Our story begins with Timothée Chalamet’s great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, a four-leaf clover, dried and pressed inside a leather-bound book of fairy tales. He fell in love with a single drop of dew beaded on a spider web and glistening in the orange morning light. Together, they conceived the first shooting star a child ever wished upon.
The shooting star fell in love with a small piece of green sea glass, smoothed century after century by the ocean’s gentle caress. Together, they conceived a perfect cotton-candy cloud.
The cloud fell in love with an abstract dream, one that radiates an inexplicable feeling of warmth within the dreamer — a feeling that remains with the dreamer even when they wake. Together, they conceived a dark, ancient forest speckled with fireflies.
The forest fell in love with David Cromer’s 2009 off-Broadway production of Our Town. Together, they conceived a charm of hummingbirds.
The charm of hummingbirds fell in love with an unfinished poem folded into a paper crane and tied to a balloon, floating toward the heavens. Together, they conceived the scent of honeysuckle.
The scent fell in love with the curling, ephemeral wisps of smoke from eleven extinguished birthday candles. Together, they conceived a patchwork quilt sewn from every lost mitten and every lost hope ever abandoned in a snowdrift.
The quilt fell in love with the aurora borealis — the swirling pinks and greens and blues, the phantasmagorical magic of the cosmos kissing the earth with its glowing, phantom lips. Together, they conceived the ache of melancholy.
Then melancholy, the rebel of the family, betrayed her ancestors and didn’t fall in love with the sound of a baby hiccupping, or every plucked daisy petal from every game of “he loves me, he loves me not,” or the quiet sadness you get when you look at your Christmas tree all lit up on a cold December night. Instead, she went and got herself knocked up by a human man with incredible cheekbones. Nine months later, she gave birth to Academy Award-nominated actor Timothée Chalamet.