touch

 I spent the morning in Memory clinic and I felt whole again; like this feeling of, no matter where I end up, if I'm doing this with my life and learning about this, and surrounded by brilliant people who do this really well...that all will be okay
Then I had a stressful meeting with my advisor and feel like I keep oscillating between panic-induced hyper-productivity and anxiety-induced abulia and it's honestly very exhausting
I woke up to a message from one of the engineers I danced with in San Francisco and it really made my day. it was a video of him teaching his engineer colleagues a dance routine, and just the joy and playfullness and whimsicality of it all made my heart glow
I saw Gokul yesterday. I was talking to Gunnar about helical filaments and bacterial flagella (well Gunnar was talking and I was listening, because I find him fascinating and know absolutely nothing about flagella or cryo-EM or helical filaments). And I saw from afar
He had his little baseball cap on and that smile that could light up an entire planet
He told me he was defending soon, and I told him I'd definitely come, and he said he'd look forward to it and then he smiled and walked away

And Gunnar was like "HIM why aren't you interested in HIM" and I was like i don't know....I mean, I think he is with someone, for one, but also I don't know

He has just this beautiful quality about him, calm, kind, sweet
I think it's the smile, he like hugs your heart while looking into your eyes and not laying a finger on you

And that's a tough thing to do, to touch someone without touching them

I think that's what I find the most attractive about a person, and I feel very fortunate to have met lots of attractive humans over the past few months even
I think that's the thing about dancing even--it's a way to touch someone without touching them at all
dance, music, art

I think that's what I love about the people that I work with, the professors that inspire me the most
my closest friends, the people I admire
I love when people can touch me, without touching me at all