Totality

 

There really are no words to describe how witnessing Totality takes your breath away… but I’ll try my best

The hour before totality, at ‘first contact’ when the moon first began shifting in front of the sun, it was like an internal stopwatch began and the sense of excitement started to multiply with the passing minutes. As you see others in the crowd place their glasses on to look up and check the progress, you couldn’t help but feel the need to put on yours and also look up. It was like a chain reaction, and even though we knew the exact timed moment that totality would begin, you couldn’t help but keep checking to make sure you weren’t missing anything else. Each phase as the moon covered more and more of the sun felt unique and special, and the last 10 minutes before totality you could feel yourself just vibrating with anticipation. 

Now Grandma had already seen a total solar eclipse in 2017, and Sara / Jake had joined her for the annular eclipse in October 2023, but I (Emma) had never seen anything like this and had no idea what to expect. I knew the sky would darken as though it were dusk, but that’s it. And though they had previous experience seeing an eclipse, the whole group of us were equally struck by the same sense of shock and awe as totality began. It was truly spectacular  

In a matter of seconds, it went from bright sunny daylight, to dark night sky where we could see stars, planets, and satellites up in space. As we removed our eclipse glasses for the 3.5 minutes that totality lasted, we now looked up to where the sun had just been, to see this brilliant ring of glowing light shining around the moon. It was such a shock to the system to experience this rapid transition of the whole world looking so distinctly different, and frankly a little eerie to see this huge shape in the sky that you’ve never seen before. If you were alone in the woods without knowing what an eclipse is or that it was expected to occur, I would fully believe an alien invasion was happening, or an act of God. You could feel your heart swell with emotion, it really took your breath away. It was a a true reminder of how small we are in this universe, and how things are in motion so far outside our control. We really are just specks of dust in comparison to the moon and the sun and whatever else may be out there. 

But today, we were very happy, very blessed specks of dust.  

Here’s how bright it was right before totality began:

And here’s the darkened sky mid-totality:

Listen to the cheers as it began! 

And here is the end of totality as the sun began to shine again: 

Hannah and Jacob may not remember this moment of their first total solar eclipse, but they both thoroughly enjoyed it as well. They let out a few “wow!”,  “moon!”, and “stars!”. As it ended, you can hear Hannah ask for more. And man, I could totally relate. Once it had ended, the sense of needing more took over, and we’ve already begun planning travel to either Spain or Iceland for the next total eclipse in 2026, or Egypt 2027. Some people have asked why spend money to see an an eclipse, what’s the big deal? But now that I’ve witnessed it… how could you not?!

 My greatest hope is that everyone in the fam gets to experience this at least once.  Please make the effort, nothing man made can compare to totality - it is as if time stands still.