Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

NASA, we honor the people we have lost by referring to them as being ‘on an eternal mission.’

You could develop your personality your entire life—pursue the things you wanted to learn, discover the most interesting parts of yourself, hold yourself to a certain standard—and then you marry a man and suddenly his personality, his wants, his standards subsume your own?

She has been through enough in her life to know that there is no value in long-term thinking right now. In a crisis of this magnitude, you are best served by evaluating second by second.

“That the night sky is a map, and once you know how to read it, it will always be there. You’ll never be lost.”

“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.” As she said it, Joan could tell how lonely it must sound. To

Being human was such a lonely endeavor. We alone have consciousness; we are the only intelligent life force that we know of in the galaxy. We have no one but one another. Joan was always moved by the fact that everything—all matter on Earth and beyond, up past the atmosphere, going as far as the edges of the universe, as it expands farther and farther away from us—is made from the same elements. We are made of the same things as the stars and the planets. Remembering that connection brought Joan comfort. It also brought her some sense of responsibility. And what was kinship but that? Comfort and responsibility. “It sounds stupid, I know,” she said. “No,” Vanessa said. “It doesn’t. It’s fascinating.

that’s the problem. If you find a way to make yourself absolutely terrified, there’s no room for any other feeling.”

Vanessa said. “I can’t be flexible about it at all.”

“Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.” “That’s because you’re too good for the world you love so much,” Vanessa said.

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

“Listen. It’s okay. We asked for so much, didn’t we? We wanted to touch the stars, and look what we did. There’s nothing more we could ask from the universe, or this God you always talk about, than that. So it’s okay. It’s fine. Okay, Joan? For me, as long as you all know what you meant to me, it all worked out fine.” She knows that Joan