Eclipses are certain. Life on Earth is less so

Also: There are 1,000 Caitlin Clarks out there, if you're paying attention [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  April 7, 2024 Dear Cog reader, I have a clear memory of the last solar eclipse. It was August 21, 2017, and I was giving birth. I couldn’t see the eclipse myself because I was in active labor, tethered to machines and (at some point) under the influence of an epidural and eventually an emergency C-section, but for a while, I watched it on TV. All these people, all across the country, united in wonder. My husband ducked out of our hospital room a couple of times to see it with his own eyes. Outfitted with a borrowed pair of eclipse glasses, he watched it from a hospital patio designated for the occasion. We joked about calling the baby, our third daughter, Moonshadow, but instead we named her Margaret. I did not yet work at WBUR in August 2017, so I did not know Lisa Mullins (apart from the way many of you may know Lisa, through her voice as WBUR’s host of All Things Considered). I couldn’t have known that she and her long-time partner, Ken, were in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, on vacation, enjoying summer stock theater and scoops of ice cream covered in sprinkles. I couldn’t have known of [their plan to return to a motel]( in Lancaster, New Hampshire, about seven years later to see for themselves whether witnessing an eclipse is as life changing as everybody says it is. Astronomical forecasts can feel unnervingly certain. We’ve known for years with mind-boggling precision exactly where and when tomorrow’s total eclipse will occur: in Burlington, Vermont, peak totality arrives at 3:26 p.m.; in Colebrook, New Hampshire, it’s 3:28 p.m.; in Presque Isle, Maine, it’s 3:33 p.m. Boston will see a partial eclipse (93%), peaking around 3:30 p.m. If only life were so amenable to prediction. The day we took Margaret home from the hospital, my husband queued up a playlist of songs evoking her name for the drive : “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart, “I’m in love with Margaret Thatcher'' by the Notsensibles (definitely not my favorite) and “Moonshadow” by Cat Stevens. Our Margaret is a sparkly 6 ½ years old now; she loves school and singing and has uncommon comedic timing. She bopped to all three songs when we played them for her recently; she delights in the story of her arrival amidst a celestial phenomenon. I wish these intervening years had been as kind to Lisa and Ken. About a year after Ken made the reservation at that Lancaster motel, a nagging pain in his stomach resulted in a serious diagnosis. A little more than a year after that, in 2019 – after another trip to the White Mountains – he lost his life to pancreatic cancer. Lisa is now left to ponder what Ken’s eclipse soundtrack might have included. She thinks she knows: Van Morrison’s “Moondance," Terence Blanchard’s “Wandering Moon,” and Louis Armstrong’s version of “East of the Sun (West of the Moon”). On Friday morning, as I was writing this note, there was [a 4.8 magnitude earthquake]( in New Jersey. I felt its shake ever-so-slightly at my desk. Not long after, Lisa sent me a message: “Fri quake and Mon eclipse. Looks like we’re really not the ones in charge.” My reply: It’s only an illusion that we ever were. P.S.— It’s WBUR’s spring fundraiser and we need your help in a big way. Over the past five years, our on-air underwriting, or advertising, has fallen by more than 40%. Nearly all the sponsorship money now goes to a handful of big platforms like Facebook, Google, Amazon and Spotify. WBUR is a proud public media organization: Our journalism will alway be free to you, but it’s not free to create. Public support has always been critical to our work, but now it’s even more essential. We're hoping you can dig deeper than you ever have before. [Please start a monthly gift today](. Cloe Axelson Senior Editor, Cognoscenti Support the news  Must Reads [There are 1,000 Caitlin Clarks out there, if you're paying attention]( Laura Everett has been moonlighting as a sports reporter in Boston, covering women's sports leagues. She's delighted that the NCAA women's tournament is finally having its moment, but says there are profoundly interesting and talented athletes in every women’s league — if only we were looking for them. 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