It was electric. The most exhilarating atmosphere. It felt as if the world itself stopped in anticipation of this unearthly event. The total solar eclipse. Everyone calls it a “once in a lifetime event”, now it’s my second, and I’m not even 17. What to do with this new found flex I don’t know, but I can say with confidence that it is just as magical the second time as it was the first. Prior to totality, everyone was on edge, but also ecstatic to be there. 

At Peaks-Kenny State Park in Dover-Foxcroft, we walked along a nature trail, and climbed on some rocks. I slipped and soaked my leg all the way down to my boot, but not even that could bring down my mood. We did a lot more adventuring along the coastline before we came back to the beach, where the eclipse festivities began. 

A little dark bump appeared on the sun’s bottom right side, signaling the start of the eclipse. The dark spot got bigger and bigger, and even if you were visually impaired it would’ve been perfectly fine because Hudson did us the honor of orating, “Ahh! THE BITE’S GETTING BIGGER!” every 2 to 3 minutes starting an hour prior to totality. The sky got darker, it was a sunset in all directions. Color faded off of everything in sight, as if everything was pencil shaded, and then the moment came. 

Totality. People hugged, people watched as what was daylight 10 minutes earlier now appeared to be midnight. Tears fell, and everyone was in awe. During this celestial event, it grounded us in the reality that we are tiny, but we are a part of something big, something greater. The world felt so small in that moment, like we had shrunk, and then the diamond ring shined and the familiar sun came back again.

We all rushed to reinstate our eclipse glasses to our faces as color returned to the horizon, the trees grew green again, the land got brighter, and the world resumed. Tears continued, shining as the light returned to our faces. After getting plunged into darkness it felt like so long since I saw the faces of my classmates. We hugged, we laughed, we talked, and we will always remember.

–Michael Darville, The Lovett School, Atlanta, GA