Recently, I was rewatching (500) Days of Summer1 for the first time in a long time, and I was like, wait a second, if 500 days is basically a year and some change, then I must be coming up on that. And indeed, that day is today. I crossed the state line just as the sun as going down (it was December, so like 4 pm). I stopped at Trader Joe’s (the only one in the state) before heading to my sublet because I knew I’d be too exhausted to get something to eat if I went there first. I can’t keep any secrets, so of course I told the cashier I had just moved here. She gave me a hug and a tote bag. We still say hi.
My current number one topic at therapy is Vermont and how I feel about it, so I’ll save those complicated feelings for the professional I’m paying to hear them. Instead, I want to talk about an eclipse, though not the one we just experienced.
Six and a smidge years ago, August 2017, there was another Great American Eclipse. Pennsylvania wasn’t in the path of totality, so it wasn’t front of mind in my corner of the world. By eclipse day, August 21, 2017, I was wrapped up in other things. I did admin work at a big state university and the week before fall classes was the busiest of the year. Still, I couldn’t help but be charmed by the students who stopped to watch the partial eclipse passing through.
I worked in a faux-gothic cathedral and someone stopped by our office on the fifth floor to tell us that going up to the top, the 36th floor, was a great place to see it. I’m nothing if not a curious little kitty cat, so I snuck away to the 36th floor.
The 36th floor is the highest publicly accessible flour and tourists often passed by to check it out. A bunch were up there already, crowding the small observation room. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was looking for or supposed to be looking at, except not to look directly at the sun. It seemed like a big fuss over nothing until an older man let me borrow his eclipse glasses.
When I saw that partial eclipse, I laughed out loud. Seeing the sun as if it’s a quarter moon, a subversion of what I was so used to seeing, brought me so much delight. The world has evolved through the centuries yet here we are, still humans amazed by the sun and the moon.
I returned to my desk and looked up when the next total solar eclipse would happen: April 8, 2024. I saw the map of the where it was heading and the closest spot to totality would be Erie, PA. An easy drive, but instead I felt an immediate chill of depression. The thought of still being at this job so many years in the future made me slouch in my chair. I hadn’t even been at this job for a year and I knew it was all wrong for me. I hated admin work and never connected with my coworkers. Still, I had no idea what else I would do, and working at the university seemed like a sensible thing to do. You don’t know what you don’t know and for all I knew, I’d still be there in 2024, hating it.
I didn’t take this job in Vermont because of the eclipse, it had long left my mind by then, but the fact that I lived in the path of totality felt like a funny little gift from the universe. I somehow ended up here through a mix of choices, hard work, and chance. Where it will take me next, who knows. In the build up to the eclipse, someone2 said to think about where our lives were in August 2017 and reflect on the what’s changed since then. A whole lot.
As for the total eclipse… I’m still processing it, honestly. What I found delightful this time around is how many people I know experienced the total eclipse from Texas to Indiana to Ohio to Pennsylvania to Maine to Vermont (of course). It made me feel connected to them across time and space.
How lucky that the universe takes care of me. Hope it takes care of you too.
xoxo
A
That movie hits different after learning about attachment theory.
Yes, it was an astrologist. No, I don’t remember who.
I feel cared for by the universe in a similar way. Loved this. Thank you for writing it!