A Total Eclipse of the Sun and A Total Eclipse of my Not-Straight Heart
Sixty years ago, a young man climbed a mountain to see a solar eclipse and got a lot more than he bargained for.
I want to tell you a falling-in-love story, one that changed my life.
From an early age, I assumed that most people, including myself, experience some degree of same-sex attraction while also welcoming the prospect of marriage and family. I saw no contradiction in this.
Indeed, I was not averse to occasional dalliance with both men and women. With a few exceptions, it was all good. Still I never doubted that I would eventually settle down and have kids. This story is about the first time that I thought I was falling in love with a man.
Jason and I met at Harvard.
But we didn’t get to know each other until we joined a group of students planning to hike up Mount Katahdin in Maine to see the 1963 solar eclipse. The ‘expedition,’ as we called it, was great fun, jovial and friendly. We laughed a lot, told wild stories, and exchanged astronomical knowledge.
