...was covered by a cloud during totality. It was so depressing. School was out, I took the day off, we all went down to the riverfront in Nashville, brought snacks and our glasses, played in the water fountains... but 2sec before the sun was blacked out, a giant cloud covered it up and did so until well past totality.
I mean, I was beside myself. Ask your mom. A full and total solar eclipse happens where we live?? This is truly a once in a lifetime happening. The eclipse ran across the entire USA, bringing the whole country together for sometime good and not political... and we didn't get to see it.
We did see the partial eclipse phases though. I remember looking up and seeing the sun be slowly swallowed by the moon... it gave me an oddly eery feeling. And as totality drew near, the sunlight turned to a weird dim gray light I've never seen before. Then the sky went dark as night, but the surrounding horizon maintained its brightness, only it turned orange like an almost gone sunset, in all directions. The temperature dropped at least 10deg. You could hear people "oooooo"ing and "aaaaahhh"ing all around us, across the river even. And then 2min later, like nothing even happened, the sun came back out. People were mostly quiet after that. You could tell everyone around was just as astonished at missing it because of a cloud as I was, so at least we weren't alone.
Over the next 24hrs I heard and read nothing but anecdotes about how amazing it was and it was like nothing they'd ever seen before. Images started being shared. I grimaced a lot that next day. I'd missed the biggest cosmic event to been seen in TN in the last 500yrs. Im still bummed but calming down a bit. After all, I must be somewhat more special because I didn't see it like the majority of people, right? haha... ugh
But in the end, we had a nice day, my nagging anxiety about finding the perfect viewing spot was now replaced with unchangeable regret (hahaha), i don't think anyone damaged their eyes during viewing, and we made it home safe and sound. You guys were good sports despite not getting naps.
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