Today marks another new moon, meaning it’s been one month since I traveled to see the eclipse. It was a fun and memorable trip to Dallas, but the memory of the eclipse itself is indelible. Maybe the biggest thing that sticks with me is the twilight.

The twilight of a total solar eclipse is utterly singular. Singular in that it only lasts for minutes at most, singular in the quality and shape of the light, singular in rarity of the occurrence. So is it irony (or is it just me trying to establish a hook) that the origin of the word twilight ties to the concept of double, not single? The word is from late Middle English, and the “twi” means two, as in twice. (The Latin word for twilight is “crepusculum,” the origin for crepuscular, a fabulous ten-dollar word. Sounds like a good hook for some other post.)

But I’m going to stick with the “twi/two” theme. According to vocabulary.com, “the prefix twi- might be a clue that twilight happens twice a day, or it could mean “half,” as in the half-light of this time.” I’ve never read Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, so I don’t know if she spends any part of the story pondering the origin of the word. Pity, if not. I’ve found a good deal to ponder.

There’s two for place and time: the two eclipses that have graced North America, in 2017, and then again in 2024. For astronomy, there’s two heavenly bodies that make eclipses on Earth possible: the moon and the sun. Personally, I’ve traveled two times, and taken time off from work, to witness these events.

And then, here’s where I really got caught up in all this twice-thinking — You Only Live Twice. The song, the score, the movie. I could go off on a million tangents, about both the score and the movie (about elements of each that are just brilliant, offset by elements that have aged very poorly; about Robbie Williams’s “Millennium;” about the fake lake; about James Bond and the spy genre). But I won’t. I’ve been chewing on those tangents for the past month, they are what’s kept me from finishing this post.

So, I’ll conclude with the song. The link below is the version that I’m guessing was the one that got played on the radio. I think it’s aged exceedingly well. Nancy Sinatra’s vocals, the lyrics, are worth a listen if you’re not familiar.

Any tangent evoked by this song tends to lead me to beautiful places. I hope it’s the same for you.