Chris & Eunice • Engaged • Taft Point • Yosemite National Park

Going in to our engagement session at Taft Point in Yosemite National Park, I knew that nature played an important role in Chris and Eunice's relationship. I asked them to elaborate and tell me why. I'm just going to leave this right here..

Ok so yeah, saying that our first date was when we "met up and went on a high Sierra hike" is #understatement. Having met 3+ years prior on a whim, with absolutely nothing in between, we reconnected that day in the mountains. Yeah, surely we got lost. Both in my truck on/off the road and again on foot. Being out under huge trees and a bright sky, we breathed it all in. We talked about playground scars, dirt and an enviable childhood if you came to know it’s value. Somehow Eunice trusted me enough to guide her through unmarked trails, thick brush and what appeared to be a mutant cross-fit ropes course or secret ninja camp. 

　　She took my hand and I pulled (read: dragged) her up hills and slippery culverts. Several of the more shaded and lush areas where full of green foliage I was only mostly sure wasn’t toxic. And thanks to my mole-like sense of direction and the fact that the Sun really does go East to West, we did find the actual road we wanted and survived. We have been so many places since then and seen that same Sun rise from the most random and spectacular of seats.

　 Outdoors the world forces you to acknowledge scale, and in that vein there is such strength. Sometimes, clarity and focus. Maybe if luck and the universe line up well, you find someone else who recognizes those things to be by your side. Accepting that Nature must be allowed to just be, that is an inherent and unquestionably blessed value to life. When you let yourself open to the outdoors you embrace the raw, real, active elements around us that can do so much to settle the soul and put the mind right. Exposure is what I want, and we recognize in each other the desire to be real and to truly attempt to know the world we are in. We trust Nature like we trust each other: with balance, assurance and the valid risk required to let life happen. It is happening and we allow it, oscillating and changing, with an energy whose source we can only roughly determine and that is just fine, welcome actually. Sometimes we all need a clearer view, eyes open or shut, and we prefer to look outside.