The numbing horror of a world gone mad is an apt time for a solar eclipse dubbed “ring of fire.” That describes the doom spirals of Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Gaza, the accelerating climate crisis, and the House Republicans. I feel so much that I feel practically nothing.

As a hassle-averse person, I am not one to look to the heavens if it involves crowds, special glasses, and going beyond my house. Perhaps this leaves me awe-averse, too, missing out on the unity that comes from rare moments of shared mass wonder.

NASA’s incredible photography layers awe with dread: confirmation of a world afire. Then I chanced upon a photo spread in The Atlantic of people all over the world viewing this month’s annular eclipse. At least for a moment, they had escaped the gravitational drag of the world’s heaviness.

I could see them, but I felt apart. Only the lone dove on a power pole in Brazil, silhouetted against the eclipse-bitten sun, broke through to me. A fragile, gangly emblem of the peace I hope for, so stark, small, but somehow here.