- Oak
I suppose you could have guessed that our favorite place is nature, if you can call it a place. Maybe it’s more of a consciousness? A way of being. Anyway, Santa Barbara is such a unique place geographically, which is why it’s home to so many a nature lover. We have the ocean on one side and mountains on the other, all in close proximity. It makes it so simple to get away and be intimate with nature. Whether it’s fiercely exciting waves you seek or somewhere calm and meditative, you don’t have to go far. A very short distance may feel like you’re a thousand miles away. Suddenly time stands still and with very little effort you are glancing down at the ocean from high on a mountaintop or traipsing through the woods with your awareness of natural beauty becoming cloudless and acute as all else slips away. Nature, whether it’s a place or a way of being within this chaotic world, it’s where we love to be.
Abstract nature
Lake lopez
Shoreline
Fly away
thelostartofhitchhiking 
Nature is definitely a place! I went to University in Santa Barbara, and I miss it every day.
During high school years we used to cut classes and jump on a fence from our house and into a reservation area that looks pretty much like your shots above. Lazing under the shades, watching the day go by. It felt so divine! We were hopeless romantics influenced by the Dead Poets Society, Thoreau etc. Now the place, once a haven for nature lovers, has become a settlement for the elites. They have bulldozed everything away. That is why I envy you S&S and those who are in a close proximity to places like these. But you know there are those who take nature for granted. Hope you don’t mind but I would like to leave this beautiful poem crafted by a Filipino that fairly imparts what I’m trying to express:
Letter To Pedro, U.S. Citizen, Also Called Pete
by Rene Estella Amper
Pete, old friend;
there isn’t really much change
in our hometown since you left.
This morning I couldn’t find anymore
the grave of Simeona, the cat we buried
at the foot of Miguel’s mango tree,
when we were in grade four,
after she was hit by a truck while crossing
the street. The bulldozer has messed it up
while making the feeder road into the mountains
to reach the hearts of the farmers.
The farmers come down every Sunday
to sell their agony and their sweat for
a few pesos, lose in the cockpit or get
drunk on the way home.
A steel bridge named after the congressman’s wife
now spans the gray river where Tasyo, the old
goat, had split the skin of our young lizards
to make us a man many years ago.
The long blue hills where we
used to shoot birds with slingshot or spend
the summer afternoons we loved so much doing
nothing in the tall grass have been bought
by the mayor’s son. Now there’s a barbed wire
fence about them; the birds have gone away.
The mayor owns a big sugar plantation, three
new cars, and a mansion with the gate overhung
with sampaguita. Inside the gate
are guys who carry a rifle and a pistol.
We still go to Konga’s store for rice
and sardines and sugar and nails for the coffin.
Still only a handful go to mass on Sundays.
In the church the men talk, sleep; the children play.
The priest is sad.
Last night the storm came and blew away
the cornflowers. The cornfields are full of cries.
Your cousin, Julia, has just become a whore.
She liked good clothes, good food, big money.
That’s why she became a whore.
Now our hometown has seven whores.
Pete, old friend,
every time we have good reason to get drunk
and be carried home in a wheelbarrow
we always remember you. Oh, we miss
both Pete and Pedro.
Remember us to your American wife,
you lucky bastard. Islaw, your cock-eyed
uncle, now calls himself Stanley
after he began wearing the clothes you sent
him last Christmas.
P.S. Tasyo, the old goat,
Sends your lizard his warmest congratulations.
Posted by Kenny McKetty at 4:29 AM
Elmer, Thank you so much for the lovely poem. I love that our photos have the ability to invoke nostalgia. Enjoy following your blog very much 🙂
S&S
I think that Nature is definitely a place. Nice blog 🙂
I think you’re right 😉 though I also consider it a state of mind just because of what it evokes, hmmmmmmm. Thanks for checking us out.