The Minority Report | Ashley Kim

The date is Aug. 21. I’m lying in a field, and I’m looking up at the sky through solar filters. There’s a low chatter and frequent laughter that surrounds me, but all I’m thinking about is how I’m allergic to grass and I wish I had brought a blanket.

My vision starts to settle on a steadily vanishing sun and everything is quiet. A minute passes, two, then three. I take my glasses off to make sure I’m not dreaming. It feels like I am.

I look to my side and see my friends as the temperature drops. They now glow in a golden hour light, as if we have fast forwarded to sunset—my favorite time of day. I stare at the sun again, noticing that I only recognize the moon as the absence of sunlight.

The date is now Sept. 4, and I’m with my best friends from high school. We’re sitting around a campfire. We sing along to old Disney movie soundtracks, serenading each other with the words, “This is what dreams are made of.” And, it is.

I lay my head back in my chair and examine the stars. There’s Orion’s Belt, the Big Dipper, and other constellations, I’m sure. I hear my friends laughing, and I can’t help but smile. I look at them glowing in the light of the campfire.

Excuse my sentimentality, but for me, there’s something to be said about these moments; ones where I was met with an understanding that we are much smaller than we believe, that there’s something much larger out there than our differences especially the ones we seem to be fighting over most these days and that good friends that embrace these differences are few and far between. (Somehow, I am lucky enough to have many).

The universe has a funny way of giving us exactly what we need, when we need it. It’s funny that both stars and a solar eclipse represent a new beginning.