On August 21st, 2017, I woke up in a tent in the middle of a field in Rigby, Idaho. I had paid some farm owners fifty bucks to camp on their empty land so that I could watch the total solar eclipse at 11:33 that morning.

It was the fourth day of a solo road trip that began on my twenty-ninth birthday. I had kicked off the celebration by driving twelve hours from Los Angeles to Zion National Park and crying myself to sleep. From there, I headed north to Salt Lake City, then made my way to Rigby, just north of Idaho Falls.

At this point, in the summer of 2017, I was halfway through what I still consider to be the most challenging year of my life. I had left my marriage, stopped speaking to my mother, and was physically ill to the point of forced social isolation. I was a mess, trudging through the darkness of the tunnel, still far from seeing ay light appear at the end.

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