Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

You see, once you start observing the night sky, you begin to orient yourself in time and space.

those stars are immovable. Nothing you or I could do will ever alter them. They are so much bigger than us. And they will not change within our lifetime. We can succeed or fail, get it right or get it wrong, love and lose the ones we love, and still the Summer Triangle will point south. And in that way, I know everything will be some type of okay—as impossible as that can seem sometimes.

Human intelligence and curiosity, our persistence and resilience, our capacity for long-term planning, and our ability to collaborate have led the human race here.

Astronomy was history. Because space was time. And that was the thing she loved most about the universe itself. When you look at the red star Antares in the southern sky, you are looking over thirty-three hundred trillion miles away. But you are also looking more than five hundred and fifty years into the past. Antares is so far away that its light takes five hundred and fifty years to reach your eye on Earth. Five hundred and fifty light-years away. So when you look out at the sky, the farther you can see, the further back you are looking in time. The space between you and the star is time.

When you gaze up at the sky and you see Antares, with its reddish hue, in the middle of the constellation Scorpius, you are looking at the same star the Babylonians cataloged as early as 1100 B.C.E.

To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.

the idea that astronomy advances because of any one great mind struck her as simplistic. It was a collective pursuit, groups and cultures building upon and learning from what came before them.

Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.”

“If only I could find something I love half as much as you love talking about stars.”

disagree. That’s part of what I love about astronomy. When we learn about the constellations, we also learn how earlier generations made sense of the world. The stars are connected to so many other elements of our life. It’s the gray areas that are most fascinating: ‘Is this astronomy or history?’ ‘Is this time or space?’ ”

“Well, we are the stars,” Joan said. “And the stars are us. Every atom in our bodies was once out there. Was once a part of them. To look at the night sky is to look at parts of who you once were, who you may one day be.”

Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.

My mother always said, ‘I like a try-hard.’ I agree with her. I like somebody scrappy.

want to do everything with you. I want to be so close to you that I’m worried I’m being creepy about it.”

“I’m excited,” Vanessa said, closing the gap between them. “I want to take you everywhere. And do everything with you. And ask you every single question that’s been on my mind for months. And I want to know when you knew what was happening between us and I want to tell you when I knew. And I want to hold your hand in a quiet corner and I want to lie in bed and hear your heartbeat through your chest. I want to bring you coffee in bed. And I want to hear you tell me anything you’ve always wanted to tell someone. Because you know that you’ve met someone who desperately wants to listen.”

“I don’t know but I…I want to show you every good thing I’ve ever found,”

It wouldn’t matter how pure the warmth in her chest felt. It wouldn’t matter that Joan had loved and accepted so many others. There were people—many people—who would never return that kindness.

“The Jewish philosopher Spinoza said that God did not necessarily make the universe, but that God is the universe. The unfolding of the universe is God in action. Which would mean science and math are a part of God.”

Just the act of falling in love was to agree to a broken heart.

There were four men on that shuttle. But every American woman was.

But to love Frances was to be always saying goodbye to the girl Frances used to be and falling in love again with the girl Frances was becoming.

“Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.”

As Daniel and Barbara made their vows, Joan smiled at Vanessa, hoping that Vanessa understood what Joan’s smile was trying to say. I would promise you all of this, too.

Joan wanted to tell both of them that they thought she didn’t want to get married, but the truth was that she wanted exactly what Barbara had. She wanted what they had. She wanted what Donna and Hank had. And what every marriage in the whole godforsaken country had. The right to exist and to love and be proud and happy. The right to live.

“I want to live in a little bungalow with you and if the cabinet door started to feel loose, I would tighten it the moment you said something. And I’d make you anything you wanted for breakfast every weekend morning. And I’d take your name, if I could. Or give you mine.”

“Persistence. Highly underrated in women. Overrated in men, but underrated in women.”

Later, Barbara would make a remark about how she could never forgive Joan for hanging up on her. But Joan would never be able to forgive Barbara for not loving Joan as Joan had loved her. For not knowing how to love Frances as Joan loved her.

In this one moment of brilliant clarity—a clarity Joan knows she will lose her grasp on within seconds, and have to fight like hell for years to come back to—Joan understands that God gave her something spectacular. A love, and a life, beyond the confines of her imagination.