The story of us — inspired by Frances Ha
Some movies make you fall in love with yourself, one that you can’t help but sigh and smile and cry and scream and hug repeatedly, one that makes your heart a vessel brimful of every sentiment you knew, didn’t know and those you’ve met but had not been acquainted with. Caught in the midst of this helpless wavering, I chose to open my notebook. The ink soaked tip of the pen touched the paper, then I just watched it flow, an undirected, free flow of words. You are about to read a river of words plunged to a beginning by the movie Frances Ha. If your heart doesn’t waver to this direction of words, I will leave a comma in the end to help you exit, there you go, and there you go again, alright now, for those who’ve stranded themselves on this island, deep breaths and -
Tell me the story of us.
I had it, but I didn’t have you. It seemed perfect at the time, because ‘it’ inclued you who were willing to stay. I always admired the idea of an open cage and an willingly staying bird, my fantasy was at a standstill in a spring afternoon, toasted in a kind of yellow afternoon sun and billowing warmth I would not be able to enjoy in reality. An opened cage rattled in an open window of a loft with freshly painted cement walls, somehow in none of my fantasies do I see the willing resident, instead I just see the metal construct wave once or twice in the air, and the dust twirling all around it, they are not falling but in a loop, in a split in time when the resident took a stroll. The cage was empty but it wasn’t an empty cage, it was your cage. In the daydream, my soul reached out from my body at each motion of the metal construct and came back into my ribs as a willingly staying butterfly. I was happy before you even bothered to return. They say fantasies and dreams are an window to the unconscious, I want to be able look at an empty cage without feeling sombre. In reality, at each wag of the empty cage my soul reaches out from my body and wraps its hand around my throat, its touch doesn’t suffocate but it leaves those stones that makes speaking harder and breathing heavier. Nothing had happened, yet those stones subsides on my chest. The cage still swung in the air, yet I hear the sound of nothingness ringing in my head.
Frances spent as long as I did looking at the empty cage and imagining it vacant forever, she had the empty cage ready, stocked with memories and soul, with each wag she was bewildered. So she began to hang other empty cages in the air, lay her heart in it and waited for a resident. Curious birds flew in occasionally, sometimes, they even sang. The cages were occupied at most times, nonetheless they were empty cages. Her soul could not carry on, in the sight of dozens of empty cages wagging in the air, even Sophie’s cage looked empty. Truly, empty. The window was blocked with the metal constructs, and she could no longer see the streets she loved not just because she ran through it with Sophie. It was time to let go, when the first call you made went straight to voicemail, you had to hang up and wait for reciprocation. So she did, she once more had a clear view of the streets, and she ran in it, without demonstrating the memories of two women alone and without Sophie.
Now she had a story of Frances.
I would love to properly introduce ‘Frances Ha’ to you, one day, if I ever find the courage, I will type up a piece most probably much like this one letting you get to know Frances.
