I’m brimming with warm memories right now, and contemplating how lucky we are. Healthy, retired, able to volunteer here & there, happily married, living in bucolic Santa Barbara, and this evening flying with a wonderful friend in our own small plane. Sure a lot of it’s about choices, like living cheaply compared with many people (free entertainments other than flying, old car & clothes, etc.). A lot of it’s about hard work, earning our retirement and learning how to get along with ourselves, each other and everyone else. But even factoring in some hard knocks along the way, I’m overwhelmed with cherishing our good luck right now. Probably because we took a dear friend for a short flight in the glow of a glorious late afternoon. We marveled yet again at the intricate organic garden she’s made of her yard that shines as an example of sustainability among her neighbors’ manicured lawns.
4936 Organic Yard
Flying toward Carp past the harbor I noticed a small gaggle of surfers enjoying the break at the entrance to Santa Barbara Harbor.
4941 Jetty Surfers
If you click to see the largest version (or look at the larger one on my Photo Page), you can make out people watching from the rocks and someone climbing over the wall. I like looking at pix like this both to remember the glance that stimulated me to snap, and to discover details not visible with the naked eye. Looking at the full-size version on my computer it’s fun to see what each person was doing at that moment, and enjoy their choreographed chorus in still life mingling with the musical movement of surf and harbor – and the unnoticed small plane passing a quarter mile away.
Meandering over Carp we circled to look at the Lou Grant Parent-Child Workshop. Back here on the ground I noticed the detail of an “airplane” parked in the playground, and imagined some future pilot who climbs on it dreaming of flying with the birds as we were when I snapped this.
4952 Pilot Playground
John & Anne Wiley 
You must be logged in to post a comment.