Today was a big day for me, meeting precious little grand daughter for the first time. Holding her was very emotional, bringing back sweet memories of holding my daughter as though it were yesterday. I’m a lucky man.
1422 Holding a Miracle
2011/02/12
2011/01/24
Lucky
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
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2010/12/26
New Tradition?
This might be our first Christmas at home together, and it’s wonderful to savor what might become a new tradition for us. Usually we’re with family, so this year after a warm and wonderful Christmas Eve with family in San Diego we flew home through a dreamscape. Yesterday between morning coffee and evening soup/gifts, we took a break to fly over San Diego Bay.
4118 San Diego Bay
This view over the salt ponds from near the Mexican border shows the graceful arc of the Strand to Point Loma with the city skyline just visible at top-right. Flying home today we got a great view of distant snowy peaks beyond the Riverside area.
4170 Snow Beckons
We were tempted to fly over them for a closer look and to avoid incoming weather so we can meet up with dear ones in the desert. But the siren song of Home was stronger, so we dodged storms to arrive just as heavy rains were approaching Santa Barbara. It’s so fun to choose in the moment, allowing our destined route to emerge. Dipping through a large opening in the clouds near Camarillo was just one in the string of choices that ended with us enjoying home made soup by a warm fire.
1195 Clouds Parted
Happy holidays, everyone!
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2010/12/18
Rain & Memories
I’ve finally found one photo of grand-daughter beautiful, being held by our jubilant son-in-law (posted on his FaceBook page). I’d like to post it, but we’ve had a policy of keeping pix of people off this blog and I already bent that rule yesterday with the old photo of my precious daughter as a newborn. So we’re sitting by the fire listening to the rain, and remembering all our sweet and fun times with her as we imagine how Happy Tired they are.
To keep myself busy, I’ve also looked through more of the photos from our most recent flight. I imagined just now what it would be like to have the whole family over for a holiday meal at this place downtown.
3976 Downtown Mans w/Tower
I wouldn’t want to own, much less live in such a massive old house. It would be fun to have that tower though, and add round windows all the way around. There did seem to be a gathering at Oprah’s place, since we seldom see more than one or two cars there just before sunset as this was.
3997 Oprah's Montecito Estate
Nearby was a quiet scene with the Chumash burial ground at Shalawa Meadow in the foreground and a serene seascape toward the distant clouds beyond Carp.
4003 Shalawa (Hammond's) Meadow
Generations of memories, here and in the homes we saw, and beyond to the native peoples who once gathered on that beach for meals and ceremonies.
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Our Big News
My precious daughter and her wonderful husband just last night on 12-16-10 delivered a healthy baby girl, and we’re all starved for photos. I already know she’ll be the most beautiful baby born into the world since my daughter, but their pix will still of course be most welcome. Right now they’re resting up from an exhausting few days. Seems like only yesterday our little girl captivated everyone with her arrival, and now she’s grown up with a girl of her own.
Turn Around
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John & Anne Wiley 
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