This Heart

Joce has been driving for what seems like weeks. 

This dark wave

Gathering might

Daring height

Folly the brave. 

She catches a yellowy skirty butterfly in the black and white fields of Eastern European cinematography. Look hun, they're not all gonna be winners but you gatt a start somewhere right? 

Jocey and Paul are driving to California for the wedding. Their wedding. It is supposed to be lovely and green. Hillside and bold colours standing up against the Sun. 

She has grown her hair so she can weave flowers through it. It is meant to be marvellous. It is meant to remind the guests of Europe, of moody gusts of wind caught between avenues smelling of dirt, grime, tobacco and patisserie. We are meant to delight in life, we are meant to eat the cake of existence and indulge in the sprinkles of humanity, we are meant to have the cake, we are meant to breathe in the tiny streets of Oxford and ask ourselves, naked, in the night if we have lived pure. 

Paul's family is coming from New England. There will be the quiet foreshadowing of fanfare, braided in the calls and coffees and hush hush meetings at quaint cafes in Napa. There will be shawls and glitters and mascara pouring down laughing glistening eyes. 

Paul's mother has embraced the estate and has settled comfortably at her monarch's table. Gorging on slaughtered swans for one.

There will be cake at the wedding. 

We are not alone. We have each other. 

Flash flash. 

A tiny dog is running towards the camera. You know he is not running for you but you believe, you believe. 

I was seven when I fell in love with cinema. Not the sights but the noises. The crackling and folding and tampering behind the scenes. I loved the moments in between. Boy, they hold it all together. 

The first thing Joce does at the hotel is go for a swim. She jumps up through the playing and  dipping and imagines gloriously that the rec room lamp is a Sun.

The Sun, unmoving and unwavering, shines nevertheless hidden by the ceiling, hidden by the clouds into the unending blanket of night.