Dr. John Lathrop has a phD from Harvard in astrophysics. He has been teaching me about the stars for as long as I can remember. He is my father.
In their early days of dating, my mom once introduced him as an ivy league astrologer, & he didn't correct her (she was merely nervous, not ignorant--she went to Harvard, too). He's that kind of person. He has made me smart both intellectually & emotionally. Knowing about the universe has always made me keenly aware of my own insignificance, in a good way.
Since learning about my illness, I like to think of myself in relation to the Milky Way. That I am merely a collection of particles, of matter, of cells. That I have constellations of viruses, beautiful & colorful in their own way. That the Black Hole exists, but it is not any closer to shifting my orbit. Scientists like to keep emotions out of critical theory & thought, & I have aimed to do just that. To deconstruct my human chemistry made up of all the things that already exist & have existed for billions & billions of years. That time is relative: the light of stars that bounces back inside my eye has been trying to reach me since before I got sick. That when I feel too weak to move or lift my arm, it is only gravity on this planet that makes it difficult. In my body, it is merely about what starts the firing of organic electricity. It is only about a cell's nucleus & the information it carries. Cells that travel in darkness, lighting up with their neon colors, randomly & not randomly. They & I, we are only a miracle.
In their early days of dating, my mom once introduced him as an ivy league astrologer, & he didn't correct her (she was merely nervous, not ignorant--she went to Harvard, too). He's that kind of person. He has made me smart both intellectually & emotionally. Knowing about the universe has always made me keenly aware of my own insignificance, in a good way.
Since learning about my illness, I like to think of myself in relation to the Milky Way. That I am merely a collection of particles, of matter, of cells. That I have constellations of viruses, beautiful & colorful in their own way. That the Black Hole exists, but it is not any closer to shifting my orbit. Scientists like to keep emotions out of critical theory & thought, & I have aimed to do just that. To deconstruct my human chemistry made up of all the things that already exist & have existed for billions & billions of years. That time is relative: the light of stars that bounces back inside my eye has been trying to reach me since before I got sick. That when I feel too weak to move or lift my arm, it is only gravity on this planet that makes it difficult. In my body, it is merely about what starts the firing of organic electricity. It is only about a cell's nucleus & the information it carries. Cells that travel in darkness, lighting up with their neon colors, randomly & not randomly. They & I, we are only a miracle.
