Solar eclipse 2024: Personal experience made author react like 'curious child'

"Come outside! Everyone is sitting in chairs to look at the eclipse!"

My mom bustled into the house from work, exclaiming in Tamil—my native language. I was still in the middle of my shift, but lucky for my mom’s excitement, my last work task of the day was to sit and watch the solar eclipse.

I abandoned my desk and found the glasses my mom picked up from our local library. With the dozens of stories I’d written about the eclipse since I started at Gannett, it kind of didn’t hit me that the eclipse was actually happening until I looked to the sky with my glasses on.

After weeks of endless rain showers and a few tornado warnings, the warm air felt new. I slipped my shoes on and stepped outside, pressing the paper glasses to my eyes and gazing up. The sun looked like a big golden, glowing cookie, as if the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street took a big bite out of it.

"Whoa, that’s so cool," I said, like a curious child. And like a curious child, I wanted to look at the sun so badly with my naked eyes, but after spending so much time learning fact after fact about the eclipse and how it can cause retinal damage, I resisted.

My mom, me, and my two brothers sat outside on the porch. My mom was in awe, constantly saying “subhanAllah”, which means "glory to Allah." Then she tells my brothers about a prayer—Salat ul-Kusoof—Muslims voluntarily do to recognize God for His power and greatness to create a phenomenon like the total solar eclipse. And then I told them I worked on a story about how the solar eclipse interfered with the crescent moon sightings that mark the end of Ramadan.

And then there was my cat, a gray tabby we named after a South Asian dessert, roaming around the bushes near our porch. After chasing bees and butterflies, my cat halted his deliberate footsteps and snapped his furry head around, confused as to why it was partially dark.

Living outside of Columbus, I didn’t get to see a total solar eclipse, as my suburb was not in the path of totality. It didn’t get fully dark, so that was a bummer. I would’ve traveled, but I wrote an entire piece about the possible traffic patterns in Ohio, so I was fully aware it could’ve been a bust to smoothly visit the path of totality.

But once the moon covered about 93% of the sun, I observed a lot of new things. The sun seemed to have borrowed some shade from the moon. Walking back into the house, it looked gloomy on the inside, much like the last week of rainy days, but it just looked like the sky gave us a dark filter—there was still sunlight, somehow. Then, sauntering back outside, I noticed a gentle, cool breeze, as the moon partially attenuated the sun’s warmth.

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My sister, however, lives in Springfield, Ohio, and was able to witness a total solar eclipse as Springfield fell on the path of totality. She sent us photos of the moon completely covering the sun and it kind of looked like it was straight out of the movie "Twilight." Her photos looked so good. Meanwhile, I struggled to take proper photos. At least one of them looked okay.

My mom kept grabbing my hand to look at the photos my sister sent and was happy my sister was able to see the rare occurrence of the moon covering the sun. Out of everyone in the family, my mom was most excited about witnessing the eclipse, so it was endearing to watch her eagerness.

The moon started to uncover the sun’s disk after a good ten minutes, and I wished the sky could’ve stayed dim a little longer. Though it was a partial solar eclipse, it was still one of the coolest things I had ever seen. As someone who enjoys nature and has recently become an astronomy geek, I am grateful to not only learn about the total solar eclipse, but to also witness it from my home.

If I could, I would love to travel for the next solar eclipse. And take my mom, who is way geekier about the eclipse, with me.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Partial solar eclipse inspires awe in author: 'That's so cool'