see the eclipse.
A total eclipse is difficult to describe. This isn't just about the sun turning into a ring, much like transition isn't just surgery. For a half hour the landscape looks like someone is gradually turning down the voltage of the sun. The 80 degree (27c) August summer heat diminishes and it gets colder outside - really cold - and the birds get quieter. We were on a rolling lawn which was now an eerie shade of green. And then it hits. When you see that perfect ring in the sky you cannot avoid letting out a gasp. It is 11:30am in Idaho and we are looking at stars. The entire horizon is suddenly an orange sunset - the entire 360 degree horizon. And that beautiful, gorgeous ring in the center of the sky where the sun just was. A reminder we should never take anything for granted.
I didn't want to waste time messing with cameras but I snapped just a few with my Nikon and one turned out quite well - the one I uploaded here.
And then an immense brilliant spark of white on the edge of the ring and the total eclipse was over, time to put the solar glasses back on. I wanted those two minutes to last forever but of course that wouldn't be right - the earth's surface temperature would drop disastrously, weather systems would go ballistic. But the absolute beauty and wonder of those two minutes are burned into my mind.
To see something impossibly transformed, so wonderful I can't quite describe it. And yes, exactly one month after starting hormone therapy. That is what I experienced today.
Kendra
