Annalise Wagner is the daughter of the creator of SMC. Following her graduation from law school, she has clerked for a federal judge in Houston Texas.
If you found yourself outdoors anywhere along or adjacent to the “path of totality” on Monday afternoon, you likely saw various clusters of eclipse-glasses donning, eager-eyed observers looking upwards, hoping for a clear view of the rare solar event. Perhaps you, like many of my family members and friends, even planned a small road trip dedicated solely to prime eclipse viewing.
Much has been said about the eclipse—I am sure that many of you, like me, saw many social media posts and news articles prior to and following the event. My personal favorite was a video of a scientist yelling and weeping in awe. My own eclipse story was comparatively unremarkable, but led to a reflection that I thought worth sharing.
This year, I have been living in Houston, Texas, thanks to my one-year clerkship with a federal judge whose reputation for thoughtful and empathetic decision-making was enough to convince my husband Matt and I that a year in the Southoutweighed our personal preferences towards Midwestern cities.Houston was just outside of the path of totality, with the moon protected to cover only about 94% of the sun at its peak. We decided that the Houston-to-Austin traffic and time off work wasn’t worth the extra 6% of coverage we could see if we ventured westward.
So, on Monday afternoon, I found myself standing outside of the courthouse with an eclectic group of law clerks, judges, court staff, security officers, and attorneys. The sky was unfortunately overcast—we had to use astronomy phone apps to figure out where the sun was actually located, and it was unclear whether the relative darkness was due to the clouds or to the blocked sunlight. But, miraculously, the clouds parted just before the peak coverage time. All of us onlookers let out a collective cheer as the crescent-shaped sun came into full view. As I felt the childlike excitement that came with seeing such a unique phenomena, and saw others feeling the same, I was struck by the rarity of such an event. My thoughts went to the last eclipse to occur in the United States, in 2017, and to the next one, set for 2044.
While there are various milestones in our lives that offer opportunities for reflection—graduations, weddings, births, deaths—there are few that repeat at the cadence at which we’ve experience solar eclipses. Perhaps I feel particularly struck by this observation because of the timing of the 2017, 2024, and 2044 solar eclipses in relation to various phases of my life. I thought back to 2017, when I sat with family and friends in my parents’ backyard. I was 21, and had lived in St. Louis, Missouri my entire life. I was about to start my final year at Washington University and had recently said goodbye to many friends and teammates who graduated in May. The prospect of law school was in the back of my head, but I had no concrete plans to apply, and was not positive what, precisely, I would do after college. Matt and I had been dating for just about two years.
As I stood outside the courthouse in 2024, and heard the excited chatter of the crowd, I thought back to yelling “totality!!” with my siblings in Larson Park in 2017. I thought about how I had no idea what shape my life would take. I did not know that I would teach elementary school students in Memphis, and that my time with them would get cut short by a global pandemic, and that Matt and I would, as a result of the pandemic, live with my family in my childhood home for several months. I did not know that we would then move to Boston so that I could attend law school, which is where we would decide we had found life partners in one another. While I was happy with where our relationship was going in 2017, I could not have then anticipated that we would get married in 2023 just feet away from where we first met, surrounded by our families and closest friends. And I certainly had no idea that we would eventually spend a year living in Texas! Ultimately, if I knew in 2017 the path my life would take over the next seven years, I think that I would not have been shocked by any developments, but rather, pleased to hear how it all unfolded.
That reflection led me to wonder how I might look backwards in 2044. Matt and I’s currently newlywed, somewhat nomadic, and “DINK” (dual-income, no kids) status is sure to give way to significant developments over the next 20 years. When I came home from work this Monday, after Matt and I exchanged our eclipse stories (unfortunately, he could only seeclouds), we had fun talking about what we hoped our lives might look like in 2044—for example, what city we might live in, the type of house we’ll likely own, what phase of life our potential children might be in, what paths our careers may have taken, what friends may live close to us, the list is endless!
I invite you, too, to use this unique solar event to look backwards and forwards. Here are some conversation starters if you’d like to perhaps grab a journal, or a friend, to reflect:
• How has your journey over the past seven years surprised you?
• How has it aligned with your expectations?
• What moments and relationships have you really treasured?
• What are you happy to have finished and/or left behind in the past seven years?
• What are your dreams for yourself between now and 2044?
• Is there a personal or professional skill you hope to develop?
• Is there anywhere you hope to travel? Or perhaps move?
• Which relationships do you hope to develop, or strengthen?