The idea of experiencing a transitory, rare occurrence fascinates me, and I know I’m not alone. When our calendars inched closer to the new millennium, I read how cruise lines were offering once-in-a-lifetime trips, taking passengers to the mid-Pacific right up to the International Dateline where they could be the first to tip their toes into a new millennium. Wow.

Even the US government was enthusiastic about that moment of midnight January 1^st, 2000 and allowed the Navy submarine Topeka to position itself 1,300 ft. underwater, straddling both the International Dateline and the Equator. Or, maybe they were worried about Y2K. Either way, neither option was available for our family, so we held a small New Year’s Eve party in the suburbs of Chicago instead.

Sixteen years later, my family was eager not to miss another exceptional event and so we began to plan a trip. Which city would be an excellent location for the 2017 Solar Eclipse? We needed to find one which was in the path of totality and one which lay between our home states of Massachusetts and Florida. We chose Nashville, Tennessee.

Total solar eclipses may not rise to the rarity level of a new millennium; however, they will only happen for any one location approximately every 330 years. For whatever reason, the last time Nashville (or pre-Nashville land) had experienced a total eclipse of the sun was back in the year 1478. That’s actually 539 years. That was worth celebrating. I was excited about planting my eclipse sighting hopes in Nashville soil. My son Will, his wife Allison and Dennis, and I booked a hotel just outside the city limits, rented a car, and waited for months.

We arrived a couple of days before with enough time to explore the city. We actually needed to pre-select an open (or sort of open) viewing spot, without too large a crowd and accessibility to parking.

In the meantime, Dennis is a big country music fan, so we bought tickets for a special music show at The Grand Ole Opry scheduled for the night before the eclipse. That evening, we filled our world with a different type of star. We saw Wynonna, Little Big Town, Darius Rucker and Jeannie C. Riley of Harper Valley PTA fame to name a few. They even handed out protective eclipse sunglasses. There was just a magical energy that night inside those iconic walls. Everyone was excited about this celestial event. I was so happy to experience the Opry that way.

August 21st arrived. The eclipse was set to begin at 11:58 a.m. and move through its phases for almost three hours. We were a little nervous about the spotty cloud cover. Weather can be an issue. We decided to drive east in search of fewer clouds and fewer crowds. We settled on a town named Mount Juliet. It ended up being a short, 30-minute drive.

As we drove on a local road, we saw people gathering in the parking lot of a Walmart and a few restaurants. We had already decided to find a park. Fingers crossed, we entered the Sgt. Jerry Mundy Memorial Park and it was perfect. I mean, perfect. There was a pavilion for those seeking shade, and an enormous grassy field with a sloping hill. A forest of tall trees lay to the left of the field. There were probably only twenty people there. We had found heaven while waiting for a heavenly event.

At 11:58 a.m., it began. It took some time, but the moon inched closer and over the sun’s path. Imperceptible at first, the bright sunny day changed. It was still light, but oddly, almost florescent. Yes, it felt a little unnatural since store light differs from natural, outdoor light. Soon, however, the lighting became a “deep-violet twilight” as it headed towards those two and a half minutes of totality where the sun would be completely blocked. The insects in the forest started to chirp and whir. The air became a little cooler.

Prior to that, we had been gazing upward with our glasses to catch seconds of it here and there from the beginning. We sat in the grass, or stood, reveling. At one point, we moved to the pavilion because its concrete was catching tiny, shadowy images of the eclipse. Apparently, the crescent shadows were caused by tiny spaces between tree leaves, which create a pinhole effect. That was stunning.

But by 1:27 p.m., we were back in the field, standing in that deep violet twilight. It never got 100% dark. We removed our glasses to catch those moments of the full eclipse. Our sun had just disappeared.

I think in those moments, people experience many reactions. We may feel that God is closer, or that we are part of something so much larger. We may even love the people who are sharing it with us a little more. Or maybe we just appreciate the beauty of a celestial event. But we all understand how its transitory nature and rarity in certain spots on the earth on that day gives it its unique power. It can be emotional.

Our moon and sun definitely put on a stellar performance. I was so grateful to be in Tennessee, in Mount Juliet, on that patch of grass, in the path of totality on August 21, 2017.

Without realizing it, I had completed a bucket list item that day. Although I will certainly be outside on April 8^th watching a partial eclipse from my backyard (I still have my Grand Ole Opry glasses) I’m at peace not chasing the full eclipse again. I can still see those moments quite clearly in my mind.