Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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.

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.

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

“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.”

You make yourself afraid so you don’t feel sad. But the more you put yourself in terrifying situations, the braver you become. So you have to put yourself in more and more danger

Joan could not resist the idea that to go up there would be to touch God? That Joan could not help but wonder if, among the stars, there would be answers to questions no human had yet found? It seemed so clear to Joan, as crazy as it might be, that the meaning of life had to be up there, somewhere.

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.

people never fall in love with who they should. This whole world is full of stories of people falling in love with exactly who they weren’t supposed to.”

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.”

God did not necessarily make the universe, but that God is the universe. The unfolding of the universe is God in action.

“When you die, someone will bury you or turn your body into ashes. Eventually, you will return to the Earth. You already are a part of the Earth. What better reason do we have to take care of this Earth and everything on it than the knowledge that we are of one another?”

“The trees need our breath, and our breath needs the trees,” she continued. “As scientists we call that symbiosis, and it is a consequence of evolution. But the natural consequences of our connections to each other—that’s God, to me. I believe in it because I can see it with my own eyes. I know it exists. But I also believe in it because I want to believe in it. I want to spend my energy thinking not of how my actions might be frowned upon by a man in the sky, but how my actions affect every living and non-living thing around me. Life is God. My life is tied to yours, and to everyone’s on this planet. How does that not instantly make us more in debt to one another? And also offer us the comfort that we are not alone?”

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

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.”