John & Anne Wiley

2011/12/08

Secret Shore

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 19:55

Flying along the coast is ordinary magic. Places we’ve walked, ridden bikes, and boated reveal themselves anew. The enchantment that shorelines have on human consciousness is expanded and enhanced when we fly low and slow along the beaches and bluffs. Having done that so much now in the last several years, for us it has become ordinary magic. Luckily for us, the magic itself is never ordinary. A constant feast of serene beauty flows past in a sedately moving panorama.

7950 Dume to SMO

7950 Dume to SMO

Point Dume in the foreground, past Santa Monica (KSMO) and into the haze of L.A. All along this path secrets are revealed. Patterns of kelp and sea floor appear in the ocean.

7961 Past Dume

7961 Past Dume

We see the patterns of human activity, and the way buildings, streets and cities fit in relation to one another.

7988 SMO to LA

7988 SMO to LA

Part of the magic is how flying along shores we’ve strolled takes us to new lands of memory, mingling past with present. There’s even a future element, as charming new spots like Venice beckon us to explore from ground and water level.

8005 Venice Grid

8005 Venice Grid

When we experience L.A. from the ground it usually involves a lot of time in traffic, enclosed in a metal cocoon and surrounded by concrete. From the air, it still has a romantic relationship with the terrain from which it emerged.

8020 L.A. Story

8020 L.A. Story

2011/12/02

Wrong Coast

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,MeriTimes Adventure,Nature,People,Random,Relationships — John @ 08:08

After some years in SB my friend and fellow pilot Zubair moved to the wrong coast, settling near Boston. I tried to talk him out of it, but I have to admit he’s happier there. Tonite looking thru pix from our MeriTimes Adventure I found this view of his cozy home in the woods there, nestled among the magnificent Fall colors. I think that’s his beautiful wife Momina standing outside the front door (click the pic to see the larger version).

9862 Right Stuff

9862 Right Stuff

Clearly his choice of coast was right after all. Still wrong for me, but perfect for him right now. He has at least yielded to my relentless bugging him about getting back in the air after a hiatus of several years, as you’ll see on his blog (click his name above). Sadly though, he doesn’t have a great plane like Tripp with windows that open and wings up out of the way for viewing the planetary pleasures. But even if in the “wrong” plane for crisp pix like this, at least he’s flying, right? See what I mean about relentlessly bugging him? 😉

2011/11/21

Last Look

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 08:13

When I posted Connection a few days ago, I’d not yet seen Anne’s pix from that spectacular sunset landing. She caught Lake Los Carneros reflecting the deeper colors just before we touched down, and it’s interesting to see how much the sky had changed in the minute or two since the last snap I posted.

1255 Anne's Sunset

1255 Anne's Sunset

I enjoy her perspective: her choice of subject, the different angle than I saw while flying, and of course stuff she can capture while I’m busy flying. Most of all, her artistic sense. Though the low light and relatively rapid motion from being so close to the ground for landing creates some blur of the freeway lights, the overall impression in this pic is relaxing for me. Her balance of subjects, light and dark with radiant sky… these things that moved her to choose this instant and framing to snap. As a team we see the world in stereo.

2011/11/15

Walls

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 00:02

Flying can alter our perspective on walls. The boundaries we humans create to separate and isolate ourselves, must be all but invisible to birds as they are to aviators. Case in point, the zen sanctuary some gazillionaire has created behind these walls.

7572 Walled World

7572 Walled World

I’ve never noticed this spot on Butterfly Beach near the Biltmore that we drive and walk past, because we see only the wall from ground level. The birds don’t notice the wall, just as I haven’t before snapping this. Now that I’m looking, it’s fun to invent stories about why there are two large homes (and a pool house) inside that walled world. What’s the story on the tiny slice of a property to the right?

The wonderful Chase Palm Park on Cabrillo near Stearn’s Wharf is one of our fave spots to stroll. The carousel at one end and band shell at the other with duck pond between. The playground area’s rubber sidewalks are fun to bounce on, and there are always kids in the fanciful playground during daylight hours.

7594 Chase Wall

7594 Chase Wall

Kids just a few years older play on the other side of the wall, trying to stay ahead of the concerned citizens who paint out their graffiti. Most kids of all ages are oblivious to the birds and planes that transcend these shallow boundaries that can seem so impenetrable down there in the spell of gravity.

2011/11/11

Coasting

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 01:25

Sometimes I rode the big bike like a rocket, even though it was heavy for my young age and lacked any gears to ease the climb. Other times it was a glider, riding invisible slopes high in the air as I whirled and soared. Life has been like that it seems, with periods of full-blast effort and times of coasting quietly along with a serene smile.

Today I’m thinking about flying slowly and quietly along our delicious SB coastline as another form of “coasting.” Scenes like this one from UCSB to the mountains just glide before the eye on such flights.

7530 UCSB to Mountains

7530 UCSB to Mountains

Among a delightfully endless parade of very different but equally soul healing scenes, a form of time travel sometimes emerges. Like this view of a place where family and friends gathered years ago to help us launch a new phase of life.

7537 Gathering Place

7537 Gathering Place

There’s a magic in seeing such gathering places and focal points in life while coasting. A surreal quality as if time is but an illusion, and in fact everything is right now in this timeless moment.

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