the day the moon ate the sun

When I was 7 years old there was a solar eclipse.

I didn't know exactly what that was, or what it meant, but I was incredibly curious. Mom said the sun disappeared behind the moon and it was like the day became the night for just a little while. This blew my effing mind.
I had to go to school but I begged her to let me stay home and watch the eclipse. She said you can't watch the eclipse because you'll go blind. Again, my mind was blown.

I remember sitting in my seat, at my desk, in Mr. Bandura's purple classroom and we were learning how to tell time. All the curtains in the room were closed. I guess they were trying to keep us kids from going blind. I sat there all day wondering what was happening behind the curtains. I was thinking it's happening, out there, right now, maybe not right now but soon, or maybe it just happened, i don't know, why can't I just take a peek? And I had decided that if the teacher left the room at all I would go look. But he never did and then after lunch some time the curtains were up again because it was over. The eclipse was finished.
Maybe that eclipse was the reason I didn't learn how to tell time until I was 10.

It was later in my life that I learned that a solar eclipse happens once, maybe twice in someone's lifetime.
I would like a second one..