The garden roses finally called it quits for the season, right in time for wild Manzanita to begin their bloom while daffodils break through saturated ground.
It’s a beautiful world. Magical, if you will. I will! I will find magic.
This is a photo dump of magic from last month: roses blooming through to the New Year.
It’s also a sharing of some deep thoughts, because well you know, that’s where my mind goes.
I thought you might enjoy.
We all could use more beauty. And more sharing. Good stuff. Connection. Common ground.
These are things I have to tell myself.
What takes more courage?
Fighting?
Or getting along.
Because I will not be divided.
And I will stand strong for a country capable of holding its center together.
Don’t fall, I tell myself. Don’t allow yourself to be ripped apart at the seams. Like the baby before Solomon, two halves are not the same as one whole.
If the two were together, black ink would be smeared across the page, some Rorschach picture divulging my secret psyche. Not, of course, to determine what the image reveals, but rather what I choose to see.
Alas, they remain apart.
And this is what I see.
Out there, outside fragile weather worn glass separating me from the elements and allowing continual comfort from the wood stove as long as I remember to stoke it, rain continues.
Everything is drenched – beyond saturation – running off in drips, smears, pools and rivulets. Streams pour around fence posts and tree stumps; puddles amass in deep imprints left behind by horse hooves; the meadow is a marsh.
Pounding rain on metal roof deadens the roar of the river. Puddles gather on the deck, the driveway, the pasture.
The chickens seek refuge in the dog house while dogs do the same by the wood stove, soggy obstacles to overcome on the living room rug.
Inside rain gear hangs dripping by the back door; boots still damp when you slip your sock feet into them. Towels used on soggy dogs never seem to dry, while splatters from their shaking fur leaves white cupboards speckled brown.
The horses are pissy, flinging their heads, telling me to turn it off and I wish I could. Days like this I wish they could come lay by the woodstove, too. Instead, mid day they stand under the roof where they spent the night, wishing they were somewhere else. We never stop wishing. Because, you know, we never forget what it feels like to lay in soft lush grass while the sun enwraps us in its ethereal embrace
In the garden, roses finally quit trying to bloom. What a run they had this year, clear through to the last of the year. And yet as I walked through the rows earlier today, trying to be gentle in my bulky muck boots in search of some collards or kale for tonight’s stew, the humble, hearty calendula stood brightly defiant, refusing to succumb to battering rains, continuing to share her sunny smile. The yellow and orange seem out of place, adding to her gentle resistance.
For now, I sit at the table in front of the window that looks over the ghostly glow of the computer screen and scribbled open notebook, down toward the swollen river, through saturated moss and lichen growing like eerie bedclothes on every leaf-bare branch of gnarly oaks sprawling the distance between the river and me.
The stillness of the keyboard counters the constant motion of the river.
Some days my fingers do not dance. As if they wonder why, what’s the point, when what I want to do is give. But I look at the blue screen between the window and me, and wonder if it’s worthy.
Sharing the story of something in the past takes me there. Sometimes I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to be there. It was hard, scary, lonely. It was also big, bright, and beautiful; expansive in view and of soul. It brought me back to life. Maybe to the point of living more than I ever had before.
There was so much I didn’t share. There was so much I couldn’t share.
I am struggling to share that story now. The intensity, the wildness, the hugeness I experienced out there. The wild side I could not, would not share as I was riding (or walking or being shuttled) through it. Some things need time to ripen, to age, to roll around in the mouth to find their full, rich flavor. Or to sit on the shelf and collect dust for a while, which doesn’t hurt a thing.
My attention easily drifts out the window. I get dizzy watching the river rage.
Stop it. Get up. Away from the table where I sit for too long. Get on the ever damp rain gear and muck boots and get out. Out. Out there, in it.
Let the moist air plump and swell me and get the dogs dense coats soaked clear through to their skin again as we laugh at our folly and splash through puddles the size of ponds and marvel at the beauty of watching bountiful drops of water fall from overhanging branches and do their circle dance on the surface.
A moment later, the dogs stir up a heron from the salt pond, rising silent, arching upward as a graceful, majestic bow. Somehow primitive, ancient, blue-gray against tan-brown winter woods. I hold my breath and feel goose bumps rising beneath all these impermeable layers separating me from the elements.
In the blatant and natural simplicity surrounding me, I choose to watch herons rise and rain fall and puddles shimmer as a waving mirror. I choose to listen to ravens calling and the river roaring and rain beating down on the roof overhead. I choose these simple things over and above more complex things like news feeds and programs, with AI masking the mystery and magic that is really there, right in front of us, if only we take the time to look, to listen, to feel.
I would rather stand defiant like unpretentious calendula.
I would rather rise up, lighten up, and shine.
Even through this leaden sky that might otherwise try to hold me down.
Silently witnessing as one year withers and a new one unfurls.
The annual undulation; time and space between thoughts, between plans and projects, between seasons, between years.
A reflective time, quiet and dark and moody. Open or closed, the eyes refrain from looking out there, and are instead drawn within. Somehow sightless, you soundlessly feel your way through heavy fog, sensing your place along your inner journey, as the cold dark river rages through your veins, intuitively and instinctually, as is the nature of things this time of year.
Yesterday the river rose to the occasion, busting beyond the confinement of her bank, roaring loud and heaving with brown waves, spreading to a rumble in the saturated ground beneath my feet as I stand there amazed at humbling might while even the dogs and horses watch in wonder.
Sacred water.
Sacred time.
Solstice is a natural celebration of the pause between the darkening and lightening, between states of wonder and beauty and awe, simple as watching the river rage and a candle flicker and rain fall into swollen puddles alive with shimmering reflections.
This morning I woke to stars spilled across the sky, sparkling behind black branches of the sprawling oak. And then from out of the earth, or is it more magic from the sky, fog formed, shrouding the stars with a silent embrace.
Yet I know the magic about the fog, the mystery beneath the earth, the wonder of planting a seed and knowing maybe, just maybe it could emerge into fruition.
Somewhere I’m certain the sun rose a moment earlier and the cycle of new light, new life, is celebrated anew.
As I await the sky to lighten, in this deep still silent space of new light I have yet to see or feel but somehow know, I stir with the wonder of a candle. Of planting seeds, which here happens on my kitchen counter on Solstice every year, and now sit over my propane fridge awaiting the moment of emergence. Of darkness out there, which shall be shorter each day. Of light within – not to protect and preserve, but to shine and share.
What are you waiting for?
What are you here for?
~
Our community has a beautiful gathering to celebrate Solstice. I had never had the guts to attend. Groups don’t tend to be my thing. Basically, social gatherings scare me shitless.
It’s easy to use the excuse of Solstice being a sacred time to turn within. Because, yes, it is. It is also the pause before the waxing of light and new life. It is that space in between. If one has the courage to open to it, there’s a time and place to be alone, to reflect on what you want to release from the last dance around the sun, and contemplate your intentions for the next cycle. And… a time and place to unfurl like seeds, be vulnerable, be brave, get out of your shell and connect.
Thanks to the honesty of and love for some dear friends who reminded me I’m not the only one… I went.
Thank you for encouraging the courage in me to step beyond my comfort zone, and get off my side of the mountain for just a little while. It was beautiful.
Now more than ever…
Come together.
Partake. Participate. Life is too short and sweet to miss out on this stuff.
Have the courage to care more.
The gusto to give more
The grit to do more.
The guts to be more.
It’s not that you are not enough.
It might just be that the world needs more of who you are and what you do.
Thinking of those who give and do and care so much, like hidden stars in that dazzling day sky.
Into morning fog so thick it leaves sheen of droplets covering your heavy coat and the dogs’ coarse fur.
Turn to close the door to the comfort of the woodstove and Christmas lights and a still half filled cup of coffee behind you.
Suddenly engulfed in wet whitewashed morning air, you feel as if you’re swimming, trying to stay afloat on solid ground, your head above water, somehow struggling to breathe.
Step out into it, shrouded as if in a daze, a dream, an altered state, as the season spirals around you like sufi whirling, almost a madness to dance the year to an end. Heading into new moon, as even the night sky darkens before solstice this year. A powerful dark presence stirring within, feeling somehow more so than most years, or is this how you selectively forget each year?
And all around you, defused energy washed over in morning fog and sparkling frost as if waking from a dream while the sun finally clears the hill to the east and you watch horses stand like sundials, flat side to the sun; a heron sitting stoic in the tree in need of the warmth it brings.
And the day begins, beautifully.
Back in where the wood stove hums and Christmas lights twinkle and that coffee is still warm in my favorite cup.
And my mind is haunted by places I have been and am reliving in words alone.
My stomach bunches up in a twisted knot as I write along with where we rode along.
It’s scary to tell you what I did, how it happened.
Tangled in the isolation of writing, as it was in the isolation of riding.
Writing about it takes me there and my breathing becomes tight and shallow; nostrils flare, jaw tightens, teeth clench and my heart feels like it weighs as much as the saddle I hoisted up on the horse each day.
It was the loneliness I have ever been. I don’t want to be alone now. I want to take you with me, sharing the smell of damp leather, fresh sweat, horse hair when I brush them each morning or better yet at the end of day as I slip off the damp saddle blanket that will be the pad upon which I sleep that night, and the horses heads are down in some place lush with field grass, tangled barbed wire off to the side, and the primordial call between a pair of nesting sand hill cranes like a beacon, leading the way, for where they nest, we always find tall greenery and fresh water and a safe place for the horses, and me.
And just out of reach, just beyond the thread of searching for a sense of belonging, that ever and continuous theme for me as it is for some many of us, I thought that journey was going to be about inner strength and independence. Prove to myself (and everyone else) that I was strong and capable. Beyond badass.
Found out I wasn’t and don’t need to be.
See, I set out expecting some solo trial for me and my horses out on the open road.
No people, please.
People scared me more than all the bears, bulls and bugs I slept beside; barbed wire gates and snow banks that stopped me cold in my tracks, as well as maps and apps I never could figure out.
I just wanted to be alone.
And then I was, and no longer wanted to be.
Funny thing is, people turned out to be what the trip was about.
I’ve had a lifetime trying to perfect the art of being the outcast, outlaw, outsider, off gridder, misfit, black sheep, stray cat and/or rebel without a cause. I daresay I’ve done rather well.
People were not my thing.
That journey turned me around.
Rather than it be an adventure based on independence, something I’d always known, I had to learn about interdependence. That was new to me. And it was force fed. Trial by fire, thrown under the bus, sink or swim – call it what you will.
This is what it taught me.
People are good.
Yes, you heard me right.
Never thought I’d say that.
If you know me at all, you never thought I’d say that too.
It’s hard to relive it. Though of course not as hard as it was to do it.
But now the challenge is in sharing it. Writing the real story.
And my fears are no longer about finding good grass, fresh water and a safe place to rest my horses.
It’s finding the right words. It’s wondering if I can write this story well.
Humbly I bow my head as my fingers get work.
No longer gripping well worn reins, lifting packs or pulling cinches tight. Now dancing freely across the keyboard, watching stories come to life.
Tonight I sit out on the deck wrapped in the well worn poncho as I have found myself held in this heavy wool so many times before this night. My feet are on the railing; my head tilts back. Behind the now leafless old oak that shades the deck in summer appears the waning moon. She glows silver across the night pasture where fog spreads thick as sea foam. I can hear the gentle shifting of the horses in the barn, and the ever present hum of the inky river just a stone’s throw below. The dogs are beside me. Silent and attentive, staring out into the black beyond, waiting. The bears have been keeping them busy with the warm weather and bright moon.
Overhead, through lace of slender branches of this sprawling tree, few stars glint like Christmas ornaments hanging in the sky.
The ever present sound of the river blends into the darkness and becomes a noise you forget you’re hearing.
There is only a simple silence.
Time and space to breathe.
We settle into the season of long shadows, long nights.
Like the bear. That’s what this season of slowing and settling calls for.
Here in the far north of California in the land of big trees, big rain, big swaths of blackberries and poison oak, the bear does not necessarily hibernate so much as simply slow down. From the recent barking of the dogs, I don’t know how much they’ve even done that. It’s been a mild season so far. Garden roses still bloom. Stores remain plentiful after a bountiful season of lush grass, mushrooms, madrone berries and acorns. It’s easy to see what they’ve been eating by the scat they plainly leave randomly along our quiet dirt road.
With two big dogs, I don’t get to see those bears much. Usually just a big blob of a bear butt running up a hill. Sometimes up a tree.
Still, I feel it, and I’m sure the bears do too. Now is not the season of plenty, but of holing up. Slowing down. And turning within.
The rooster does not crow until some time past six in the morning and the horses come in for the night around five. That makes for long evenings, time for baking, reading, writing, board games, enjoying long lingering dinners lit by candles and twinkle lights, snuggling on the sofa with a couple of cats, reading aloud together, soaking in hot baths… these are winter pleasures.
In spite of the mild weather we’ve been having, we heed the call of the natural exhale after spring/summer/harvest/fall running around full speed in what feels like endless daylight. For those of us who work outside as long as the sun shines, winter is the time to transform into an indoor cat, at least during those long nights. Winter is a reprieve. A blessing. I long for it by the end of summer every year. Time to breathe. To let out a long, full, deep exhale. Before the anxious inhale of spring begins anew.
Garden roses still abloom…… in December.
Seasons, like emotions, these ever flowing, passing states, one folding into the next like whipped eggs whites or cream.
When what I want sometimes is to hold onto forever. Something solid. Never changing.
As futile as clinging to ocean waves.
Rather than accept and appreciate the inevitable.
Ebbs and flows, tides and moons, the occasional passing storm.
Tonight the tide is low. I feel melancholy.
I want a drink. Come on, you say. Go ahead. Just one.
Alas, for some of us, it doesn’t work that way. Maybe this time it would. This time I could. I’d be okay. Holding the firm stem in my fingers as I swirl the familiar luring fragrance emanating from the liquid red velvet lit from the glow of the kitchen lamp behind me. And then let it roll across my lips and linger on my tongue like nectar – silky, rich and smoky.
No.
It’s nearly seven years since I went sober, yet some days (usually nights) I can imagine drinking so vividly as if it were just yesterday. Some days it feels like it’s not getting easier. Tonight is one of those nights.
I’ll get over it. There’s power in reminding myself I made it this far. I can keep on keeping on.
Use your grit, gal.
And grit, well, that much I got.
Things change.
Today, tomorrow, yesterday.
Every day is different. Even on those days when what I feel is so familiar. When what I feel is that “ground hog day” replaying over and over and over again.
Wake in the dark. Tuck the blankets back around Bob. Pet (and step over) the still sleeping pups. Get the fire going, the coffee on, roll out the yoga mat and get down on it, stretch, meditate, light a candle to write, then as gray daylight waxes across the meadow of chalky fog, head out to let the chickens out, feed the horses, walk the dogs. Return…
Grounding in the familiar. This simple life. A life though maybe a little different than yours, so similar in so far as both of us probably turn in each night thinking we didn’t get half as much done as we planned to do.
There are books and poems to write, horses to teach and dogs to train, bread to bake, wood to split, roses to prune and a compost pile to turn, a barn wall to rebuild and basement walls to trim out, rocks to stack and dirt to move and the damn floor needs to be swept again.
I want more time. Or maybe more energy. But that to-do list never seems to go away, just flows from one set of priorities to the next. It’s that ebb and flow thing once again. And at the end of each day, we hope we made a little headway, though how often do we feel we’re drowning.
Today.
Grounded, not because of the place, the view before me, but because of the feeling within me.
And under me. Crow, my old faithful horse. Beside me, Bob and the dogs and the last of autumn’s sweet air that allows us to feel the sun on ungloved hands and my graying hair still free from the confinement of a winter cap.
Sometimes you find yourself…. Exactly where you belong. It’s not a place, but a feeling, something inside.
For me, it’s a wild place, sounded by wind through leafless trees and the cadence of hard hooves on soft dirt.
It’s finding myself on the back of my dear horse where I’ve found myself for thousands of miles before this one.
And time stops, or no longer matters.
And I’m just there, the bones of my pelvis padded by Crow’s warm winter coat.
The sound of my breath, his breath, the rhythm of his footfall.
It’s watching my horse’s mane shift and sway as he walks, like ripples in the river into which my open hand reaches, sinks in, and already knows the softness it will touch as my fingers intertwine with his black mane. So familiar, the feel of bare hands in soft hair, deep into the comfort of the back of his neck. The familiar fragrance of freshly cut fir trees and wild mint as the horses cross the creek, mingling with their sweet musky sweat in the oddly mild air where my legs are wrapped around a familiar warm back, without a saddle between us to sever the connection.
It’s turning to see Bob in his own world beside me, comfortable and content on the back of the new horse, Jesse. He’s perched in a place where he’s been holding space since long before I was born, and I smile. He may not see it. I’m riding in front. But he knows it. He always knows it. If he wants me to just let go, to relax, to forget about all the should-woulda-couldas, to just be, and to smile, get the gal on her horse.
This feels like home. On the back of the horse. With my husband and dogs close by and the soft sun and leafless trees and the smell of those leaves, now grounded, brown and brittle, through which the horses walk. Today there’s no need to train or work or get somewhere or get something done, just be with the horses, the land, one another. Where we belong.
Here’s a thing. Not my usual, that’s for sure. It’s a little book. A weekly planner. Nothing fancy, but kinda sweet, and something I really need. See, I was looking for a new planner for the new year, something clear and simple, pleasing to look at on my desk all year, and even somewhat inspiring. Couldn’t find what I was looking for… so I made it myself. How about that? Just a little something I created for me… but then I thought some of you might like it too.
You see, there was this. My coach challenged me. And you know how I am with challenges. This one was a helluva lot easier than building a cabin in one summer off grid at 10k feet, or finding my way from California to Colorado, with my horses.
“Get a coffee table book out with your poems and photos,” she said. Well, that’s a bigger project than I have time for right now. My hands are full getting “A Long Quiet Ride” complete. So this is what I created instead. The photos are with the theme of “awakening and unfurling,” thus flowers and branches and leaves, which you know I’m wild about. And the weekly quotes are from my “Be Her Now” journals and posters crafted years ago.
All in all, it was a fun project, and it came out well. I’ve never done anything like this before – but I think it’s lovely, and hoping some of you might think so too. Maybe that coffee table book can happen next year.
In the meanwhile… this project is done, this challenge complete, and I rather love how it came out. So much so that I thought, who knows? Maybe you would enjoy it too. So if you have any interest, you can follow this link, check it out for yourself, and purchase a copy with the company that printed mine.
Gradually, she enters. Silently moves in. Puts down her bags and unpacks. She intends to stay here a while.
She has left the door ajar. You feel cold air on bare ankles and get up to close the entryway. Put on another layer of wool. Zip up a little higher. Keep the fire going all day.
Here in the far north of California, she does not scream her arrival. You must listen. Wind is quieter with leafless trees. Fog and frost alternate, making mornings an eerie scene to wander through, beneath tangled bare branches, oak moss and old man’s beard. Stripped of autumn’s gaudy golden display, you see more of her pale sky, muted and subdued by the season. You notice her wrinkled arms exposed, gnarled fingers of naked branches reaching upward, outward, as if she is holding up the heavy air. You walk with her as if somewhere in some old western sepia photo, crunching leaves with every slow, measured step. And you stand with her, simple, stark and unadorned. And breathe, because she invites you to pause, to slow down. To look inside. In your home. Around the old wood cook stove where the kettle ever rattles, the cats are curled nearby, and the smell of biscuits wafts as a welcoming chime. And in your soul. Those dark places. Warmed by the fire and intermingled feet together on the sofa shared with perchance a dog, a cat, and a cup of tea.
Some say winter is the Old Man. Yet I believe she’s the crone. Gray and weathered and wise. Almost silent. She has little to say. You ask her to share her secrets, and in reply, she raises a gnarled finger and points the way.
The way home.
Somewhere safe and warm, between your ribs.
There is a part of me that yearns for the wild winters of Colorado’s high country. Where the approach of winter transforms the mountain into something hollow and vast, and holds you tight in a frozen embrace. In thick socks and thicker soles, we walk with a deliberate pace for you cannot linger out here for long, crunching across frost swollen ground so solid we bury our pipes six feet down. It’s not that I love to be cold. It’s not about snow, and certainly not skiing and those kinds of things you hear about that could lure a person to remain. Rather, it’s the crystalline mornings when frost sugar coats each delicate bare branch of the bare willows, silent and still down beside the frozen creek. It’s the glacial flow, layered like a silver lava flow, down at the bottom of the creek creeping thicker and thicker each day as water gradually works its way around ice. And it’s the afternoon sun working its way through disrobed aspen and sparce blue spruce to the frozen riparian bottom, turning the ice flow alive with a ghostly glow. It’s the sound, ethereal as a whale call, of groaning ice spreading thick across the big white flat of the reservoirs under endless stars dancing in fathomless black in silence only heard through deep, deep freeze when the surface of our world is still.
I could tell you my heart is torn, but that’s not quite right. It’s not ripped or ragged. It’s just a little confused.
How can I decide? Between soft, light and mild – and high, harsh and wild. I cannot. Not for now. For now I will dance between two lovers, the slow embrace of a gentle land; and the passionate tango holding me tight to fierce ground.
And time will be my crystal ball, or the wisdom of the winter crone, when I finally understand to where her knobby finger points.
Lit from a window with dark and drama as if a Vermeer farm house woman painted on old canvas, weathered and worn with time. Where is my pitcher, my cup, a book held just so, or an open letter draped in my perfectly poised hand?
Instead, I loom mighty over a laptop, screen cold blue and buzzing, surreal, unimaginable back in baroque days. Both the computer and me.
The window is open. Damp air thick, smelling of wood smoke wafting from another clean up fire Bob is burning. And the sound of roosters competing in a crowing match, one on the river side, one by the garden. Diligent guards, knowing the hawks are close by. Allowing their ladies to peck and scratch through the fresh layer of damp decay.
And always, over and through it all, here has an ever present thrum of river. The sound a ubiquitous murmur, something that’s always there though so familiar you don’t always hear. Similar to that of traffic I was once used to in other days and feeling far away lands. This is what I hear, here and now.
A gray day. Ancient oaks with spindly outstretched arms like old woman’s fingers, gnarled and swollen from too many years gripping the shovel, the hoe, the broom, the wooden spoon; stand silent over ground matted with leaves still a robust brown covering ever green grass and rich black earth.
The writing desk, before which I’m perched, and upon which my lap top resides, this week brings me out beyond this familiar view to strange places on the open road where I once was. It’s that vibrant green and lush of late spring. The sound is of horses walking in unison, clip clop on some unnamed logging road or alongside a foreboding highway where cars and trucks zip by without meeting eyes or noticing the oddity of a woman riding along miles and miles of barbed wire fences, locked gates and “no trespassing” signs, still somewhere in the north of California.
A Long Quiet Ride, coming back to life in words. It’s not always easy to share. Of course it was harder to do. How does one share what happened out there? How do I bring you with me?
Conserving my words as I sit and stare out the window above my desk.
Wanting them to flow forth for the work at hand.
The book that’s stirring, simmering and working its way out of me now.
Yet poems are what mess around in my mind.
And what can a gal do but play with them, with a mischievous smile and twinkling, rolling gray eyes?
Evening now, leaning back with bent knees.
The familiar feel of warm worn leather holding the bones of my back.
I’m on one side of the sofa.
You are on the other.
Your feet are bare, broad, firm and warm.
While mine look half your size, wrapped in striped wool socks, holes in the toes worn through from wet leather boots left by the door beneath a dripping slicker.
Feet entangled, intertwined. An easy touch. Mindless and comforting as toes play with one another, finding familiar places to be.
While rain pounds down outside onto saturated deck shiny with water coating each old wood board, shimmering alive with pounding rain. And inside the old wood cook stove crackles and casts an amber glow into the half lit room smelling of the last of this seasons roses, rubbed down dogs drying by the fire, and chicken soup simmering on the stove.
We’re quiet.
You are softly spoken.
Teaching me to conserve my words.
A challenge for this rambling mind.
Lost in thought as silent phrases spill across pages of the notebook pressed against my thighs.
As I look up to meet your eyes, looking into, through you and back into me.
Entangled.
With words.
Sitting alone with my muse.
This weekend was rich with poems, poets and a coffee buzz. It’s hard not to succumb to the words that dance in my mind and twirl along my tongue as I read them aloud.
Real. Raw. A little rough around the edges. No frills and nothing fancy.
Some days unsettled in shifting clouds, stirred by wild winds within and around me.
Other days grounded in terra firma, pummeled by fall rains, nourishing dormant seeds, creative seeds, growing enough to give a part the self to others. Because what is life without something to share?
The other day, I had this revelation. A big one. It hit me:
I’m happy.
A year away from 60 and finally having grown into my skin. (Notice I still won’t say grown up.)
That skin’s a little loose and wrinkled, now weathered like driftwood and aged like well worn levi jeans. It is familiar; it fits me well. Finally at home in my skin, here or there, or someplace yet to be. But always a wild place. A quiet place. With plenty of room to roam.
And today at least, there is no place I would rather be. No time I would rather return to. No life I would rather have than mine. In all its imperfections, complications, confusions, and curiosities.
I am as happy as I’ve never been.
I have never felt more whole.
Not despite flaws, fuck-ups, wrinkles, wrong doings and imperfections. But perhaps because of them all.
The road map of my life so far, etched across my face.
The woman as seasons. Each of us a leaf on a big beautiful tree.
Here and now as I watch those leaves fall and trees left bare and my skin weathers and hair grays, this is where I am.
Our lives are each a work of art.
This is what I created. So far.
Already an ocean of wondrous waves that somehow I managed to ride. Some that lifted me high, others pulled me down, yet mostly there is floating, out there on the open sea with the big blue or black above, open and seemingly endless, holding me as I rest, nourishing for whatever wave comes next.
The highs are based on love. Birthing, mothering, parenting and evolving into adult friends with my son. Forming a strong, supporting and enduring equal partnership with my lover – something I never felt worthy of. Dogs and horses and learning to commit with courageous heart in this ever changing world, with ever evolving relations. Being true to my calling, creative expression, the art of of writing, and crafting a quiet, wild life. Somehow I managed to build my own box, yet not get stuck inside it. Remaining true to being the outdoor cat, somewhat feral, fleeting and self sufficient.
And the downs, to date, admittedly there have been a few. All the challenges, from poverty and placelessness, loneliness and single parenting, drinking and depression – these were part of the picture too. These have been my teachers, the wise ones gifting compassion, empathy, understanding, and true wisdom based on the balance of heart and mind, first hand. And grit. Definitely a lot of grit. Without much for formal education, I was not formed. Instead I learned to dig in the ground with bare hands, find raw clay and form my life myself. Inspired by the natural worlds where I found myself, I have tried to make it beautiful, wild and free, full of creativity and curiosity, passion and peace, respect and responsibility, and above all, love.
Of course there are things I regret. The hardest was wishing I was more present for my son rather than struggling to make ends meet and prove my worth to others who didn’t matter near as much as he did. And things I wish I had learned earlier. Going sober tops that list.
At times I wish I had a crystal ball to portend my future and lead me the right way. Instead time is the wise one and will share her wisdom with me as she unfurls in seasons yet to come. And all I can do is accept what she brings me, hopefully with grit and grace and gratitude. All the while, remaining a little wild and holding onto a childlike mind that finds beauty and magic and wonder and awe every day.
How long will this wave last?
I have lived enough to know that nothing lasts forever.
And with each passing wave, we learn about balance and flow.
For now, I am here.
This morning I sit out in diffused sun beneath a waving veil of high clouds. Eyes closed. Lulled by the song of the river, blending high notes from flickers and phoebes, chatter from dippers and jays, and a light wind softly trembling through the last holding leaves on these ancient sprawling oaks. And ever the refrain of the river harmonizing wild and free as the blood that flows through me, inspires me, fires me, and keeps me afloat.
I walk the trail paved with fallen leaves and emerging mushrooms and lingering thoughts I cannot shake free from my mind. Big leaves, oaks orange and brown, vibrant aspen gold of maples leaves the size of dinner plates, and dogwoods’ delicate reds, ranging from rich crimson to a dreamy peachy pink like water color spilled across the page.
The season inspires poetic words I long to master of emotions tamed like circus lions, emotions that pass by as quickly as these leaves are stripped from tree by rousing wind in which my soul surges, and my heart feels very very warm, somehow settled, an unusual feeling for me.
We run to catch the leaves. Yet our rapid movements make the leaves dance in a maddening unpredictability we cannot control nor capture.
Instead we sit on the deck beneath the old trees, where silent and still, a leaf gently falls into outstretched, opened hands.
It is a good place to be.
A pause between rains.
One day the river rages, thick and silty. The next, a calm clear flow.
But the pathway remains the same. Banks like skin, like soul, containing, confining, defining.
Somehow through it all, though every moment brings different waters, the river remains.
Changing, and yet, unchanged.
And I wonder, are we not the same? Though parts may soften, as water to stone, slowly over time, chiseling away coarse edges, washing away the ever altered surface into grains of sand, softening with time and age. A sandbar moves from here to there. Banks scoured. Rocks tumble and settle anew. Fish battle their way upwards as entire trees are swept away and brought out to sea.
That is my course.
That is where and I how I flow. At least for now.
Some days wild and raging, brown and turbulent, roaring like thunder in steel gray skies.
Other days gentle, buoyant, holding soft and quiet as a trickle as I sit here alone, sun burning golden through closed eyelids.
Mystery prevails the process.
Edges blur. Sides merge. Like oil on canvas as the brush takes another stroke.
Finding beauty both in the creating and the creation and all the wonders of this imperfect life.
Gin Getz 