Sightlines

When we look up, we don’t really see the sky. We’ll look at say, a plane, or the clouds. But it’s typically only dizzy kids or lovers lying head-a-head in a grassy park who look only at the sky, the empty blue ocean of air that stretches away into space.

When it commands our attention, it’s usually doing something dramatic. Storms, sunsets and the occasional flying object will cause us to run to a window, or a hill, or some open field if it’s safe. Any place with a clear view of the heavens, so we can see what disturbed  the invisible ether. It’s less likely we’ll look up to see drama appear before us with no warning, no alarm, no notice.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor i.
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

That Yoko Ono song came to me one evening when I walked out of a Togo’s headed to my car in the Potrero shopping center lot. It’s really more a strip mall than a shopping center, occupying a low rise in the topography between Potrero and Bryant streets next to Franklin Square. That low ridge affords a spectacular view to the west, if one takes the time to see it. Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro are parked on the high horizon, and unseen beyond that lies marching tracts of homes all the way to the sea.

 

East of Twin Peaks