Author: Gin Getz

Close to home

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

If a horse could cry.  I can.  And I do.

Tears flow freely; rain does not.

I cannot stop crying and know my tears do not help unless they can turn to rain.  I am not a religious person, but I find myself praying.  For others.  For the mountains. The animals.  The trees.  My beloved trees…

I think of all the wilds, the wildlife, and what happens to them now, what happens next?

Here, we have rain.  Just a bit, though I suppose it is enough.  Or is it just luck?  Lightning strikes aren’t taking hold. The fire to the south of us is relatively contained.  The rest of the state is not as lucky. This time.  Some time, of course, it will be here. It will be us.  Our mountain.  Our wilds and wildlife. We await. This year.  Next.  Three years from now.  Who knows?  The time bomb upon which we balance precariously in hopeful ignorance.

In my dreams there is fire and smoke.

I can no longer appreciate the red of sunset, for fear it is inspired by flame, for knowing it is enhanced by smoke.

My country is burning.  Though not yet close to my home, I think of all the other homes, built and feral, up in flames.  Now we know it is but a matter of time.

Computer data, scientific models, and the Forest Service.  They said the beetle killed trees wouldn’t burn as bad. This summer, we see they do. Dead timber forests are safer than green, they said. But what burns best in my wood stove? Pardon my lack of science here. I wonder what happened to common sense based on observation of the world around us.

I read an article entitled, “Screaming Trees.”  The tears begin again, for I hear their cry.  How few have heard the silent wail?  We wear our blinders, find a green patch, turn our backs to the ravished red hillsides, and think it is all OK.

Until it comes too close to home.

Rain

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Rain

Coming in waves

She returns

Angry as the ocean

And we welcome her wrath

Hard and pounding on the windows

 

Upon the rim of my hat as I untie the horses and set them free

Lasting for but a moment and passing on

Returning to calm and blue

Barely scratching the surface of soil

Parched lips and land

Thirsting for more

 

Last night she came

Joining us as we curled in bed

Welcomed as a lover

We opened our windows to her

Receiving

Let her song flow in

 

Soft and mild like breakers on a bay

Gently lapping at hungry soil

Waves as potent as the pulse of my husband’s blood

Warm against my bare breast

His quiet breath leveling out beside me

While her lullaby seduces me again and again

 

Singing the sweet symphony of promised showers

Heralding from the metal rooftops and the hard ground

Now hills and sky are a broken pattern of grey

Fading

Interspersed with indigo blue

Dominating

 

And still I swear the grass is a shade greener

The soil darker and richer

If only the facade

And for once

I care not scratch the surface

To find the underlying truth below

Voice of water

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Calm me with the

Voice of water

Delicate as evening rain

Subdued sky

Bathed in pink and grey

Subsiding winds

Down to a whisper

Douse the fires

That rage around me

Are aroused within me

As the wilds are washed away

In a commotion of smoke

My blood burns hot and troubled

Untamed

Unconvinced

Longing for the touch of water

Observations from up high

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

This is not a pretty picture.  It is not meant to be.  Only real.  Finding beauty is up to you.  How deep and long are your willing to look, knowing you can look further now through the thinning trees?

It started with a ride, perhaps the most frightening I have taken by choice.  A simple ride up the Ute Creek Trail, without another horse or human on the way that day, perhaps for days.  From my barn, perhaps a 16 or 18 mile ride, into the Weminuche Wilderness and back.  But here’s the real challenging part:  I rode Flying Crow.

Without wishing to make this all about horses as I’ve been tending to do as of late (it’s that time of year, you know), let me just say I was scared.  At one point (for those who know the trail, the section known as the Funnel Cliffs by the old timers), I dismounted and walked.  I hate to admit that.  That goes against… what I believe for horse training, for riding, for making it up this trail.  Yet, it goes along just fine with my sense of survival.  After my horse stumbled off the trail so many times already (“What are you thinking,” I actually yelled at him, though I think the problem was that he wasn’t thinking; he was too busy looking around for the bogy man that  never showed), and knowing this section would allow no room for error, I decided not to risk it.  I got out of the saddle, held his reins, and walked for fifty feet, and cussed him, Arabian horses, right brain behavior, and my choice of horses the whole way.  On the return trip, however, I remained mounted, and as you can see from my being here to write about it, I survived.

What I wanted to share were my observations of the mountain along the way.  I will try to keep emotion and comments to a minimum.

These are the facts.

Elevation was between 9,550’ where I crossed the Rio Grande and 10,950’ above the forks of the Utes.

I viewed a varying percentage of beetle kill along the trail, from less than 10% (down at the River crossing), to 75% or more of the spruce.

It is often the green trees being blown over (and having to be cut and cleared from the trail in order to ride on).  Even needles catch the wind.

Needle-less trees allow more light on the trail.

The trails and hills are more exposed due to fallen and/or needle-less trees, making a once cool and shady horse ride rather hot.

I had promised Gunnar it would be a cool, shady trail.  I lied.

Places where we have always ridden through bogs hidden in dark timber are hard and dry.  The sun was shining on them directly.

A horse’s footfall is silent when crossing needle lined paths.

These are interesting times.

Clear before me, from as close as my kitchen table, I see the changes.

At times it feels too close to home.

For this is my home.

Next year may be a cold and wet one. But these trees, the deep green mountain, won’t return as long as I live, as long as my child lives.

I leave you then with this.  Delicate balance of hope. A unusual white columbine, so fine and pure, found no higher than the bank of the Rio Grande as she cuts across our property.

Random thoughts from a hyperactive mind

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Continuation, alteration of the poem I started Monday:

A new ending, though it’s still not right.  Interesting to find something so simple so challenging.  Endings.  I gotta work on mine.

 

Back to the place

Where we were birthed

Or are we born again

Each day

 

Nope.  Not there yet.

Oh, forget it.  Onto a new start:

 

I wept tears like raindrops

Pregnant with promise

(now is this too cliché?)

Pouring upon the land

Dousing sparks of unrest

In changing times

A land hot and swollen as my crying eyes

Sadness for the loss of life upon the now red hills

My sisters standing before me

Stripped and whipped

Waves of grace flow and settle like smoke from approaching fires

Covering up

Consumed

 

Tears like raindrops

Falling through the cracks

Of a parched land

Raped and left to die

Our land of plenty

 

And now my mother weeps

Left lying in a heap before us

Blood we are unable to wash free from our hands

As needles from the dying trees fall

Lining the yellow brick road to where I wonder

 

I am suffocated, suppressed

By my own sadness

 I cry

Tears

Dancing

A song upon the metal roof

 

Friend and fellow writer, Tricia’s M. Cook, has just published a new post on her blog over at Mountain Gazette entitled, “Hunting Bears,” an essay for those who know and love these furry beasts. Me, I can be as wild as any wild beast and willing to hold my own and fight for it if need be.  You stay on your side of the fence, I’ll stay on mine.  I choose to live in bear country, and I stake a little claim there.  And yes, I will defend it, though I’m happy to let the bear do as she pleases on her side of the fence.  I believe Ursa, like my friend Coyote, can be trained.  See this line?  Don’t cross it.  And don’t, definitely don’t mess with my watermelons, as the old story goes.  Tricia has a slightly different way of seeing things.  Please read for yourselves.

Which reminds me.  The free range cows have come for the season.  How out of place can an animal be, seeing domestic cattle up above tree line.

The semi’s arrived, and how many hundred pair are left to learn the perils of the High Country.  Never a popular moment.  Nor will it be after they are gathered for the season, and we are left to find the strays.  Or carcasses.

Our Forest Service calls it multiple use.  A lovely term. I call it putting up with cow shit and closed gates for the profit of the one rich man who owns them.  Go figure.

But this much I’ve learned: you might wanna still be a cowboy, but I’d rather keep working at being a horse(wo)man.  Hooting, hollering and riding the road in a dusty wake behind a bunch of loud and stinky cows destined for slaughter isn’t really my thing.  Why do we still use that term, “cowboy,” for those of us that work horses, not cows?  Cowboy.  Consider it.  Part cow?  Ever look deep into a cow’s eyes?  I use the term “deep” loosely here, if you know what I mean. So, as you can figure, I’d rather stick with being a horseperson and leave the “cow” part for the dinner table.

 

And I end today’s post (are you still here with me?) with these simple words:

 

I care not to live someone else’s dream

And try to wake early enough to remember my own.

Untitled

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

 

 

(Forrest took these photos yesterday of Crow and me on our family Father’s Day adventure)

 

Wrapped

Entrapped

Bursting through the surface

And gasping for air

A dolphin above the waters

A woman beneath big sky

Ascending to higher ground

Scattered seeds settled

The wind pauses

Roots begin to grow

Twisted in the unseen vine

Back to ashes

Where we belong

Back in the groove

/ Gin Getz / 10 Comments

(continued from previous post:  Growing Back the Groove)

I wish there was a secret, and you might too, but we both know there is not.

It all comes down to this.

Do it.

Don’t be afraid to do it alone.

And even if you are afraid, do it anyway.

That, my friends, is how I grew back my groove.

And gained back my confidence.

And got back in the saddle again.

Though of course I wasn’t usually really out.  Just out of sorts.  Imagining myself flying out far too many times.  And now, finally, I feel grounded again.  A firm seat in the saddle. That’s where my butt belongs.

Because it’s not about not being afraid.  Because often I am.  It’s about doing it even when you are afraid.  Yes, just like John Wayne once said.

“Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.”

And remember this, too. Saddling is the easy part.  Riding is where it gets complicated.  So get on and ride, because if you don’t, you won’t, and you’ll end up right where you started.  Standing there on the ground wishing you could go somewhere.

Get on and go.

(Quote borrowed from fellow horsewoman, Jenn Edwards)

 

So what happened is this.  It started with a love/hate relationship.  And I ended up with the most challenging horse I ever rode. My little Arabian stallion, now gelding, Flying Crow.  For those that care about such things, his registered name is Fadjurz Ideal and I went all the way to the Jack Tone Ranch in California to find him.  What was I thinking?

Was it love at first sight?  Hardly.  He was as afraid of me as I was of him.  For years. Now I can say he’s learned to trust me.  And I’ve learned to trust myself.  For the most part.  I can stay on and get where I need to go.   Pretty well.  No guarantees there won’t be more bumps along the way.

It’s the journey that counts, they say.  I say, it’s the journey that wipes you out some days…

Seven years we’ve been together, Flying Crow and I.  Seven long hard years where if he were a man, we’d be divorced.  And if he were my son, well, I’d seriously consider boarding school.  I’ve wanted to sell him, but how could I?  He’d make a bad name for my training, and for Arabian horses.  He’s, he’s… how do I find ways to describe him, how difficult he’s been (and still is) yet show the crazy deep love I hold fast for him?

Tiring, exhausting, challenging, and the cause of innumerable crying bouts.  And then you look into his warm brown eyes, and all you can do is melt, get back on, and try again.  More patiently this time.  Ask, don’t demand.  Take a deep breath…  Settle in for the long ride.

What he misses in size he makes up in nerves. What takes me three times to show your average horse, took me thirty to teach this guy.  And then, chances are, he’ll still be scared and uncertain.  He’ll spin, spook, bolt and jolt… but eventually, he’ll trust me and go where I need him to go, with his lively little perky stride, which too, I might add, is exhausting after about fifteen minutes of working to keep your butt firmly planted in the bouncing seat. Try that for rides that last two, four, six hours or more.  It has been, he has been difficult.

He is my special child.  He has special needs.  A lot of them. Needs non-stop guidance.  Needs coaxing.  Needs firm direction presented in the softest way, or he’ll get upset and shut down.  And constant attention.  Every minute down the trail.

So he taught me to pay attention, always.  Be present.  Be riding all the time. Hold your seat.  Be ready.  Expect the unexpected.  And handle him lightly because if I over reacted, it wouldn’t be too hard to pull him over on top of me. He’s hyper sensitive.

That said, he’s also sensitive in the lightest of touch.  He misses nothing. (Even when you wish he would.)  And those skinny long legs know how to move.  With the proper guidance and direction, he moves through the trees, up and down slopes, runs across open fields with the grace of a lovely young buck. A beautiful thing to behold.

So for every ride that I make it home in one piece, I am grateful.  Relieved. Tired. And very proud.  I believe he is too.  I can tell by the way he stands there with me after he’s been unsaddled and I brush down his sweaty back, and he’s in no rush to leave me and go back to his herd, but finds a certain peace, finally, standing there in the shade of the tack barn with me.

And as for doing it alone… riding alone.  Well, I do it because I can (no more dudes to take care of), and I have to (horses are my thing, my boys have other interests).  Riding buddies?  Who the heck wants to ride with the crazy mountain mama and the even crazier little Arabian horse?

So, there you go.  No big revelations.  Just time in the saddle.  Sucking up and holding on.  Because that’s the only way I know how to really move on.

Yes, I know I will be hurt again.  I’ll fall off a few more horses, no doubt. That’s horses and that’s life.  There are ups and there are downs. But it’s worth it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I guess because I can’t, can I?  Just ask my father-in-law, who at 81 fell off a horse just the other day.  And a cliff, I might add, while training that horse.  I can only hope I’m doing the same thirty six years from now.

Right on.

Ride on.

I think I will.

For Kim, who’s got a lot of scary rides ahead of her, but is still able to keep that butt firmly planted and enjoy the ride.

A side note

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

A side note.

The horse story will resume another day.

For now, there is this.

I am a writer, though you may question that fact almost as much as I do.  For I’m taken to believe that a writer without a publisher is not really a writer at all.  Then what am I?  Trying.  Too hard at times.  Willing to change my voice for the approval of others.  Sing a song to please you, so to say.  So tired of rejection and getting nowhere and being asked to be patient and trust when truth is it is my self I do not trust, my talents, my abilities.

However hurt and down this gets me, quiet, soft spoken and demure I will not be. I get mad.  I suppose anger has its proper place.  If not suppressed, it can be a call to action.  Then how shall I act now? What shall I do?

In response to yet another rejection from a publication I’m not even impressed with, an editor who pointed me in the direction of work he personally liked and suggested I try to sound more like someone else, I wrote the following.

 

Tell me who I am

What to wear

The words to whisper in your ear

Does this dress become me

I ask

As I coyly dance before you

On my knees

Where you want me

Where I’ll never be

And then it is over

Last I looked you smugly smiled

And then you smiled no more

Now I hear only the evening wind

A familiar soothing sound

Wind chimes drowning out your banter

Cutting through your shallowness

Calling me closer to where I was

Before I ever tried

Growing back the groove

/ Gin Getz / 8 Comments

It’s not about the garden.  24 degrees Monday; 26 yesterday; 28 today.  A warming trend?  I dunno. Still kinda rough on a marigold and crookneck squash plant.  I’m not saying I’m giving up, but…

It’s about horses.  And confidence.  Losing it, and gaining it back.

I’ll start with how I lost it.

I think there is this cycle in horsemanship.  Maybe with other things as well, you can decide for yourself.  You start out naive.  Life is sunshine and bunnies.  What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Ignorance is bliss. That sort of thing. You just see the beauty of the horse and the fun of the ride and figure every time you’re gonna get where you wanna go and back home safe and sound.  But then something happens, and it will, that slip and fall or big buck or slap in the face, and you learn that life and horses aren’t really that shallow and simple.  Sure, there are ups, but there are also plenty of downs. You don’t realize how bad you can get hurt, and that you will get hurt, and that horses die, and riders can fall off and break bones, and horses have personalities of their own and might need a rider to guide them, not just one to babysit on their back.  It gets challenging, complicated.  Some days you’ll have to saddle in the rain.  That sucks.

So there you are as a rider and horseman.  Questioning.  The pretty picture has been shattered.  Maybe you are, dare I even say this, scared. And if you’ve never been there, then you haven’t ridden enough, or you’re just some blind macho cowboy and good for you, but that’s not me.  That’s my husband.  Good for him.  But I’m done having him ride the scary horses.  I need to cowgirl up and sit in the saddle myself.  And finally, I do. My way.  And it’s working. And maybe at the end of the day, I’ll even ride better than him.  But it’s taken me a lot to get here.

What happened?  I think the pretty picture and my innocence was shattered with one bucking horse.  Ready to rock on a pack trip, dudes all sitting pretty on the dandy horses and I’m trying out the loaner (now I know why he was on loan).  He bucked good.  I can ride a little crow hop no problem, but I have zero interest in riding a bucking bronc who knows how to tuck down his head and send his heels far above his butt.  No thanks.  I’ll leave that for the young men who still need to prove their manliness.

And here’s what I did wrong.  I dusted off and got back on.  Back on a horse that had a rep for bucking.  And without doing anything different.  I’ve heard the definition for insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  So, what does this tell you about me?  Right.

So the second pitch I see myself as in a dream (well, maybe a nightmare) up in the sky and the words that are going through my head as I’m falling slow motion really are not fit for print.  I land hard and flat.  Whoomp. There goes the air from my lungs. There’s blood but nothing broke. And yes, I cowgirl up.  We have a trip to take, and dudes to take care of.  Take the damn horse away and get me another; we gotta go ride.  Pain?  What pain?  Don’t cry, just suck up and ride.

My husband takes the horse away, rides him when they’re away from the scene of the crime, I might add, which really pissed me off.  Was this any time to train the darned horse, or maybe check to see if your wife’s bleeding has stopped?

He got me a different horse, I swallowed my pride, the blood just dried up, and I didn’t wash up and check my wounds until we rode into camp that night.  As the dishes were out drying, the horses on the high line, and the guests still gathered around the last embers of the campfire, my husband lay next to me under our tarp and was still pretty clueless what he did to deserve the silent treatment.  Go figure.  Guys.

So I ended up with some scars from that day to join with a few others.  But the deepest scar was internal; vulnerability.  I woke up.  And the day was not dawning bright and clear, I might add, but heavy and dark and foreboding. My confidence was shattered.  I couldn’t ride that horse.  If I couldn’t ride that one, how many others could toss me off?  Come on.  I know, I’ve heard and said a hundred times that part of riding is learning to fall.  I can fall.  But I can’t ride a big buck and honestly, I don’t want to.  I want a good horse and a good ride.  I’m a 45 year old woman.  Add that to the fact that I never was a 25 year old boy with a little chip on my shoulder and a big fat ego to bolster.

That was a few years ago.  A few years during which time I rode 500 or 600 miles a year and sat precariously in the saddle every single mile.  I saw myself flying off hundreds of time, though no one else did, and it never happened except in my over active imagination and under active ego.  I won’t tell my guests this, as my “job” was to keep them safe and instill confidence in them.  A job I think I did pretty well.  So, does that mean I faked it well?

And what about today?  Ah ha.  Here’s the good news.  I’m getting it back.

But shoot, look at the time.  I gotta get back to work, and so do you.  So enough for today.  I’ll finish this story another time.

Awaiting rain

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

 

Awaiting rain

Elusive, tempting teasing taunting

Powerful, passionate and cruel

I would start with a single cloud

Full of hope and promise

Growing filling building like dreams

But instead there is smoke to the south

Wind from the west

Endless blue as far one can see to the north

A mountain blocking my view to the east

The sacred four directions

Not quite forsaking though perhaps a bit defiant

As the land flourishes in her new red hillsides

Like a new dress worn for the very first time

As the world turns and the springs dry

And the once boggy fields can be crossed on foot

And still I can imagine

The sound and smell and feel of hard cold high mountain rain

Saturating hot flesh and dry land

Lush fresh new youthful green of the Aspen’s full leaves

In contrast to callous ground

The first drops will land and leave tiny craters in the sand

Kick up perfect puffs of dust on the trail

That which once was a single track

And now we have a road

You will hear them coming from a quarter mile away

Prepare yourself

Step to the side

Hide like a doe in the trees

Far enough to be safe from dry earth kicked up in their wake

Or the splatter of mud that will be churned to paste after the rains

They will ride by

Pass you unawares

And feel they have conquered the mountain

With their little motor

And sense of security

Driving along side by side

Smiling

Like a bunch of ignorant beasts

Clearly where they don’t belong

As long as the gates to the zoo are left open.