The Last First Day / Solar Eclipse

            Last Monday, August 17^th, 2017, was my last first day of school. I parked on the second floor of Garage A, threw my trusty, no longer crisp-white, polka-dotted backpack over my shoulder, and headed off to pace out my two back to back classes that were clear across the campus from each other. The clouds loomed above. At the moment they were a light grey. Today was supposed to be the solar eclipse. Any time someone mentioned it I just half-shrugged or smiled and pretended to look interested in what they were saying. However, since we weren’t in line for the full solar eclipse, I saw it all as unneeded hype.

           Clusters of people gathered around the six-foot-tall maps scattered throughout the campus while others strode calmly along. I was among the latter as I bee-lined for Colbourn Hall, the Humanities and Fine Arts building. I got through my first two classes, ate lunch, then settled into one of the wooden cubicles in the library. I always found these cubicles to be enlightening. Littered with smatterings of inspirational quotes and foul-languaged observations about courses, they seemed to define the campus. So many people with so many different perspectives on life sat in that one seat. Imagine how many more perspectives roamed the campus daily.

            After several hours I shoved my laptop into my backpack, behind my binder. I walked outside to find a couple hundred students gathered around the fountain, just in front of the library. At first, I wondered why they were there until I saw someone with eclipse glasses. I weaved my way away from the crowd, and towards the building where my last class for the day was located.

            I sat outside during the eclipse and kept my eye on those who were looking up at the sky, their flimsy paper glasses and cardboard boxes protecting them. Since then, I’ve watched videos of others who experienced the full solar eclipse. And for them, it truly seemed to be an experience. But for us  nothing near that exciting happened and few really seemed that fascinated by it either. The most excited I ever saw anyone was 10 minutes before the eclipse happened, when a suited man walked outside with his phone, and Facetimed his daughter. “Well, it’s 10 minutes before the eclipse. Are you ready?” Her voice was muffled by the distance between us as he continued on in conversation with her. The one interesting thing I did notice that day though was this: Everyone was looking up. So many people affiliated with different colleges and majors and with different perspectives on life. And they were all looking up.