I woke up yesterday feeling a little off, but I assumed it was because it's like ten million degrees here in Texas right now, and I probably didn't drink enough water the day before.
We did our usual Sunday stuff; washed the car, bought too many paper towels at Costco, went to pottery class and made my first not-a-bowl. I had a baby headache, and still felt weird, but I just kept chugging my water and going through the motions, anxiously waiting for the River Story™ at sundown.
The drive there was awesome, and I was hopeful that whatever was weird had passed.
And then, just as I clicked the first shutter, I felt it: a flash of extreme nausea. The kind that makes you want to curl up in the coziest place in the world and just pour freezing water on your face. But I ignored it and kept going, chatting furiously about every little thing in an attempt to not think about how increasingly sick I was feeling.
At one point, in the middle of it all, I might have dry heaved on the side of the water, and I might have almost fainted twice, too. And maybe if it was anyone else, I wouldn't have been able to carry on, but these two. These. Two. My goodness, their love.
The session was set up for Lauren, and she mentioned in an email that her fiancee might jump in for a few at the end, but right away I noticed something: When Holt is near, Lauren GLOWS, and the second he lets go of her hand, or walks away, something shifts. It's incredibly subtle, and perhaps not everyone would even notice, but to me, someone who makes a living being deeply in tune with matters of the heart, it was glaringly, and most beautifully, obvious. These two really are complete when together. As if one spirit was mistakingly separated somehow, and it was only by finding one another that everything finally made sense.
Yup, I threw up the entire way home, and last night was pretty rough (still have no idea what it was, but probably a bug since I'm doing great today!) but there was NO WAY I wasn't going to capture these two. I feel SO incredibly blessed that they were called to fly here to Austin to share these waters with me, and inspire me with some of the purest love I have ever seen.
I haven't finished editing their full session yet, and I already posted a little preview, but COME ON, when you get to capture a love like this, you kind of owe it to the rest of the world to share freely!
I cannot stop thinking about last night and how, no matter what you believe in, there is no doubting that these two were brought together by something far more powerful than anything logic can explain. I have been reading a lot of Oscar Wilde lately, and this passage keeps circling in my mind,
If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.
How incredible to witness that their wait is, most beautifully, over.
