Author: Gin Getz

The brass ring

/ Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Spent the better part of today dealing with mice and maggots.  Tomorrow I’m off to the ditch for the week.  Right now I have this to share.

We hear what we want to hear; read what we want to read.

Read between lines.  Really listen.  There’s more to it than you think.  It’s deeper.  Not as shallow.  Not if you take off your blinders and are willing to take in the truth.

Listen to the rain on the roof and dive into the place where you are.  In you car commuting to work.  In your trailer on a week’s adventure.  Home.  Same rain, same sound on all these different metal roofs.  Listen; really listen.  Such a sweet sound, no matter where you’re coming from.  The point is, be where you are.  And if you want to be somewhere else, change it. Do something about it.  Dream, and go for it.  Dreams are for creating reality, not hell.  Figure it out.  If it matters that much to you, risk it.

But don’t whine.  That will bring you nowhere but farther from the dream.

I wrote a reader a letter a few days ago.  A response to her upset, trying to cheer her up.  She took from it what she expected to read, deleted it, and asked me to resend.  Why on earth would I do that when she didn’t really read it the first time?

Don’t ask a question if you don’t want to hear the truth of response.  How many of us are guilty as charged?  My hand has been raised from time to time.

So here’s what it comes down to.

Dreams.

And the excuse of money in place of balls.

Pardon me for being so blunt, but the truth can hurt, and I’m tired of being hurt because you don’t want to hear my truth.  Don’t want to hear it?  Then don’t ask.  Delete my messages and don’t ask me to resend.  Otherwise, here I am, letting it all hang out, with nothing to hide.

Here is my truth.

Money has nothing to with it.  In fact, wake up and smell the coffee (yes, the cheap kind, as even Folgers is a splurge for me).

Those who know me know how important money is to me, what a driving force it is for me, and how much I have had.  And the answer to all is NONE.  Yet I still hear quite regularly, “Gosh, you’re so lucky and live the life I wish I could.”

So I ask you this:  Why don’t you?  You’re the one with a college degree, a stable job, car or truck, health insurance for you and your kids, some sense of financial security and/or at least a plan on paying your way through the next nine months.  Good for you.  I don’t have any of those things.  But that does not stop me.

Those who know me know.  Money has not enabled me to do what I do, be where I am, live the life I have chosen.  Quite the contrary.  It’s my lack of money and my refusal to allow money to hold any level of importance.  Yes, I’m the most impractical person I know when it comes to money.  I have no stability and security.  The bottom line is this:  I have none, never have, and it’s never stopped me from doing/being what I want.

Check out my story.  A condensed version.

So there I was, in New York City, where I wandered around holding down odd jobs from receptionist to bartender sleeping in an odd assortment of slum apartments until I found a way to get a full scholarship to art school in New Mexico.  A crazy move which had nothing to do with luck or talent but far more to do with hard work as I woke up at 3 or 4 am to put together a portfolio of work all winter long before my 9-5 job, and doing a drive-away driving someone else’s sports car from Jersey to San Jose only weeks after getting my driver’s license because I couldn’t figure out any other affordable way to drive cross country.

Worked my way through school earning minimum wage doing simple wood work while living in the parking lot of college in a 25 year old Dodge Dart and later upgraded to an equally old Volkswagen microbus.  I dropped out of college to be a self supporting single mom.  Moved around a dozen times and took more odd jobs to feed and house (including a couple ones self built and without plumbing or power) my self and son.

Finally found (and this part could be called luck) an awesome position being the caretaker of a remote kids camp in some beautiful mountains with horses, cows, chickens and pigs.  I could call it all mine, treated it as such, but none of it was.  Didn’t matter to me.  Stayed there six years, during which time I started to hear that I was one lucky lady and living the life.  I felt I was. I owned nothing but the clothes on my back, not even a vehicle for several years, but gave them my all and got to live in “paradise.” When said paradise turned a bit south, I took a crazy risk and moved to Colorado with only enough money to pay for the trip, a kid, dogs, cats and bunch of baggage stuffed into a room between two creepy guys I was supposed to work for.  I quit, willing to be homeless and hungry instead if need be, but met this guy named Bob who needed a wrangler for the summer.  This part I guess is luck too.  Meeting the “right” person is not easy.  It took me until I was 36; Bob was 45.  It was worth the wait.

The rest is history.  Prince Charming and Cinderella?  Hardly.  Above and beyond dealing with cleaning up after tourists and burying foals and trying to keep hands and house warm through six months of sub zero temps, we’ve had to deal with the most horrible and horrendous family crap you can imagine and legal battles just to keep our home and business, all of which got us hundreds of thousands of dollars deep in debt.

That’s where we are now, only we quit our job which wasn’t paying the interest anyway and we’re figuring out the next dream to start building on.

I’m not complaining.  It’s important you know that.  In fact, I’m pretty darned proud of all this.

What I want to do in telling this story is prove a point.  Figure it out.  It’s never been about money.  Not stopping me.  Not enabling me.  I’m motivated by my dreams and willing to take some crazy risks.

Stop playing it safe. That’s definitely something I have not done.  For better or for worse, I don’t know, but I’m not the one clinging to safety and security and wishing I was somewhere else.  I’m trying it, living it.  Broke, every day deeper in debt in seems, but giving it a shot and enjoy the adventure along the way.

Stop using your lack of money as an excuse.  I bet you have more than me.  I bet you always have.  But you’re there and I’m here.  So, what’s your real excuse?

There is no brass ring waiting for you to grab and get the dream come true.  You gotta get out there, mine the metal, weld the ring, and hang in front of yourself like a carrot before the horse’s nose.  You gotta walk away from the safe and simple and fall on your face time and time and time again.

Remember the advice my vet gave me after I lost another foal?  “Only those who have, lose.”  Be willing to lose.  You’ll never really gain if not willing to let go.  Leap!  And the net appears.  Only some times it doesn’t.  So dust yourself off, and get back to the drawing board.  Only make sure the picture you’re drawing is really, really magnificent.

Yes, I remind myself this too as I sit before the drawing board once again, skinned knees and all.

Stream

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Hide me not behind a veil

Of pouring waterfall

Through which I breathe

A sputtered breath

 

Nor pin me to a wall

Hard and cold and unforgiving

I watch the caged beast pace uneasily

Left with blood on lips

 

Unable to rinse clean

In pure waters of the river

Down to which she tilts her head to drink

Waters flowing like silk in the wind

 

Now tainted with the color red

Pour into pink ribbons of a young girl’s hair

Disturbing as hillsides draped with swaths

Of dying trees once green

 

And full of life’s broken promises   

Captured in the currents

Slammed into a rock mid stream

Or drifted to a shore upon which I never meant to be

 

Tangled with the upstream trash

Snared in the hollow stream

I tire of trying to stay afloat

And wonder if I’ll learn to breath

 

Below

 

 

 

 

Reflections from mid week

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Rain.  A sweet sweet song playing on the metal roof. Steady rhythm, pulse, cadence.  I fade into the dark clouds, black black sky, like the deepest sea, behind which the promise of full moon rises.  Somewhere else someone else can see it.  In their own silence, far from the stream of rain drumming primordial chants above me, over, on top, around, surround sound embracing me, accepting me and allowing me. I breathe.

I’m home.  Ditch work for this week is cancelled.  We’ll make it up next week.  Sticking around to care for our little red mare, Canella, who, so it seems, was attacked by a mountain lion, and won.  One more reason to love this horse.  However, with a ranch full of little kids and a few little horses, too, sticking around to keep an eye on matters probably isn’t a bad idea.

So, I am left with a week unplanned, able to be filled with time to write, time to work the (other) horses, and time to get out and explore.

In my need to get out there as the confines of high summer weigh somewhat heavy upon me, the past three days found me on foot (not horses), hiking to places I have never been before.  Spontaneous adventures leading to who knows where.  Yesterday led us to the base of Brewster Park, about four miles up the Rio Grande from where we began, and back along our horse trail which seems so different viewed on foot in summer.  On foot, one finds more time to look closer, slower.  A different perspective.  Perhaps more intimate with the mountain.

Time.  This summer my goal was for more time.  Time to do what we’ve had to put off for so many summers.  More hiking.  Fishing.  Early morning photo safaris.  Pleasure rides, the pleasure of riding with just each other and even alone.  Building a bridge – our bridge, something just for us.   Writing just to write; playing with the written word, wild thoughts.

And it was on one of these hikes (it matters not which one, now, does it?) I noted the first yellow leaves of Aspen.  Bunches, small trees, a leaf strewn across the path before me.

Summer promised to end.  I feel her bowing early as early she came on this year. The hour glass empties and as always is only so full.  How short she really stays up here.

A part of me grasps for the hope of enough sun and warmth to bring on tan legs and a ripe tomato.  I am rather sure I will see neither one.  Another part of me trembles with anticipation of my wild winters returning.  So close.  My breath quickens and I am lost with her, alone, and exactly where I want to be.

 

She touched the face before her

A hard and cold reflection

Slick surface on delicate hands

When really what she wanted

Was a soft embrace

Listen to the wilds cry

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

Listen to the wilds cry

Confessions heard in dying trees

An intimate look at a big forest ravaged by tiny beetles

If anyone had told me ten years ago that the hills as far as I can see and beyond would be filled with such death, that I’d be surrounded by miles and miles of mountain hillsides draped with dying trees, up to the top of tree line on both sides of the Divide… I would never have believed.

I believe now.  For this is what I see.

Green turned red, brown and grey.

We try to be optimistic.  See the few green trees remaining.  Some smaller Spruce, and of course, the Aspen.  Glimmers of hope.

It’s not enough.  Look at the rest.  It’s dead. Dead, damn it, dead!  We are living surrounded by death.

I try to find the beauty in it all, and if the light is just right, it’s there, you can see the softness in the setting sun on the dying needles.  A more open view when you’re in the woods.  But really, that’s it.  It’s dead, death, and lots of it. It gets to you some times.

Genocide of the mountain and we sit back and say there is nothing we can do.  Rape of the land I love.

It’s not that bad, you say.  There’s still so much beauty, so much goodness, so much life.  Oh, I know.  I see it every day.  I do my best to appreciate.  Wildflowers, grasses seeding out, steel grey clouds, trout surfacing the river, captivating colors in the rocks, a rainbow, a sunset, the flash of the blue bird on the old cedar post.  But there is also so much death.  And dark clouds do get gloomy, intriguing as they may at first appear.

Cheer up, you say, it’s still so beautiful and always will be.  Oh, I promise you, I know and I see, very clear and very deep.  For I am here, remaining when your fairy tell ends.  This is our home, our reality.  So how can I turn a blind eye to this devastation?

I saw a stand of smaller trees, two, three, four inches in diameter, standing dead with tell tale signs of beetle kill.  Dripping sap turned hard, pin holds and chipping bark, needles falling off like rain, teardrops of the wilds as I ride by horseback and brush too close to death.  I tip my rim forward and let the needles fall onto my horse’s mane and neck.  He is used to this.

This was not supposed to happen.  None of this was.  I remember the first such ravaged land I saw, devastated by the beetles, back fifteen years ago or so in Carson, New Mexico.  Didn’t know what it was back then, as we watched the four and five hundred year old pinon trees that were here when the Spanish settled, wither away in one season.

I’ve heard all the “expert” opinions, and know it’s just a guessing game.  It will only get the pinon, or perhaps the ponderosa, scotch, limber, lodge pole, fir, bristlecone, spruce…  It will only kill up to eight thousand, then nine thousand, ten thousand feet…

Last year they even told us once it’s dead it might not burn as bad.  Colorado learned the hard way this year.  I don’t want to call it all “lies.”  The intentions of the so-called know-it-alls might be good.

Face it.  No one knows.  I’m tired of hearing predictions that don’t pan out and ideas to fix the forest or save one single tree that just won’t work when the entire view – yes, miles and miles and miles, how many millions of trees – die before me.

Death.  That’s the problem.  It’s not that it is ugly per se, though most of us who live in it still have a heck of time finding true beauty in the rolling red hillsides or one individual, unique dead standing tree, just one more in a forest of so many.  The problem is that the hills and mountains that once sang with life and promise now stand silent, stripped and exposed like a bleeding heart.  Our trees have been raped and killed.  And not just one or two or a hundred or so.  But mile after mile, mountain after mountain, millions and millions and millions of trees.

Dead.  Don’t tell me it’s a natural cycle and it’s all going to be OK.  I’ve heard enough of that.  You’ve proven you have no idea what you’re talking about, what is happening. But it’s happening.  It’s happened. These trees are dead.  These mountains are dying.  It’s death and it’s ugly and it’s real. So stop sugar coating the view before me because I take off the green tinted glasses and I see red and brown and grey.

I’m tired of lies.  Of guesses.  Of ignorance for which I am guilty too.  I’m tired of listening for what I want to hear, taking solace in the latest glimmers of hope like blind faith, as the plague continues to spread and we place our bets on how far it will go next year.

My child’s children will never see these mountains as tall and green and lush and majestic as I once did.  But no longer do.  Now I see red.  I am red with anger.  The mountain may silently weep.  But I can rage loud as the color red.

 

(…to be continued)

 

OK, friends, readers and passer-bys, on that happy note… I’m off again this week for another round of ditch camp.  See you at the end of the week.

Ditch Diaries

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

Week two; Day one.

Back after a break.  Gunnar has healed well.  Still a bit groggy at times, and left with a good scar above his eye which we say gives him even more character.  But he’s good to go and back at his place working with the horses.

Peak season on the mountain, and we need to get away.   We have learned to endure July.  Moods fluctuate with the weather.  July has it all, from heat to hail.  Like ants on a birthday cake. Too many people driving by with blind, blank stares; passer bys who remain unnamed, unknown, unaccountable.  I long for a friendly wave of a vehicle I recognize.  A permanent place in the wind.  A summer neighbor drives up fast and furious behind our full load of horses in the trailer.  The only one rushed on the road.  You can feel the stress from the car back there, too tight on our tail to see the wide places to pass as we pull to the side again and again to let her by.  A rush to get off the mountain, back to work, back to one’s own reality.

My reality is here.  Yes.  It is very, very real.  Though at times, like July, it seems a surreal moving image surrounding me.

I look to the morning frost on pasture and long for winter already.

Be here now.  Riding up the trail. Beyond where most make it in a day.  Higher even than the Aspen grow, delicate silver bark, flesh scratched with initials, scarred by those who come and go and leave nothing better than this behind for a generation to endure.

And then we are there.

I hear the horses heave and sigh and let go with their heads down in the rich high mountain grasses.

Late at night writing by the light of my headlamp.

Crazy the contentment I find here in the tent together with my boys, our dog between us, our horses in the trees just outside.  The occasional stomp of their feet as they shift their weight easily, the snort of their relaxed breath.  They are satisfied, tired, full bellies; they worked hard and well and have earned their rest. I am proud of them.

Crazy the contentment in this 12×12 tent, complete with woodstove on which we cooked elk burgers for dinner.  A nice change from Hamburger Helper.  Life does not get much better than this.

Day two.

Slept until the mountain was light. Gunnar and I get the horses out.  They know the routine and handle with great manners.

Morning work proved other than perfection in paradise, between Norman balking at being out their working alone, and poor communications between the three of us.  It’s bound to happen.  It did.

Lunch in the tent while thunder rumbles across the steel grey sky.

We are damp and chilled and grateful for the woodstove.  I remember July days on the beach, sun and sand and sweat and sundresses in the evening.  I reach for my down jacket and felt hat and check the horses before returning to work.

Day three

Progress is slow.  Perhaps we are out of shape. We would like great transformations.  We would like the whole mile plus of ditch to be as well groomed, just the right slope, clear of vegetation, and solid high bank as the twenty feet we just worked on.  We are down and know it is only up to us to make things better.

We turn to ditch digger humor to lighten our load. How much more down can a ditch digger get?  It’s easy when you start at the top and work your way down.  We do manage to keep each other laughing and really, being out there working with my husband and son, dog and horses, it is easy to rise up again.  It never takes long.  Put down the shovel, slow down the slip, and smile.

A better afternoon.  Norman pulls a mean load, and the three of us get in the groove and get mean with our shovels and picks.  Truly a dirty job.

Day four.

I am up and out earlier than usual, with camera and tripod, to get a shot at a shot at the Rio Grande Pyramid at first light.  Gunnar and I sneak out before coffee and leave the boys to lead the horses out to pasture.

I am rewarded with clouds, color, and a remarkable view, unobstructed and uninterrupted, deep in the Weminuche Wilderness and realize that for now, no doubt, there is no place I would rather be.

Here and now.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow

/ Gin Getz / 8 Comments

A wonderful weekend working with and learning from photographer and teacher Bob Seago (http://www.bobseagophoto.com/).   No time now to review all the lessons learned and photos taken, but I’ll briefly share a few.

How lucky (yes, this is luck!) to have such an opportunity way out here.  The writer within me is envious.  For there I could use help, guidance, encouragement – but how does one find that, force that, improve one’s writing except by… writing?  The rejections weigh heavy; the confidence grows thin; hope flickers.  At some point, one finds it hard to rely solely on one’s own dream, and one hopes for a teacher, a mentor, or a lucky break.  Who knows if one of those will come my way?  In the meanwhile, I write. What else can one do?

Plan B.  If all else fails, you can be a ditch digger.  Classic “Caddy Shack” wisdom.

So, there you go.  Today, we return to ditch camp.

 

Horse matters

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

(photos by Forrest)

 

Yesterday was spent working with the horses in a different sort of way.  Starting with grooming far better than is normally needed for a mountain mount.  Currying off the mud along the back and girth usually suffices. But we were gearing up for a photo shoot with Forrest of three of our best horses.  Later in the day, when the monsoons did there thing, I edited, deleted and organized the nearly five hundred photos he took.  The end result will be up later today on our ranch website (www.lost-trail.com) on the new page “Sale Barn.”

Why the fuss over our four leggeds?  It’s time to sell a few more.  Downsizing.  Life is full of changes.  This one is harder than most.  Deciding who stays, who goes.  How do you decide which of your children to sacrifice?  Oh come now, it’s not going to be that bad.  (I have to remind myself.)  I will find the best of homes, new partners, and these horses will receive the care and attention they deserve – which will hopefully be even better than that which I give them.

Downsizing. It’s a down side of change.  Some plans get hurt in the process of building your dreams.  You can’t have everything, can you?  Somethings gotta give.  So, sometimes you gotta decide what matters most.  How on earth do I do that with my horses?  Except to look for truly wonderful new homes and partners… and trust….

Why can’t I keep them all, and find time (and money) to give them all I want to give?

On the practical level, there is the reality of us passing on our outfitting business and simply needing fewer horses around to complete the work we are continuing, like the ditch job.  In addition, the horse market is changing.   There seem to be more horses than horsepeople around. The cost of keeping horses and available land to keep them on is out of balance. Add that to the aging market and the change in our society as a whole, which is becoming increasingly less rural, more centralized.  As a result, we see the horse market nationwide becoming more elite.  I’m not big on elite.

But really, there is more to it than all that.  Something deeper. Consider the change of going from a small time breeder where every colt born was a celebration of life, and had a future on our ranch… to wondering if and how long he or she would live.  With the death of the first foal, everything changed.  And continued to change as foals continued to die.  Suddenly, birth was not the blessing I once considered it to be.  Life, or even the prospect there of, became tainted with a dreaded fear.  Birth became a time of trepidation, not elation.

“Only those who have can lose,” our vet told us in sympathy after one more loss a couple of years ago.  I intend to have.  But along the way, I know I’ll lose a few.  In the case of those I’ve chosen to sell, I comfort myself with the hope that I can and will find a perfect partnership for each horse.  Something I am unable to provide here for a dozen horses.

Practicality does have its downside…

Monsoon season

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

The thermometer on the porch reads thirty five when I wake up.  Grass out on pasture is laced with frost.  Yellow leaves of cinquefoil stick to my damp boots like polka dots. All morning it looks as if my squash plants are going to give up and give in to that sickly, mushy green of a frozen plant, but they do not.  They survive.  Not to say they will ever produce.  Just staying alive here is asking a lot for a crook neck squash plant. My little Arabian shows the first sign of fuzz from his winter coat, though the ranch raised ones shrug off the rain that drips down their manes and muzzles.

The monsoon season has settled in.  The hot and dry of May and June are but a misty memory. And when this pattern passes, the first chill of fall will find us as always unprepared, wondering how it came so soon, and where did the summer go.

It’s an arduous land, make no doubt.  Even now, in the easy season of summer, when tourists come and go, smile and laugh and play and leave their world and worries behind as if this were some wild park at Disneyland.  They will all be gone by winter.  Ok by me, as I’ll remain, but I’ve never been much for the social scene.

So here we are in mid July and the weather site on the internet we check each day has rain clouds for as far as one can see in the forecast.  This is how it should be, I am reminded, but I still remember summers in other places, hot and dry, where we swam naked in the river or sea, sand between my toes (yes, bare feet!), sat out in shirt sleeves and shorts at night under the stars, and took a siesta mid day.  Our spring this year was as close as it gets, with the never ending blue bird blue sky that made one long for a bad ass cloud to break up that blue and whirling dervish dancing of rain and hail on the metal roof.  Now we have that.  Every day.  Now we’ve got the monsoons, and it’s hard to complain because it’s greening up the pasture (sorry, it can’t do much for the red hillsides killed by those nasty little black beetles).

And I try to enjoy every wet, damp chilly storm and rainbow spreading across pasture knowing the fast and furious spell of summer will slowly sink into the comforting cradle of winter…

Lost.  

Amidst the changing landscape of green hills turning red and brown.

Give up, give in, fall deep into the darkness.

I try to stay afloat.  So hard in the rushing currents.  Waiting for my island to capture me, hold me up, pin me down long enough for roots to grow, flowers to bloom, seeds to take shape for next year’s dreams.

Wanting the yellow brick road to appear before me.  Instead there is a discernible path of last year’s aspen leaves still untrodden and I need to find my own way.

But this morning there is hope, relief, as I watch the footprints of my polka dot boots trailing behind in the frosty grass.

Last night’s rain lingers in low heavy clouds not yet broken and gone, and promising to renew again by mid afternoon.

For now there is cold wet ground before the morning sun.

Silver droplets on the railing

Each with a little world within them

Enter and lose yourself inside and away

Beads of rain clinging to the bottom of the rusted steel railings like welding lag or a row of sparkling diamonds dripping from a rough cut mine.

And inside each one are upside down images of brown and green hills over layered grey skies

Deep stratum of clouds, draped like velvet and barely moving

A lacy veil slung low along her hips in her slow dance of summer

Languid in the early hours

Like thickening water waiting to freeze

And by afternoon rain on the roof will drown out the sound of the growing parade of ATVs

Where for now the wilds are swept away in the murky waters of the monsoons

But I remain here

Hungry for more of whatever she hides

Starving for the wilds

 

Down for the day

/ Gin Getz / 8 Comments

Image

Otherwise known as Discontentment in Paradise

How can I be anything other than peachy when so many say I’m lucky just to be here (but can’t see all I did to get here)?  As if a pretty face would be enough.  Or in this case, a pretty view.  For better or worse, I’m not that shallow.  And surely, my friend, you’re deeper than that too.  Aren’t you?

Give me a minute.  I’ll try to get my thoughts together, at least in some semblance of order. 

Or just let them spill out randomly.  That will do, too.

Hang in there with me on this one.  I think you might relate.

I’ll start with the “down for the day” part. 

Here it is, a new week, and I’m trying for a new perspective, but not achieving the positive outlook I was hoping for.

Was wondering why I was so down yesterday, and still not quite sure as nothing is wrong, per se, especially when you compare my current state of affairs with the hard times, heart aches and traumas so many others are going through, or troubled times I’ve gone through myself. So what right do I have to whine?

Probably none.  But I’m going to do it anyway.  We all need some time to vent, don’t we?

As my honey reassures me, “You can’t be up all the time.  Not if you’re really living, feeling, observing, soaking in and an active part of the world around you.  Some things will bum you out.  Some days will be worse than others.  Some days you just wanna kick the cat…”  OK, so that last part actually came from a book by Zig Ziglar.  And no, anyone who knows me knows I won’t really kick a cat.  My three kitties can attest to that!

Anyway, sometimes I just don’t think the thing to do is fake it, pretend it is all ok, sunshine and bunnies, hunky dory and picture perfect.  Sometimes we need to get real, get mad, allow ourselves a day of being down in the dirt. 

And this pile of dirt I’m talking about now?  Well, I just realized I am exactly where I was, only with less. And I don’t mean a positive downsizing.  I mean, less to do, less work, less money (though larger debt), less identity, less going on, less direction, less sense of point and purpose, less sense of self and sense of giving and belonging.  Not a good place to be.  I’m not outfitting, not running the guest ranch business full time, not “really” mothering as my kid is grown up, not writing well as the manuscript has not sold yet so it’s hard to keep convincing myself it is all worthwhile.  I’m not really homesteading or even feeling at home as the home I’m living in is for sale, and we’re waiting to build anew. 

Yes, I know.  Look around and you’ll see some wonderful stuff.  Starting with and topping the list of course are Bob and Forrest.  I could go on with a hefty list, no doubt, but that’s not the point. I worked mighty hard and took more risks than most to make what I have possible, and still… I want more. 

Look around me and you might see many things that so many shallowly search for but aren’t willing to walk away from safe and secure to make happen.  As if they were handed to me.  Easy to think it was so simple if you don’t know where I came from.  We all have a story.  Came from somewhere.  And hopefully are going somewhere, too.  Where are you headed?  As long as it’s not the same place you were yesterday, for that place and space no longer exist. 

A friend puts it all into words I wish were mine:   “…Restlessness or discontent is part of the syndrome of our beings. I look for people who have achieved their “perfect” life..and wonder if they have compromised.  If they even know they have. Have they settled for less ?”

The human state of longing.  Is anyone ever fully satisfied, or is it human nature to want more?

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The other side

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

“You were made to contribute,” I read and these words felt strong and true.  But what do I have to give?

Isn’t there’s more to my calling in life than providing a vacation for tourists?  Building my world so others can enjoy it for a brief stay away from their own reality.

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”  Seth Godin.

I believe this and have tried to live my life this way, yet I’ve been providing that escape for others.  And doing so is what has enabled me to live the life others dream of, but don’t dare to walk away from safe and sound and secure to create.

Have I no further talents, gifts, abilities, that can help in some way?

Seriously, life is hard sometimes.  Why can’t the answers just present themselves?

 

I’ve been told they are out there.  Be still, silent, and listen.  I don’t hear them yet.

I try to find a quiet time alone with her.  Hear her wisdom.  In wind and water and hard earth beneath my feet.  Above the river, across the river.

Here, our Rio Grande, her stories are not old, but fresh and new, like fairytales heard as a child.  Here, only miles from where she emerges from snowbank and spring to tint, trickle and trail the mountains and wind her way through my land, my world, my dreams.  Here, she is new water, strong and pure, not yet softened and slowed, diverted, polluted.

Step in, she calls me.

And I do.

I thought you would be harsh, blunt, cold, shocking.

Instead I find you have softened with age, sun, seasons.  You are summer waters.  Childlike.  Or very, very old and wise.  Hard to tell the difference in your silver face.

Rolling over rounded rocks, as have I.

Take me to the other side, I ask of you, in a current too strong to remain.

And now I walk above you. And am there.  On the other side.

Washed away by white noise of the river.

Stepping upon last year’s leaves still untrodden.