We had experienced beauty, witnessed mystery and power and felt the pull of the infinite. In my memory, we were silent, contemplating what it means to be human, floating on this blue planet, captured in a net of stars. With each new illumination came gasps of delight and wonder. That night, sitting atop some mountain whose name I can’t remember with trees stretched below and stars stretched above, I witnessed my first meteor shower.
It was my first time living apart from my parents, my first time on my own-as much as one can be on her own when sharing a double wide with eight other young women-and I was miserable. I washed dishes and tended to the salad bar. I wasn’t doing something cool like counseling or lifeguarding. The summer after I graduated high school, I worked at a summer camp in Oakhurst, California. I remember feeling that something important was happening but not really understanding the hows or whys or what would come next, only that in that moment, anything seemed possible. I remember standing with my sister and looking up at the sun. And the things we do remember are usually some hybrid form of truth and fiction, new layers added with each retelling. After a while, or after no time at all, pieces of our life get forgotten. Yet somehow, over time and through retelling, our collective memory shaped a bigger story. Most likely, we witnessed the partial solar eclipse that occurred in 1993. The last total eclipse to occur in the contiguous United States was in 1979-two years prior to my sister’s birth and four years prior to mine. My sister says she remembers being there with me. I have a faint memory of watching a total solar eclipse as a child.