Moonrise Kingdom
Just a typical Saturday hike to a hidden beach without road access, only hike-in access down a steep ravine. Brent always showing me something to behold in nature.
On our First DAte…
Brent and I were given a rare gift from Mother Nature on our first date. It was a warm spring day with a temperature in the high 70’s and no wind or fog, only blue skies. The unseasonably warm weather stretched into the evening when we met for a glass of wine near my office. Drinks turned into a walk to Justin Herman Plaza (temperature still holding in the 70’s) where Brent offered me a performance by a troupe of fire throwers with a backdrop of a clear midnight blue sky (photo below). After our souls were sufficiently ignited by the spectacle of fire, Brent suggested we walk to Pier 7 to have a view of the city skyline, (perhaps only San Franciscans can appreciate this, but it was still in the 70’s with no wind, basically a miracle.). We walked along the wood planked pier lined with detailed iron handrails, wooden benches, and antique street lamps until Brent found just the right spot to stop. Then he told me to turn around and suddenly the city I had grown used to, looked entirely different lit up from a perspective Brent curated especially for our first date (photo below). It was clear to me that Brent knew where to find the good stuff (see all the rest of the photos below). He didn’t share his moon app that night, but it wasn’t long before he took out his phone to look up the exact time and longitude/latitude coordinates of the moonrise so that he could plan the hike we were on to be at the perfect spot to view the rising of the moon. Our subsequent dates involved exploring nature up and over hills, through forests to hidden waterfalls and babbling creeks. If you’ve seen the film, Moonrise Kingdom, you get where I’m going with this. Sometime during the first few months of our courtship it occurred to me that Brent’s relationship to nature as a place of quiet respite and physical beauty, and his desire to share it with me in a way that created a kingdom just for us away from the hectic world we live in, made him what I imagined to be a grown-up version of the magical Wes Anderson character Sam Shakusky in Moonrise Kingdom. If you ask my parents, I was basically Susie Bishop during my more dramatic adolescent years. Not surprisingly, Brent and I soon realized we shared a common love of the film Moonrise Kingdom.
Mother Nature is giving us a full moon on September 14, 2019. Brent and I look forward to stepping outside with all of you to gaze at the moon and revel in its power to touch our souls and warm our hearts on the night of our wedding.
