Thank you. I love you.

The only way you could meet my crazy was by doing something crazy yourself. Thank you. I love you. I knew it the minute I met you. I’m sorry it took so long for me to catch up. I just got stuck.

-Pat Solitano, Silver Linings Playbook

Delectable Autumn Descends

The first leaf, just slightly tinged with brown,
Floated delicately through the air, gracing the ground below,
Mingling in with the blades of grass still shining emerald-green,
The summer insects and animals still living as if nothing will change
The summer flowers still blooming and growing, unaware,
A turning page, a new season being born.

Autumn, delectable autumn, a season that some see as dark,
That the light of rebirth is being extinguished,
Others see a season of warmth, a season of comfort,
A season that holds the promise of family, friends, food, togetherness,
A season that may be Earth burning itself down, freezing itself over, and starting anew in full bloom come spring,
A season of shorter days and longer nights,
A season of trickery and mischief,
A season of mystery and possibility and beauty,
A season of thankfulness and indulgence,
A season of savory, spicy and sweet,
A season that is a lovely breath,
A lovely respite,
A welcome break between the overly active and wildly scorched earth of summer,
And the frozen, treacherous tundra of winter,
It’s only rival being the breath of fresh air that is spring.

Autumn descends, and it is delectable.

Allies

All extremes of feeling are allied with madness

-Virginia Woolf

Simple love

We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.

-Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

A Voice

I write only because
There is a voice within me
That will not be still

-Sylvia Plath

Screenplay Work-Character Study-Jimmy and Sloan

He closed the door behind her as she entered the room. He had been using his Dad’s old office since he moved home, and since he father had died last year the room had remained empty and stale, wafting a scent of old cigar smoke embedded deep into the hunter green curtain fabric and the fibers of the old wing backed chairs. His father’s favorite scotch, Glenlivet, was still sitting on the silver tray on the bar behind his old mahogany desk, the wood slightly faded. His father was always a single malt type of man.

Jimmy had felt a wave of guilt wash over him when he moved home and his mother offered the office to him as a work space, a place for him to try to get back up on his feet after the disaster that led to his termination from his job. He liked to think of it as a termination rather than being fired, he felt it sounded more dignified and less like the incredible failure that it actually was, that haunted his every step. He hadn’t visited his father since the Christmas before he died, and that knowledge was burning a hole into the pit of his stomach. It was the classic, unoriginal, clichéd, guilt of an overly busy and completely self-absorbed son that had ignored the people he left behind. Nothing about his story was unique or particularly important, and that almost hurt him more than the actual situation itself. And that admission to himself scared the hell out of Jimmy Lewis, and made him acknowledge the kind of life he was actually living, not the life he had been pretending to live in his head.

“Jimmy,”

Sloan Jacobs broke his train of thought, and forced his eyes to focus back on what was happening in front of him, not what had happened eons ago.

“Yes? I’m sorry, sorry, I just got lost for a second, I was thinking about things, shit that was leftover in my mind from a long time ago. Sorry, but I’m here now, right now.”

He walked toward her and their faces got so close he could smell the cigarettes floating off her lips and tongue. It was the same scent from when they were much younger souls, a comforting constant.

“Want a drink?” He asked, his breathing slightly off, slightly unsure of the tempo it should be at. He was breathing like a man who needed to remind himself how breathing worked.

“Sure” She broke eye contact with him and moved her eyes down to look at her purse, then decided there must be something she forgot in there that she desperately needed right at this moment, so she opened it and began to fumble around clumsily looking for something for her hands to hold and use.

Jimmy poured them each a glass of scotch, his hand shaking just the slightest, not even noticeable by others, but he knew, he knew that this was all too strange to fully understand and comprehend. He was back in a place he never thought he’d be, with a girl he had pretended to forget about years ago, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t, no man could. It’s cliché as old as time itself, but she was the kind of person,the kind of girl he couldn’t forget. They had snuck in here once before, many years ago when they were seventeen and just on the precipice of something great and life changing; they were on the edge of starting life over again. They would be leaving for college and beginning new chapters, but not that night eighteen years ago. Even thinking to himself that so many years had passed since then terrified him. It terrified him to realize that he had lived all these years only to return right where it all began, in his father’s office with a girl he had shared the night with when they were both so young and new, untamed and untarnished, full of chances.

He walked over to her, slowly and deliberately, still lost in his memories.
“Here you go,” he handed her the glass of scotch; she seemed startled by his voice and his presence in general.

“Oh, thank you, I haven’t had scotch since I left Boston. That was always my drink, I guess I’ve loved it since that time, you know, do you remember? When we were in high school? What were we, seniors right? God that night, I didn’t remember that until I was back in here,” she lied. She remembered. She had played it over and over in her head many times since then.

Jimmy’s heart sank when she said that. He couldn’t believe she had forgotten, and it broke his heart a little bit to imagine that she didn’t remember something that had meant so much to him. They stood there and sipped their scotch quietly, silently, as if speaking would damage the delicate strands that held this moment together, and erase forever the possibility of it turning into a memory.

Sloan switched the scotch from her right to left hand, and let her right hand fall to her side. She gently let her fingers reach out and touch Jimmy’s hand. He was startled, but he retained his composure. His fingers reciprocated and responded to hers. He put his hand around hers and held it firmly, but softly, it was not aggressive or demanding, it was familiar and welcome, to both of them.

“We’re going to be ok, right?” Sloan asked, nervously, afraid of his response.

“I hope so,” Jimmy replied, and he truly meant it.

He pulled her hand to his chest, set his glass down, and turned her towards him. He took her glass and set it down as well. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her in close. They dance slowly, swaying like you do in middle school. She rested her head on his chest, he rested his chin on her head, and they swayed to the sounds of music in their heads, memories left over from that night so many years ago.

(Song that plays at the end of the scene, during the long extended shot of them dancing is “Such Great Heights,” by The Postal Service.)

Original Work: KH 09/07/13