John & Anne Wiley

2013/10/30

Escape

I once yearned for Escape. Not just from urban life, but at one point from even civilization itself. Now I’m quite happy living on the edge of “Goldilocks” Santa Barbara, small enough to escape rush hour but large enough to have plenty of arts and culture. So it’s easy to understand people in urban Silicon Valley wanting escapes like this farm offering a taste of rural life.

4906 Escape Farm

4906 Escape Farm

Visitors can test their escape skills on the mazes, or escape modern life on the “hay ride” winding its way thru the fields at upper-right. Kids can escape the supermarket and discover the joy of choosing a pumpkin right from the farm at upper-left. Further up the central valley, my beloved Uncle has created his own escape.

4887 Escape the City

4887 Escape the City

Among the innumerable canals and waterways north of Sacramento, he planted rows of eucalyptus trees to escape the relentless winds. He created a dream home to escape the tensions of everyday life.

4892 Escape Dream

4892 Escape Dream

I dampened his dreams of escaping the encroaching corporate agroBiz by moving to Idaho, when I told him how global warming is making annual monster wildfires the new normal there. I decided there’s no escape during my own attempt, when the quiet valley where I once enjoyed a -40F winter morning ten miles from the nearest neighbor was invaded by hunters on snowmobiles. Until we leave this life or at least this planet, maybe the only escape is to the sanctuary we always carry within us and with our loved ones.

2013/10/07

Passages

There was a popular book decades ago about the major passages we all encounter in this precious Life. We’ve just returned from a tender collection of passages that ended not long after this sunset out beyond the dunes of Oceano.

3991 Contemplative Light

3991 Contemplative Light

The critical health condition of a family member in the Sacramento area moved this cheerful and sweet woman to busy herself mowing the lawn on the small farm of her father as dark thoughts passed like clouds.

3835 Memories In Action

3835 Memories In Action

Leaving there we saw patterns in the sand reflecting the timeless river’s passage, mirroring the patterns we each leave behind in every interaction.

3840 Patterns in the Sand

3840 Patterns in the Sand

Stopping in San Jose for delightful moments with family there, the next generation paused in a family bike ride to say hi.

132752 Fresh Cycle

132752 Fresh Cycle

There were many feelings and memories to process during our beautiful passage from there, flying home to our little nest. A lonely lake in the hills above San Jose like one I used to ride my bike up to and swim several miles across and back as a teen.

3847 Lonely Lake

3847 Lonely Lake

In the golden glow of evening we took a detour past Mission San Antonio de Padua where generations passed before us.

3900 Mission San Antonio

3900 Mission San Antonio

Near the mission is Lake San Antonio where I once collected some memories that found their way into a screenplay named Lake Holiday. Today it is mostly a dry riverbed.

3916 Dry Memories

3916 Dry Memories

Flying on we passed more memories of our time on this planet, and of the Citizen whose childhood memories motivated him to build this coast view castle.

3926 Hearst Castle

3926 Hearst Castle

So it was that we met the sunset at the top of this post, and we now savor moments with loved ones as our paths mingle in this dance of passages.

2013/09/30

Home

All our wanderings across the continent in Tripp only increase our delight in the joys of Home. I wonder what dreams of home dwelt in the heart of Huguette Clark, who owned the mansion on the point below.

0273 Hugette Clark's Home

0273 Huguette Clark’s Home

She lived and died in her cloistered NYC apartment without seeing this place for half a century. Yet she paid a massive sum to keep it as she remembered, as if she could walk in any moment and return Home. Most of her large fortune was left to the creation of a museum there. We understand what it is to love Santa Barbara.

0274 Safe Harbor

0274 Safe Harbor

Near her home looking in the other direction, the harbor and City College on the shore bring similar feelings of Home and shelter in peaceful waves. Stearn’s Wharf points the way up “Altered” State Street to a short turn into the park where Solstice Parade ends in ebullient celebration every Summer.

0287 Solstice Setting

0287 Solstice Setting

There is another feeling of Home evoked for us by the Courthouse, where we’ve gathered with loved ones for memorable events.

0280 Garden of Memories

0280 Garden of Memories

So many places have the feeling of Home, and in our travels we’ve enjoyed discovering what other people love about theirs. We’ve traveled back in time, too, to places that once were home for us and our ancestors. Still, despite only having lived here for a small portion of our lives, these pix remind us there’s no place like Home.

2013/09/28

Majesty

Oh! We have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings

We cruised among ribbons of rain,
Tingling ‘twixt dusty earth and pure high sky.6147 Ribbons of Rain

We marveled at silent sculpted fantasies of form.6155 Fantasies of Form

We moved among proud families of stone.6290 Families of Stone

We slipped past forgotten corners where ancient feet tread.6394 Forgotten Corners

We joined eagles over vast colored canyons where timeless rivers meet.6563 Colored Canyons

These and countless more miracles we witnessed in wonder,
on our Islander Adventure.

 

2013/09/16

Upward Mobility

I got to pondering old poems on the larger subject of this post while reviewing the last pix from our recent SF trip, starting with this little boat.

2763 Apex Icon

2763 Apex Icon

Anchored off Sausalito carrying several “dinghies” more valuable than our car, and probably costing more to operate for a day than our plane does for a year, this boat represents one archetype of upward mobility. But the view opens out to the quirky little city itself, where art mingles with wealth.

2764 Sausalito

2764 Sausalito

But more alive for me is the upward mobility brought by Tripp, as we rise above all this and beyond time itself in a way.

2777 Clear Lake

2777 Clear Lake

We were taking a quick afternoon trip to visit loved ones in Clear Lake before going home to Santa Barbara. Something impossible without an affordable trusty steed like Tripp. On the way home after our visit, the Bay shone in the hazy evening light illuminating another mobility. Upward from the past, when I wandered this area on the ground and savored the rare commercial flights that gave me a hasty glimpse of this scene through a milky plastic portal.

2798 SF Bay Evening

2798 SF Bay Evening

Looking back at an old barn among the golden hills of my youth brought a keen awareness of this upward arc.

2837 Sunset Farm

2837 Sunset Farm

Suddenly a few light squalls appeared alongside our route, and our steed easily climbed to find a way among them while treating us to a circular rainbow that we could only capture this slice of with the camera.

2841 Angel Eye

2841 Angel Eye

This view of heaven and earth is reserved for those who have chosen to devote at least the modest sum we’ve saved, to buy upward mobility of this kind. In a few minutes we were back in clear air and passing the familiar gently rolling hills of my California youth.

Golden light
Nectar, pouring through,
These hills.

2854 These Hills

2854 These Hills

My soul
Dipping
The warm burgundy
Wash of evening clouds
Mingling with
These hills.

2847 Clouds Mingling

2847 Clouds Mingling

       Mile 37
Let me notice
What quickens the heart.
Caress of a hand,
Shape of a hillock,
Sound of a breeze.

What catches the eye.
Lone tree on a ridge,
Flicker of a fleeting movement,
Impulse of a photograph in time.

2859 Nightfall to Dream

2859 Nightfall to Dream

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