“Palm trees. Ocean breeze. Salty air. Sunkissed hair. Endless summer, take me there.”
I love these images. There, I said it. And it feels darn good. I was raised by the most modest woman alive. She is inventive, creative, and can make something out of nothing 9.9 times out of 10. But praise her creations, and she’ll look away modestly and busy herself with a task so as not to accept the compliment. I am my mother in so many ways, and this is definitely one of them; I always look for what I could do better next time, what I might not have done well enough. But when I look at these images, they do nothing but make me smile. They bring me back to a gorgeous late October evening in sunny Florida and all the glorious feelings of being there come rushing back all at once, and I just feel…good. Emily and Jesse had just been married 24 hours earlier in a ceremony and reception that went off without a hitch. See it here. Their skin was tinted from a few fun days in the sun and their newlywed glow was brand-spanking new. They were happy, they were in love, they were m.a.r.r.i.e.d. They snuggled on the dunes and climbed in among the palms. And then, when the sun sunk low enough in the sky, we hurried to the shoreline and they waded right in. As the fabric of their clothes clung to their skin, they kissed in the water, played in the surf, and then sat in the sand and watched as the sun set below the horizon.
Life doesn’t get much better than moments like these.