Setting suns and firework blossoms, a birthday cake ablaze and those first unsteady steps. That perfect and precise moment when all the rice is floating like a summoned blizzard of highest hopes and warmest wishes around the blushing bride, the impossible to duplicate smile of a groom who just can’t believe his dumb luck. All these things we try to capture and store away for rainy days, our precious paper-print empires of moments and memories held safe and dry lest they be washed away in this raging river of weeks, months, and years.

You’ll squeeze my hand and whisper something silly, something racy, something absurd but amazing or sweet and secretive in an attempt to coax out my real smile, my laughing grin. The flash goes pop and my eyes blink a millisecond too slowly and so there they are, golden stars and yellow halos spinning mad like summertime carnival rides behind these heavy lids. Twelve days from now, the prints will come back from the lab, my smile will be genuine and the moment caught just right. In it you’re laughing, eyes off the camera, looking at me.