Old pictures from someone else's life

You're exactly where you need to be. Stop worrying about it.

We were in the path of 97 percent totality during this month’s solar eclipse. I could have driven about four hours east to see the extra three percent, (and then four hours back), but as it happens, 97 percent is pretty spectacular.

I tried to create an eclipse filter for my iPhone with one of those special eclipse glasses everyone seemed to be giving away all over the place. That didn’t work out so well. I should delete those pictures because I know for a fact that I’ll probably come across them in my 50,000+ photos someday and wonder, “Was I taking pictures of a candle at the end of a pipe?”

The funny/ironic thing is that literally moments after peak eclipse for us, the FedEx guy arrived with an old family camera my mom sent me. If he had gotten there just a few minutes earlier, I could have had some National Geographic shots.

Well, I suppose I would have had to fashion a homemade solar filter out of panty hose for it or something, which would have been really tough to find at the monastery, but I digress…

Later, I pulled the SD card from the camera and put it into my computer. Mom had said there might be some pics on it.

There were. They were from times and situations I’d mostly never known about.