#let us dance in the sun wearing wild flowers in our hair {closet}

[pandoraalcmene]

“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”

[flying-elliska]

HS Reunion AU pt. 3/?

Heyyy I know we thrive on pain here ^^ but if you want a break maybe for a minute, here’s some more incredibly wish-fulfill-y fluff. They’re all thriving adults (for the most part), the reunion starts and Daphne has a surprise ! 

SAMEDI 17:44 

The day of the reunion dawns bright and sunny. They’ve just spent a lazy morning in bed, enjoying each other, only getting up after noon. Lucas promised his husband that this time would be for them, so he kept his itching fingers away from any keyboards or screens. Eliott made crepes with melted chocolate, deliciously decadent. They curled up together on their big couch, read, watched a weird documentary about deminer rats, and rearranged their utility closet. Lucas's still surprised about all the things they’d managed to lose in there, including four different brooms, one of Eliott’s best lenses hidden in an empty cereal box (why), a bag of onions that had taken on a life of their own, and an album of honeymoon photos they’d completely forgotten existed, maybe because it was the one where they both sported completely sunburnt noses after going off trail for a week in Nepal and looked like a pair of molting lobsters. 

The reunion is at 18. They will be having dinner in the old foyer, before going to party on a rented boat on the Seine. Lucas parks the car a few blocks away. He really wants them to have a little time to breathe and enjoy the sun before the madness starts.

It's a gorgeous early summer day, with a little breeze deflecting the heat and sunlight glittering on the water. It’s incredibly thrilling still for some reason, walking hand in hand with his husband along the Canal St Martin, this close to their old school.

Eliott can’t stop grinning at him either. He looks like a vision in his tight black turtleneck, camel longcoat swung over his shoulder, hair as wild as ever. His eyes are intense and full on mischievous, in a way that really does something to Lucas’ underbelly feelings. 

“Hey, so...things are heating up between you and that girl Chloe, huh ?” 

Lucas rolls his eyes. Of course he would go there, the asshole. 

“Yeah, she’s incredible. Woman of my life. Might ask her to marry me in the fall. I always wanted a honeymoon in Bali” 

“Bali, hm ? That’s cute. Are you sure she’s the one, though ?”

“Yes absolutely. She ticks all my boxes ! I mean, she’s such a ...female woman !  She even has breasts and everything ! I think. It’s amazing. Everything I need right there.” 

Eliott laughs out loud. Lucas loves that sound more than anything else in the world, and the fact that they can joke easy now about their earlier jealousies and mistakes feels very healing. 

“Love at first sight, then.” 

“Oh you know how it is, girl bumps into boy once, it must be true love.” 

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Are you talking about yourself now ?”

Eliott raises his eyebrows in a way that makes Lucas blush, then stops and pulls him closer, until their noses almost touch.

“I don’t know, do you have any boxes left for me to tick ? Or are you all ticked out ? Are you sure your boxes are being ticked appropriately ?” 

“Oh, okay, we’re playing it like that, dirty talk in the street ? I don’t remember that part.”

“Why don’t we make up for lost time ?”

“Wait, don’t you have an imaginary girlfriend, too ?”

“Nah. I’m not even playing at that.”

“Well then, you can tick my boxes anytime.”

Eliott smiles and wraps his arms around Lucas’ head, drawing him into a passionate kiss, unhurried and slow, that tastes like minty toothpaste and cigarettes. They have all the time in the world. Lucas thinks of his teenage self, who’d yearned for this so fervently even as the idea of holding another man’s hand in the street terrified him, and he kind of wants to do a victory dance on the spot. 

A few seconds or maybe minutes later, someone coughs loudly next to them. History repeats, apparently, but thankfully with better timing. 

“Well, I see you two are still as disgustingly in love as ever.” 

Emma is standing in front of them, an amused expression on her face. She looks good, if a little jet lagged - hair in a pixie cut, tanned, bag slung over her shoulder, looking as carefree and adventurous as ever. Lucas moves to hug her as if they’d last seen each other last week. 

“Glad to see you made it.”

“Daphne would have reached across two entire oceans to kick my ass if I didn’t. And you know, I figured my family might like to see me, accessorily. And you, still can’t get you past the Périphérique, I see ?” 

“That’s a gross overexaggeration. We toured half the world for our honeymoon.” 

“And let me guess, you’ve been shackled to your desks ever since ? Well, at least you’re rocking the “just rose from my coffin” look together.” 

“Oh, sorry, not all of us want to look like Australian beef jerky.”

They fall easily into bickering the rest of the way, insulting each other in a friendly manner. It really is like old times. The place hasn’t changed much, except for a lot more vegetation in the courtyard. Seeing it evokes a tangled knot of complicated feelings in him. They haven’t been back since graduation, really. When they’ve reached the gate, Eliott holds Lucas back for a moment, taking both his hands. Lucas can feel his husband is nervous. 

“You know, say the magic word and we’re out of there in a second, okay ?” 

Eliott leans forward muffles his laugh in Lucas’ collar. 

“How is this worse than Cannes, seriously ?"

"I almost wish there were paparazzi now, as distraction."

"Let's pretend there are and put our game faces on, then."

Eliott laughs again and ruffles through Lucas' hair, who protests but lets him do it. He always does.

From across the courtyard, he sees Manon come toward them. 

She looks better than the last time he saw her, when she was fresh from her breakup with some hotshot war reporter. He loves this woman, truly, that's his sister right there, but god he wishes for her own sake she’d grow out of her taste for passionate, moody assholes. And it's not the first time, nor the last, he feels he will have to help her pick up the pieces. But that's okay. She's always been there in his most difficult times.

And now she's there, standing tall, wrapped in a designer coat, rocking her signature red lipstick even though there are bags under her eyes and he knows this is the look she wears when she's pretending to be okay. He realizes then one of his goals tonight will be to make sure nobody bothers her about her love life. She's an amazingly accomplished woman. That's all anybody needs to know.

Eliott gives her an extra long hug. Those are the best thing in the world, and his husband has always been intuitive about these things. Good.

Together, they move towards the foyer.

Their old haunt is completely gone - the mural, their ratty old couch, all the things they'd painstakingly gathered together. The space has been merged with another room and is twice as large. Then again, it makes it possible to fit in enough tables, which might not have been possible back then. Their old beat down furniture has been cleared to make room for lush greenery and designer sofas, uncannily clean for a high school. It's been lavishly decorated too, with a banner, pastel streamers and golden balloons. In front of the window there is a buffet full of all sorts of drinks, salads and cakes. It's definitely too much for this type of occasion but then again. Daphne. 

When they enter the room, heads turn, and the gazes aimed their way are a bit too curious and insistent for his taste.  Well, they did end up being one of the most dramatic squads in their year, in the end, it was to be expected but...It’d better be admiration for his on-his-way to famous husband, and nothing else, because if he’s grown out of one thing, it’s suffering fools. He feels both Eliott and Manon’s grip on his arms tighten. 

A very enthusiastic Daphne appears out of thin air in front of them, as if on wheels. She looks like she stepped out of the pages of a magazine, baby blue dress, hair carefully plaited with little glass flowers, as peppy as ever. She welcomes them, kisses all of their cheeks and then directs them to their table, where they find little calligraphied tags to their names in the plates, before storming off again.

Their table is already half-full. Arthur is there, in a crisp suit, accompanied by a posh, bored looking brunette. He is pointedly not talking to Basile, sitting next to him. Lucas sighs internally. He'd really hoped that was over. Basile is accompanied by a vaguely bird-faced woman, who is wearing the exact same disastrous color scheme as him, brown and bright green and red. And then there's Imane, looking impeccable in her deep red scarf and elegant black dress, and her husband Yousef, in deep conversation. Finally, to round it off, there's two random people Lucas already feels sorry for.

They all greet each other. It's a little awkward. He's happy seeing Imane and Yousef though. It's been a while, what with their little daughter and Imane's company getting off the ground and his own crazy schedule.

Lucas gets a text from Yann saying he's going to be late. Basile launches into an explanation of his latest crowdfunding project, something about an app and cryptocurrency that barely registers. The room slowly fills up. Arthur talks about his family company's ventures into the South Asian market. Lucas slowly starts feeling like he wants to jump into the Seine. He didn't come here to witness how boring his friends have become and how adulthood is descending on them to make them into pre-mummified copies of their parents. He thinks he'd almost rather go back to hear college age Basile brag about all his conquests in graphic detail. Almost. And he can feel his husband tensing up next to him; he knows how much Eliott hates speaking about his work archievements, that it always feels like bragging to him, that he wants the work to talk for itself.

Thankfully, this is the moment Alexia chooses to make her entrance. Far from toning herself down, she's only become more colorful and boisterous over the years. Hair bubblegum pink, in a dress marked with a giant golden thunderbolt, she makes all heads turn in her direction. Lucas used to think she was a little obnoxious, to be honest, but she's like a breath of fresh air now. She plops into a chair at their table and immediately launches a debate about the worst part of the new foyer and if they could donate another paper toilet rolls sculpture. It's a relief from everyone posturing about their jobs. Although honestly, Alexia's probably the most successful of all of them. He can never wrap his head around what she does exactly, except that it involves millions of online followers, sponsorships in the US, dancing videos with cats and her own shoeline.

Eliott leaves and comes back with drinks for the both of them. They clink their craft beer bottles against each other and Eliott leans down to whisper in his ear :

"Too bad they took away our couch"

Lucas snorts.

"Fuck no, that thing was a health hazard when we were here already, can you imagine after ten years ?"

"I don't know, I mean. It could have been fun to recreate some memories after everyone leaves." Lucas chokes on his beer. If Eliott is trying to distract him, it's surely working.

Across the table he can see Arthur's date look at them with a contemptuous glance on her face. The woman exhudes as much fun as a bag of frozen broccoli. Petty, he plants a sloppy kiss on Eliott's cheek. If they've earned one thing, it's the right to not worry about what people think of their PDA, goddamn.

Daphne arrives at their table and sits down, slightly out of breath.

"Hey guys ! I'm so happy you are all here ! It's been a while, huh ? I have a surprise for everyone later, I hope you will all participate, I'm counting on you !"

For a moment Lucas is terrified she's going to quiz them on their lives or force them into some sort of weird bonding exercise. Then he sees the look on Basile's face and realizes they have worse issues to worry about. F*cking hell, they dated for a few months ten years ago, and he's still looking at her like she hung the moon, and right in front of his girlfriend too. It took him years to get over her, they were gross the first time, and if Basile does something stupid it's going to take the awkwardness levels from slightly unpleasant to excruciating for the rest of the evening.

Then a tall, beautiful woman with dark skin and long tresses comes toward their table, effortlessly elegant in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She puts her hand on Daphne's shoulder.

"Hey babe, sound's all set up."

Daphne blushes up to her ears.

"Hey everyone, uh. This is Sam. She's my work partner and also. Uh. She's going to be my wife."

The table erupts into shouts of congratulations, surprise and joy. Manon hugs Daphne, Basile's expression falls to the floor, and Alexia claps her hands laughing. Lucas isn't surprised, but he is proud. For a long time, Daphne was even deeper in denial than he was. And Sam looks awesome.

Lucas exchanges a smile with his husband. Maybe coming to this reunion was worth it after all.

[gsbrandson]

Laurels by the Bay

There was an echo in the canyon, that’s for certain. I believe the year was 1966. Sixty-six was the year where the doors of Capitol records were the entrance to paradise. Not because I could sing or play, but because I could watch and I could record it. Before what you all call the Summer Of Love, there was a lot happening in Los Angeles that really set the tone for the nitty gritty, down and dirty stuff, you know? And I’m happy to say that I was a fixture there. There were films being made in and around our homes, sure. Model Shop being one of the big ones. But no one captured what I did. Everything was stylized so naturally, you see. You can’t cut and retake the pure essence of the canyon. You have to just let it be. You have to let her speak. And she did, through all of us.

I think it was one of the record shops on Sunset that made it all clear for me. I used to sit in the listening room on these modern style chairs that were upholstered with orange leather. The spiraling cord from the KLH stereo to my ears I thought was my connection to heaven. I loved the jazz that birthed rock n roll and the local stuff, of course. Those shops were our beacon of hope and killed our worries for just a moment during the sirens of Vietnam. Those shops are where I first discovered the art of film.

 Down the street a ways from Tower Records was a brand new camera shop simply called Camera and Darkroom. And I was the Levi 501 darling of the boulevard. Well, at least one of them. There weren’t any flowers in my hair yet, but that was soon coming. Outside the camera shop they were demoing the brand new Super8 camera by Kodak. I posed and waved for the camera on the street corner and was told to come back in a week to see myself on the screen. They had a reel going in the darkroom on a white sheet. The owner of the shop had filmed his wife creating a flower arrangement in their kitchen. And of his baby boy making a sand castle on the beach on the fourth of July. I couldn’t help but cry as I watched his life on the screen. How beautiful and how precious were his memories. In live action and in color, repeating again and again. I walked through the projection and reached for a flower in the hand of his sundress wife and it hit me. I had to have one to.

 It was my newest thrill. I had my own Super8 after saving up two paychecks, getting a loan from my father in Connecticut, and telling my landlord that she would receive the rent a week late, as I was “having an emergency”. I started to shiver and squeal when I loaded the first reel of film. My first few shots were out the window of a taxi down Sunset. I loved how the glow of the neon signs came back after development, and so I walked down the strip and filmed the flickering lights of the Whisky A Go Go and the people passing by and waving at me. That’s how I met Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys and how I received my introduction to the Canyon.

 I met Brian post mental breakdown, on one of the few nights he spent out of solitude. He saw me in the street getting a shot of the cars passing by and asked what I was doing. His brothers stood behind him.

“This is a Kodak Super8,” I said. “I’m making movies.”

He invited me up to his house in the canyon and said he had something for me to film. At first, I thought he was coming onto me. But that wasn’t his way. We walked into his living room and it was empty. Apart from a white grand piano and floors covered in three feet of sand. I cannot lie, I was confused. He said, “Sit down, let me explain.” He sat at the piano, Dennis got on drums, and Carl on bass. I started recording. They performed a half buzzed version of In my Room, which I had heard in the record shop a couple of months before. A lot of people believed that God spoke through these boys, as they created the California Myth, especially Brian. And my, my, could he write. The reel from this night is marked with a California surfing edition postage stamp in my archive. I watch it from time to time and pour some Zuma Beach sand that I keep in a bottle by my bed into my hand.

 The footage I have of Dennis’ run in with Charles Manson is now the property of the FBI. I handed the reels over after the murder of Sharon Tate and Charlie’s arrest. One reel is of the state of Dennis’ home after the family’s stay in the summer of 1968. Another is of Charlie pulling a knife on Brian and Dennis at Capitol after receiving constructive criticism on his music. He could never handle that. There is one reel that I kept without the officials knowing. It begins as a pan of Malibu beach, the frame finally resting on a meditating Dennis Wilson and Charles Manson. Both shirtless and in shorts, sitting, legs crossed on large rocks by the sea. Their fingers are out in OM. They wear prayer beads around their necks that were made by the girls in the Family. A peaceful sounding scene, yes. But the way Charlie looked back at the camera is something I will never forget. His eyes looked animal, and that sinister, almost demonic smile haunts me to this day. I believed my camera to be cursed after that. I applied holy water on its handle and the Ladies of the Canyon joined hands in a circle and said seven hail Mary’s over its body. The reel is marked with a red X in my archive, and I haven’t watched it since 1975.

 I was introduced to the Byrds by I don’t remember who. I used to take a car up to their place in the canyon to film them practicing for the Fifth Dimension Tour. They brought me along to their shows on the beaches and to some of the major cities to film a backstage diary. I made them perform Wild Mountain Thyme over and over again to get the right shot. I got so many close-ups of their dark eyelashes on their cheeks when their eyes were closed. We were all so rosy and sun kissed in California. And so much in love. Not with each other, but with the music. So many girls came around and put flowers in their long messy hair and tailored their blazers for television by hand. My favorite reel of them is their TV appearance and performance of Mr. Spaceman. I was front row, and David kept looking down at me and singing through his smile. They were so nervous before that performance, and so happy. This reel is marked with a backstage photograph, rubber banded around the box. Of the boys in their nicest dressing room yet, and it’s titled with a quote from David, saying “Well boys, I think we’ve made the big time.”

 Joni Mitchell sang jazz to me and the music of the world. I was there to watch her switch between mediums. I filmed every brush stroke on canvas and every movement of her gold hair in the sun. She wrote Ladies of the Canyon on a green velvet sofa and in front of a picture window. She watches as I dance with Linda Ronstadt on the rug from Santa Fe. She laughs. And in the morning, she is topless and in jeans. She paces and drinks tea from a daffodil painted cup and saucer. She eats raspberries from a white china bowl. She scratches her head. She smells of the lover’s musk that he gave her just this morning. She keeps smelling her shoulder and writing things down. But she was my flower. She would say to me, “It’s rose day at the market. It’s about a dollar fifty for a bouquet, and about a penny for your thoughts.” These reels are on the top shelf of the archive. They are marked with some of her favorite news clippings about jazz musicians in New Orleans, a poem she wrote for me, and a single dried daffodil.

Young girls were indeed coming to the canyon. Cass Elliot kept a pill bottle of sugar cubes in her kelly green makeup case. They were laced with LSD 25. She sets her hair in the morning and watches the soap operas on NBC. Her closet was full of colorful floral trapeze dresses. Choosing one each morning was her favorite part of the day. All of the boys told her she was a stallion. Strong and majestic, yes, but her false lashes and glamour girl curl set inspired the flowery woman calls of the decade. She was a force to be reckoned with. Could sing the birds out of the trees. And now she had opened her head.

 I filmed the Papa’s thin. The doctors said they were almost to the point of no return. A pin dropping, to them, was a clap of thunder. The group had just made their sixth television appearance for the week, and I was in the dressing room filming the prelude to the California full tilt boogie. The surf shops down the coast dedicated their business hours to the ones they loved. We echoed back. That part wasn’t hard for us, my baby. It was the first time the Mama’s and their Papa’s hit the waves. I have footage of the sun-bleached surf boys teaching us the zen motions of applying sex wax to our boards. They had tan skin and bright white teeth, and they always smiled so big for my camera. I’m afraid that Papa John and Denny couldn’t tell where the waves began. They stood there, twenty feet from the water break, staring into the blue. As loud as she could, surfboard under arm, Cass ran up shore and sang “Come on in, the water’s fine.” And at that moment, the boys returned to Earth. To this day, they owe the ending of their bad trip to Mama Cass. I don’t think they dropped acid again after that. This reel is wrapped in the archive with Cass’ paisley handkerchief that she used to sop up her nosebleeds and a single sugar cube laced with LSD 25.

 It was the man that I fell in love with at the Dog Bar on the coast that brought me, for the first time, into the home of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. Zappa was sitting at a piano, topless and in jeans, prayer beads around his neck. The top of the piano was covered in stacks of sheet music that he had written himself. I wondered almost immediately how many of them would make the final cut of a record and how many hours a day he spent under his desk lamp with his pen. Before saying hello to me, he said, “Come here for a minute, will you tell me if this sounds ugly?” Frank was writing a song about a CIA man lurking around Laurel Canyon, which later I found out was about Brian Wilson’s schizophrenic paranoia. I was setting up my camera in the corner of the music room and before I could reply with a reassuring “No, it doesn’t sound ugly at all,” there she was in the doorway. This moment caught on tape is to this day, one of my favorites. She was the girl from the Tropicana Motel that he had found in a mini skirt and with a bright floral suitcase. She was looking for rock stars and in a way, he was looking for her. Some say she’s the girl Lou Reed wrote Femme Fatale for after traveling to LA with Warhol. But that’s just a rumor, and she liked it that way.

On this day she entered the room wearing a tiffany blue mesh robe with feathers on the trim. She had a golden fringe bang and white boots up to her knees. She knew without looking straight at us once that the camera was rolling. She sits on Frank’s lap as he continues to play and she wraps her arms around his neck. I’ve taken photographs of the screen at this moment when he looks up at her. I have it timed just right. She was not his wife, but she was, most definitely, the love of his life. She notices his eyes all lit up and laughs. She kisses him bigger than usual. Do you want to guess what he says? He says, “Suzy Creamcheese, oh baby, now, what’s got into ya?”

I don’t think I really learned what poetry truly was or really felt it until I found Jim. I found him In the lobby of the Chateau Marmont and I asked him what his sign was with a lollypop in my mouth. He smiled so big as he said Sagittarius. He was such a beautiful angel boy. And I was over the beat poets already. Jim had a way of making you feel like you were floating. I lived next door to him at that hotel, I kid you not. At night I used to hear him singing in the bathroom from the comfort of his clawfoot tub. He wrote Blue Sunday there. He was in love again, in love every five minutes. I set up my camera and filmed the goings on out the French doors and hoped that the tape recorder as close to the wall as I could get it, would pick up his humming. I eventually gathered enough courage to intrude on his bath for the shot. A wild request, I know. But he didn’t mind. I knocked on the door and received a sing song “Come in!” I heard the water splash as he moved. I believed him to be high out of his mind. The stolen flowers in the bath floated perfectly around him. He criss crossed his arms and held his shoulders. Looked at me like a starlet photographing boudoir for her husband. I think you can hear my sigh on the sound tape. He asked for more rosewater in the bath which I obliged. I have what he said next written in red ink on the reel box. He said, “This is the water of yesterday, and the flowers of tomorrow.”

 There were laurels by the bay in the summertime. And there was only one time where all of us were together. It was the beginning of a new age. The discotech revolution would follow Jim’s death in 1971. Paris, France has him forever. We could all feel a shift after Woodstock. Many of our friends and the voices of Laurel Canyon would be laid to rest in the next two decades and somehow, on this particular day, we all knew it. We were so proud to be from California, even if honorarily so. We spent our final days of love in the ocean spray and in the sun. I do believe whole heartedly that this time altered our ideas of God. We had all been looking for him since 1960. It was 1970 now and it felt like the moon had at last fallen in line with the sun. We were all flying so high above it all for so long. We had pioneered so much and I don’t think any of us went into the 60s knowing what we could reach.

 The reels I have of all of us were shot in God’s country. At Pfeiffer beach and at Big Sur. I still have my admission ticket taped up inside my windshield. This is the footage that I watch the most. It’s the footage that the historians and television stations offer me the most money for. I always decline. I suppose because you can’t put a price on this. These memories are mine. How beautiful and how precious they are. We were all like children climbing through the rocky caves with bare feet and laughing with every wave hit. We were on our beach towels and in large sunglasses, drinking sangria out of a clear mason pitcher and dancing until we were out of breath. We thought the sun could never set on us. The sand was our stage that day. We performed the Ballad of the Bonfire Children, 1969 at nightfall. Our grand finale at the West Coast cabaret. I believe the tourists mistook us for the sirens of the cove or the choir of the sea. “It’s just so hard to leave work at work.” We would all say and laugh. I miss them, all of them. How beautiful they were with their sea salt curls and their tanning oil skin.

 You should have heard them harmonize in the footage on the last reel. They brought us back to 1963 when it all really began. All of them stood around the fire and sang Brian’s Surfer Girl. I have a sound cue on the tape of my thumbs up extending from behind the lens. On the sound tape you can hear me count them in. You can hear the crackling fire in the background. And you can hear me blubbering when they sing “So I say from me to you, I can make your dreams come true.” Because they had.

Dennis Wilson would succumb to a shallow water blackout in 1983. I find it so fitting that he ends our era with one line, well, technically two. He walks to the camera and puts his face so close you can see the sand on his cheeks. He was elated and wrinkled just a bit from sun exposure. When you read his lips, you can almost hear him speak. He says, “This is it, we’re signing off.”