Author: Gin Getz

Enwrapped by vibration

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Lightning on the other side of the Divide where the clouds are steel grey.  A blinding bolt in the dark sky. A mirror image remains for a moment even through closed lids. Holding still, I wait and count and listen for the inevitable thunder.  Further away than I would have guessed.

The sound reverberates in a broad booming circle about us, bounding from the hard face of the mountains all around as we stand there in the center, protected in our little fenced yard, holding our spade and hoe. Waiting, awaiting, the certain sound and stirring.

Enwrapped by vibration.

The rain won’t reach us today.  I would like to smell the sweetness on warm soil and have the lettuce seeds and newly transplanted rhubarb and bunching onion softly sprinkled. But I can tell. The heavy clouds will loop around and loosen their load elsewhere, always elsewhere it seems. Except for when it’s here, and then it seems we are in the storm forever, forgetting what before and after sunshine feel like when the cold of mountain hail and rain surround us.

Not quite the banana belt. It was twenty five degrees this morning.  We’re still a month away before morning temps might remain above freezing.  And then, even then, I’d be a fool to count on it.

Quite contrary.

How does your garden grow?

Talk about an uphill battle, but I’m going to do it again this year. I’m going to try.  Lettuce and chard and kale, potatoes, onions and herbs.  Seeds spread out on my kitchen table of what I used to plant for spring crops when I gardened in California, here will grow in summer.  If I’m lucky.

And this year I’m cheating.  My husband brought me home starts from the greenhouse.  Tomatoes, peppers and flowers.  Geraniums in the boldest reds, so many shades, shocking and vibrant and really quite sexy.   Just ask the hummingbird who already found his way through the open sliding glass door to get closer to the brilliant blossoms.  Silly little birds.  Still seem so oddly out of place in the high country, yet manage just fine, even without the sickly amount of sugar so many humans think they “need.”

The chance of rain passes us by.  The dark clouds dissipate, or hide on the other side of the Divide, which is possible, for I would not see them for days if they chose to remain there.  And in the evening as the clear sky darkens for the day, the dog and I walk from the yard back towards home, smoke from the wood stove slowly waving like a happy dog tail as the temperature has already dropped to the mid thirties.

The smell of burning cedar.  Scraps of the posts pulled up, rearranged, fencing removed and replaced, because nothing stays the same, and we always find better ways. Even better places for the garden, now tucked in closer to the cabin, a little more protection from the extreme elements of the mountain.

We stop to listen, just the dog and me. There is a snipe’s flickering mating call to one side of us, and the bellow of geese on the other.  I imagine them there, perhaps no more than a pair, following the black ribbon of the river up to higher grounds until they settle in to the concealing darkness, wait out the night, and celebrate the first of light on the mountain in the morning with broad wings and joyous voices taking flight above the now silver flow of our Mighty Rio Grande.

What matters most

/ Gin Getz / 6 Comments

This is personal.  I should be more inclusive, more open, universal, involving.  After all, this is a blog.  A conversation with the public.  And here I am today unable to see beyond my little world, my mountain, my family.  Unable to find words or stories that might incorporate you.  Except that I think perhaps you might understand this.  In one way or another.   Your own way, I shall hope.

So today, I’ll use you as my sounding board. Feel free to bounce back.  Sharing thoughts I’m only starting to clarify.  Not the most profound perhaps, but stuff that matters most to me.

It’s about mothering.

No surprise that’s on my mind as yesterday was Mother’s Day.  A “Hallmark Holiday” my own mother used to call it.  But I think this one is more. I think it’s an excuse to remember how important the “job” of mothering is, or at least, can be.  A position that lasts “until death do us part” and beyond, for no good mother forgets or lets go of a child lost before her. Likewise does a child of any age not recover from the loss of good mother.  An irreplaceable void remains.

Mothering.  A position that goes without proper recognition, title or salary, but without which the world would fall apart at the seams.

And then again, I’ve met mothers not worthy of the title.  But I’m not going there today.

Mothering has meant the world to me.  To be a mother.  Nothing has formed me, transformed me, more.  And then last year when I first lost the daily point and purpose, the focus, title and self definition, when my son went off to college, I was lost.  But I learned that a grown son is still a son, and a mother (a good one) will always be there with love, concern, support, care. To nurture by nature.  Relationships, like everything else in life, change.  You figure it out if you try.

And ours has changed.  At 45, I am not the nurturing fresh young mother with filling breasts at the sound of a baby’s cry (perhaps an image only a nursing mother can relate to). I am closer to the age of a grandmother. I am somewhere in between.  I am enjoying the adult son.  Our team has easily evolved into the new classification of three adults in one home.  I’ve tried to treat him as such for a few years now, awaiting his maturity to fill the position, balanced with my poking and prodding (I prefer to call it “encouragement”).  Now I try to reduce the latter.  I have to learn.  It is hard.  I worry.  I get protective.  And still, I must step back and allow.  That’s the big part of parenting that’s not so easy, but so very, very important.  Finding the balance between holding back (holding one’s tongue!) and encouragement, compliment, and support of one another as any positive adult relationship should.  Helping each other be the best we each can be.

Has it been hard to watch him grow and go?  No!  Nothing could please me more, for I take such pride in his success.  I am not sure how to describe this.  It is not a personal pride of, “Oh look at how well he’s doing.  Dang, I must have done a great job as a mother!”  No.  It’s so different.  Rather it is quiet as I step back and observe, and swell with such incomparable adoration of watching the one you love more than your life learn to make the most of his own.

And where does that leave me as a mother of a grown son?  Learning to redefine myself.  Am I no longer a mother?  Perhaps not in the day to day, the chores and duties, the ball and chain and lack of sleep and abundant lectures.  Then what?  I am not sure yet.  It is changing as I write, with he nearby, writing on his own, no longer needing my prodding, direction, encouragement… Not needing?  Perhaps learning himself to do without.

This one is deep.  I could ramble on forever as I figure this out.  It is fascinating to me.  But by the time I figure it out, chances are, the relationship, the players, will be changing once again.  And yes, once again, I do have work to do, duties besides mothering (or just thinking about it) are calling… so…

So this one is personal.  Please allow this of me.  I always wish to try to include you, my reader, but perhaps this one just is about me and mine.  And then again, perhaps it is more than that.  For perhaps you too know what it is like for a relationship to evolve, revolve, turn about, and end up exactly where it should be, which isn’t always where we expect it to be, but hopefully is someplace even better…

Hardened by the season

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

Hiding behind the veil of the softening trees.

I learn to find my place and keep my space as the tourists begin to flock, moving in like the geese soon moving on from the delta flats where they hatched their young.

Swelling of the pussy willows.

Cirrus clouds to breach an otherwise stark blue sky above me.

Soft.  The Aspen are filling with lace of caterpillar like seed pods draping delicately from their softening branches.

The subtle art of learning to stand up softly… when I see my technique is much too harsh.

Soft.  Small as I may be, this is not a word many might use for me.  At times I wish it were.  But life, or destiny, the way I was born, the path I chose, or the way things just turned out had something else in mind.  I’m not saying “tough” is good, but chances are, you’d use that word to describe me more than “soft.”

I guess it started as a skinny little girl when the biggest girl in class was after me.  You know the type. For dramatic purposes, I’ll paint her portrait as a young female version of Lennie Small from “Of Mice and Men.”

Jenny Tole was her name. Big boned and slow witted we said at the time.  Probably an unkind and untrue description.  Children are too often cruel.  She came from the wrong side of town and I never remember her around much past fourth grade.  Don’t know if she dropped out or moved on.

I became the object of her attention, me, the smallest kid in class, always sitting front row center in every class picture at the suggestion of the wide eyed and every smiling photographers, probably so I wouldn’t get lost, and being closer to the lens, perhaps I would appear larger…

It started as a rumor.  “Did you hear?  Jenny’s got it in for you…” And spread like wild fire until the entire class was abuzz with the prospect of the ensuing battle.  And I just remember feeling they all felt I would triumph.  Though half her size and weight, at least that’s how it seemed at the time, they laughed like it was a done deal.  No one would whoop me.  Why?  I do not know.  So I tried to convince myself I could win a backyard brawl, though I don’t believe I had ever hit anyone besides my brothers before then.  And the prospect truly frightened me.

I remember being sick to my stomach, the tangled gut feeling every time I walked (ran!) home from school wondering and waiting to see if she was in the bushes about to attack.  For the first time in my life, I didn’t want the school bell to ring.

Now what I don’t remember is exactly what I did, so probably no big dramatic battle scene must have ensued.  Sorry, I know that would be fun to hear.  However I have these memories of turning to face her, feeling a bit like David against Goliath, though somehow at the time being overwhelmed with this HUGE feeling and imagined myself actually towering over Jenny.  I felt strong, mighty, powerful.  A dark red rage.  I would not be scared any longer!  I remember being in her face, pointing my finger, and putting her back in her place.

No punches flew. Whatever I said, it worked.  I think we even became friends after that, which I guess is probably what she wanted in the first place. Ginny and Jenny.  The mouse and the elephant.

I told myself harshness is how to handle people. Stand up!  Be strong!  I find myself still saying that. I know no other way.  I try to learn, and usually fail.  As one friend said, sooner or later, they’re going to disappoint you.  And I will you. So why do we even try?  Such socially strangled creatures we are. How dependent upon one another.  No matter how I try and fail, try I still always do.

The harsher side of self.  Longing for an internal softening.

The land here, my husband says, is harsh.  A winter away in a softer land has reminded him anew.  There was soft, pink, moist, mild.  Here the sun, wind, air burns, cracks, parches with little comfort from hard rocks and rushing river.

And yet of course it is the people which will always hurt more than the elements. So against them must I don the heaviest cloak.  And the softness that I allow myself alone on the mountain, letting down my guard when no one but nature surrounds me, closes off and shuts down for the season as the sentinel arrives to stand guard and protect.  The inevitable conflicts await, approaching with the season.

Mid week in early May

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

By lunch the snow has melted. The grass is a shade greener. The high country remains frosted and the air that comes over the Divide from the West has a strong bite.

I take off on a quick walk to burn energy that might otherwise drive the boys nuts.  I’m not good at not doing much and the morning snow and afternoon mud has slowed me down.  The dog joins me, chasing off two separate bands of elk along the way. They are shocked that this little beast would run straight up the mountain towards them as they side hill into the trees.  He is courageous.  I cannot say fearless, for the dark of night and high waters still frighten him, and for good reason. But he is bolder than any other dog I have known.  Only now, after almost two years together, have I learned to understand and appreciate his big, brave heart.  He is a lot of dog. Not physically, for he is only seventy pounds or so, but his spirit, his soul.  Yes, my friends.  Dogs do have soul, and this one has a big one.

By evening I am finally tired enough to sit. I pour a glass of wine and visit with my boys on our deck, soaking in the last of the sun before it drops behind the far side of Pole Mountain.  Warmth on the back of my head as I gaze forward across our yard ripped up from gardening mayhem, across the pasture with the horses grazing upon the moist spring grasses while two cormorants that just arrived back in the ‘hood mill about the undisturbed, across the hills which ebb and flow down to the swollen banks of the Reservoir, high with waters retained from cutbacks, making the drought conditions appear so plentiful.  How far reaching our view from the front deck can be if we take the time to consider the reaches and impact of the expanses before us.

Today I am at peace.  Home is bliss.  And yet it is not because of the beautiful place. I am not so shallow to be impressed by no more than a pretty face. It is because of what we bring here, have done here, do here, build and grow here, give back rather than just take.  It’s a love affair. A swirling, churning, mixed up romance, at times still or drowning and other times exhilarating like wild white waters.  And like that of my marriage and relationship with growing son, becomes deeper, stronger, richer with time.

Going away and returning has taught me it is not the place.  For this place is also tainted with some of the ugliest I have seen in life.  I cannot bury these burdens but learn to rise above.

Sherie wrote, “You found home.  Hope the feeling stays.”

I know it won’t. I’ve learned that much. For you’re right, it is a feeling, and emotions change with the wind. They have no substance nor permanence, but impact us so strongly if we allow them to, and too often, I do.  This feeling too will fluctuate with the seasons and moods and events that shape us far more than the mountain. It’s not our surroundings that ground us, but our heart and soul, and yes, our loved ones.  I’m not above counting on and relying upon those I love to help me learn to live with not only where I am, but who I am.

On the outside, you might say a place like this is easier to find that peace within.  But you’re looking only on the surface.  And peace is not so shallow.  Look deep, stir the waters, and see more than the reflection in muddy waters.  The trials, tribulations and traumas I’ve been challenged with here have been harder and more painful than any I have been tested with in other places.  Ultimately, they helped (or rather, are helping, for it is forever a fluctuating process) me learn to find and make peace within myself, of myself, not because of my environment.

Likewise, with Don’s comment, and others you may see from Al, for example:  They are not as obvious, those natural, wild beauties found within city boundaries, but they are there, and open and free for the few bold enough to seek them out.  I was raised right outside and then within NYC.  I learned more about natural peace, beauty and serenity there than I did after six years in the barren hills of New Mexico. Because it mattered to me and I took the time to look.  Sitting silent along the Hudson piers to watch the sun set cast golden orange on the gentle ripples of the then foul waters.  Climbing to the rooftop to find the greatest silence and find a pocket view of the night sky sharing a secret moment with the full moon.  Like Sherie noticing all those things that so many might not see, the frogs, the sounds, the squirrels… the magic and beauty.  I cannot tell you how many near to here are surrounded with so much and see so little. It is more than the environment.  It is our heart and soul and ability to see and feel.  Or not.  For there is no doubt that wide open spaces can craft closed minds. It is always our challenge to open up, see, feel, taste and touch the world around us.  Dive in!  Or skim the surface.  The choice is ours.  Me, I’d rather dive in, fight the currents from time to time dragging me in a direction I do not wish to go.  And deal with the frigid waters, stirred up mud, and scratching rocks at the bottom  just for the chance to float calm and serene beneath the clouds reflecting on the glassy surface supporting me when the wind is still and water and mind calm for no more than a brief but beautiful repose.

(A friend and reader wrote yesterday to mention how interesting the conversations and writing in the comments can be.  Mine, yours, the prompt and interaction. I don’t know how many readers take a look at these, but I do know more of you still prefer to write me personally and directly – and that’s fine – however – sometimes there is a response I want to share or continue the conversation with, and I’ll take the risk to include it in a post – just to be sure you read it!)

Home again

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

We have returned from the weekend away, bringing Forrest home with us. A sense of fulfillment and completion for me, having my family together as a team. The beginning of a well earned summer break for him.  Some break. Building, fencing, digging ditch.  May sound hard to many, but you know we love it all.

He returns to a house that looks the same as it did when he moved out how long ago, when we all moved out, renting out our home and moving to the Little Cabin to increase our cash flow, trying to create a change that seemed so slow to come.  Since then, we moved to around five times, including 1400 miles to northern Washington.  And then back again.  What a lot of work!  And I wouldn’t have it any other way. (Though hiring a moving service seems like a tempting option.) Put super simply, it was all good.

Change. It came, in a big way, and beautifully, and reminds me we are in constant state of change, only sometimes we don’t see it, and other times we may deny it.

And yet, on the surface, it appears we are right where we started.  Same beautiful house, hand crafted, all our years of woodwork and refinement, rough and rustic though it still feels, just the way we like it.  Warm, welcoming. Few come into our home without noting how “comfortable” it is.  The pictures hanging on the wall just where they belong.  Sofas, pots, pans, everything in place as it once was.  Sounds of the woodstoves crackling, one to heat the house against morning temperatures in the teens, the other to cook our breakfast, Forrest’s favorite in a big cast iron skillet ready to be set in the oven. Steller’s Jays pecking at the same feeder even they too remember right where it used to be.

And the view from the window as it has been for half our days here:  white.  For just when we were settling into the balmy spring that felt like flatlands, enticing me to think I might manage growing a tomato or pepper, we are reminded.  These are high, harsh mountains.  And that little bit of snow might just be the reminder we need to show us where we belong.  Home.  Here and now.  We’ll see about tomorrow.

Much more to say, my head seems swirling.  I can’t wait to show Forrest the things that are just as he remembers, and have changed so much. Off to stoke the fires, stir the pot, and wake the boys.

“Call it what you will” Change

/ Gin Getz / 10 Comments

One advantage to beetle kill.  It’s not too hard to find a dead tree to fall  across the high spring waters.  And then I am on the other side.  Where I wanted to be.  As if I wasn’t far enough.  Not for me.

We are playing hooky from work.  I’m tired of fencing and moving the soil from my garden beds by shovel and wheelbarrow from the old place to the new.  The sun seduces and we are lured by the sound of the creek beside which we tread, as sweet as the Pied Piper calling…

We walk and walk surrounded by last year’s bunch grass, leafless trees and the swelling buds of the willows.  We see old tracks of the moose, set when the ground was still soft and damp.  New tracks of elk in the dusty top soil.  Our tracks.  None others.  This matters to me.

Dry and dusty.  Bogs that we have held our breath crossing horseback for fear of punching through and sinking in are already firm.  I don’t remember when they last were muddy.

The high country looks like early June.  Shrinking snow banks and exposed windward slopes. My husband kicks up powdered dirt behind him on his motor bike. Grass crunches underfoot. The creeks are running rather full but clear and we wonder if the high brown waters are finished for the season.  It used to peak in early June.  Then mid May.  This year it seems to me it was the end of April.

But there is no global warming.  Then what do you want to call it?  Call it something.  For something it is.  I don’t know what it is or why or how.  But I see it.  Look around.  Can’t you see the beetle kill, once green hillsides turning brown, the dried up bogs, the high country already melting, springs and little creeks going dry in early May?

Just a fluke year?  Then how come it’s been progressively worse since I arrived on the scene after the driest year on record, the start of the big drought?  I keep track of temperatures and in the last ten years, we’ve not seen much change.  But we are seeing the springs drying up, the aquifers dropping, bogs turning solid and hard. Birds arriving and nesting sooner.  High waters earlier each year.  This is nothing?

It is something.  You are not blind.

It is something.  I don’t know what, but I’m not clinging to the comfort of a closed mind.  I’m not claiming I have the answers or gripping to ones I want to believe in.  It’s not politics or religion.  It’s real and it’s kind of sad.  And maybe it’s a natural cycle.  Who knows?  But how can you be such a fool to believe that all of man’s raping of the land and burning of fuels to power our ever growing needs and greeds in such a short period of time would have no impact?

Only I believe the earth is stronger than you or me.  So though you may have a hundred years of coal left to burn, have at it.  Then fade away.  The earth might actually be better off without us.

An early summer tourist arrives on the mountain for a stay and I hear a generator being run for a microwave oven while we’re getting our power from the sun and burning dead wood that is all around us. Wood that will burn if not in my woodstove then when?  Or will man be God enough to suppress the wildfires and let the old wood rot.  Which up here where it is high and dry is longer than my lifetime.

And perhaps that’s it. We forgot how to look beyond our lifetime.

I want to leave this world a better place for my child, his children, and the generations after them.

There are consequences to every actions.  Cause and effect.

We are not God.  We are not Mother Earth.  We pretend we are one and think we can handle controlling the other, but I can’t say I’m impressed.  Some say we are stewards of the Earth.  I think we’re doing a crappy job.  We take what we want.  Burn, slash, rip and tear.  It’s all about bigger and better, shiny and slick.

I don’t know.  I look around on a day like today, with the only human trace a small path through the woods or drawn across the hillside, and I think it’s pretty darned beautiful out there. And I don’t think you or I could do much better than that.

What do you choose to do?  What do you believe? And then, what do you see?  There before you.  Not just books and papers and scientific studies and biased reports.  But there before. For real.  Open your eyes and look. And here, in a land you tell me love, though often no more than a week a year if you are lucky enough to fit that time into your busy schedule.

If you can’t see it, your eyes are more closed than your heart.

Compromise

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

On Monday as I clicked “publish” for my self-absorbed post full of insecurity and self doubt, I read it is my hundredth post at my “new” blog.  Added to 471 posts published on highmountainmuse.com, and 112 on highmountainhorse.blogspot.com.  As one friend says, that’s a lot of words.

I somehow question if there should be more.  Not more words.  But… more… I don’t know what. Answers.  Like, why am I doing this?  Where is this going? What is the point?  And even as I am unable to answer these questions, I continue to… write.

More… what? Purpose, direction, results.  Something concrete.  Something to show for all the time put into it. Something more than a lot of words.

Horse people will get this part.  Cyndee writes:  “I have a tee-shirt that says ‘The Ride is the Reward’. You know, all those hours spent feeding, mucking, doctoring & worrying in exchange for the complete freedom of time in the saddle, time to just ‘be’ – always looking for those few fleeting strides of perfect unity with your horse? There is no financial reward, no ‘atta boys’, it is simply who we are. Maybe you need a tee shirt that says ‘The Write is the Reward’.”

Some days all I see are more unanswerable questions, more desire for expression, improvement, diving deeper and/or soaring to new heights… and no interest in writing less.  More, more, more!  If only that “more” would get me somewhere.  Alas, it is the journey, not the destination.  So I am often told.  So I would like to believe.  And so I will question regularly.

Questions.  Compromise.  Trying to get somewhere but we don’t always know where “there” is.  And perhaps it does not matter.  Yes, it is the journey… I tell myself again.

We start off heading in one direction.  We learn and grow along the way (hopefully) and may find ourselves somewhere far from where we thought we were headed.

There are days I wish I married a farmer instead of a mountain man.  To be grounded, on flat land, in routine.  Though just as affected by the elements.  And just as connected with nature.  But we don’t choose who we fall in love with.  I think it’s one of the few things that is really out of our control.

But a mountain mama I suppose is what I would have been called even before coming here.  Those who knew me then… running a bit wild in the woods with my baby on my back and a couple of dogs beside me; quiet mornings alone with my dairy cow, my head resting on her flank, talking in a soft and soothing voice as my hands are warmed on her generous teats; learning to horse pack at the expense of innocent children who trusted me (hey, we always made it home alive…); out there in the rain with a shovel in hand, the moisture dripping from my face equal parts internal and external elements.

Compromise.  I think of this now.  I think of this often.  We can’t have it all. What matters most?  What are we willing to work for?  What are we willing to leave behind?  For at some point, something has to be left behind.

Here and now. The compromises to be here.  Extremes, so many extremes, from the elements to the tourists to the lack of air.  Shortness of breath as a way of breathing.  Wool hats and down jackets year round.  The endless chore of firewood, bucking, splitting, hauling, burning. Thirty days frost free and leaves on the trees for but four months. Complications with altitude that kills innocent colts unexpectedly.  The inability to fatten a pig or find a way to keep a small herd of cattle or flock of sheep year round.  Parched lips and bloody noses.  Sunburn and wrinkles.  In-laws, oh those few dreaded in-laws, who choose conflict and control, meanness and manipulation as a way of life. And the void of a sense of community, which became more bittersweet a compromise to be without after having spent the winter a part of such a wonderful one.

And what do I have?  Silence.  Solitude. Wilds.  Brilliant sunshine and radiant views.  Endless miles and mountains to wander.  Peace and love for the land like I have never felt before. Connection.  Admiration.  Adoration.  Of mountain, sky, river and air.

Why here, I wonder?  Perchance like falling in love.

Why we are such reflective beasts, when all other creatures are content focusing on a good rest, sex, survival and the next meal.  Ha, you say, we do that too.  Yes, that and more.  So much more. Too much at times.  How complicated our lives are due to thought alone.

So the best I can do on days like this is put down my shovel or my fencing tool, be still, take a deep breath, and look up at the sky with the ever changing clouds more brilliant than a painting could ever capture, cradling me and my wild world, and become lost in the roar of the spring river echoing like a distant orchestra from the cliffs above the mighty Rio, and count my blessings as a flock of blackbirds swirls around me in a joyous cacophony.

Food for thought

/ Gin Getz / 16 Comments

For a rare treat, we have dinner plates of perfectly pan fried fresh caught trout on our laps in front of the fire and watch a movie.  Julie & Julia.

When I was 17, I returned to the states from a year in France where I started as an au pere and found myself diving deep into the depths of the divine world of French cooking. I figured I would be a chef because French cooking was all I really had, all I really knew or could do.  And I learned that wasn’t such a bad thing, either.  Went over pretty well at dinner. Alas, practicality proved stronger than passion, and the need for a job just to pay to eat won over the ability (or rather, lack there of) to pay to learn to cook… In other words, a quick stint waitressing (where I quickly learned I was better cooking food than serving food), then settling into office work won out over the Culinary Institute.

Though I’d bet you my husband is pretty glad I did learn and do love to cook.

But here I am still not a “real” writer.  I’m still not paid to be published. In an attempt to act professional, I even requested a humble stipend from a local magazine that features my work regularly, and I’ve yet to hear a response.  Gee, thanks.

It’s not discipline I lack.  I’m all for the daily early waking allowing me time to sneak in my writing before my “real” day begins.  In those early hours, I managed to finish my first full length manuscript.   It’s been accepted by a literary agent, so I thought I’d be a regular name at Barnes and Nobles by now.  But alas, it is somehow stuck in that literary limbo and not going anywhere.  “Be patient,” he tells me.  Trust.  I’m not patient, and losing confidence.  Not that I had much to begin with.  I’m not doing the “self publish” thing.  Say what you will, “real” writers don’t go there.

So, here I am trying to justify rejections, getting plenty of practice, and thinking more often than not now that my book is never going anywhere and this blog is just my relief and release for, what would you call it, creative expression?  Oh, I am grateful my husband “lets” me take the time to write, but come on, seriously, what the hell am I doing here?  How can I justify the time I’ve put into this writing, and then commit to the next manuscript when I’ve yet to see a penny from all this time spent… playing around with words?

Whatever.  I’m going to write.  Whether you read it or not.  A quiet voice along a raging river.  Words that flow like water in my ever active imagination, but get swept away by the wild winds, never to be heard from again.

On wisdom

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

A friend forwards an article.  Wendell Berry in the news.  Had the honor of presenting the prestigious Jefferson Lecture.  The highest honor awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.  I read on and become immersed with his words and wisdom.  Click here to read his lecture.

His words tempt me to dig deeper within the fields of my imagination, yearnings, understanding of what matters most.  I share with you the following quotes from Mr. Berry:

 

“What I stand for is what I stand on.”

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.”

“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

 

I think after that, there is no need to say more for now.  Perhaps it is time rather to work the fallow fields of my mind.  And from there, see what I have sown.

Projects

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

We return.  Settle in.  New found passions and a sense of commitment stirring stronger than I realized were possible.  My marriage?  Well, yes, that too.  But something else. With the land. We tended her, struggled, built upon her, fought for her, won her, turned our back and walked away… and now have returned with a sense of dedication and duty greater than ever.

As I wrote a distant friend yesterday, “I am only beginning to understand.”  It’s like waking up from a long sleep, or finally feeling well after a dragging sickness.  A shocking clearness like evening light on pasture after a heavy rain.

And with devotion comes obligation.  A sense of duty.  Work.  The more we love, the more we care, the more we want to do.

So, this brings us to the projects.

Now when all you have are seventeen acres, and five of them are across the river, of course you need to get over there.  It is usable land, and more important, good grass, and chances are you have hungry horses that otherwise don’t have enough. So how do you get there, get your stock there, take care of fencing and grazing and tend to your land without wading, swimming or skipping over thin ice?

The idea is quite simple.  Just a little foot bridge.  For years we’ve toyed with ideas, for months we fine tuned plans, and finally for weeks we began to work out logistics and gather the material.  It’s really no big deal.  Just a couple timbers across the water faced with rough cut planks.

Now, all we have to do to start is get the materials to the river.  No big deal, right?  Just a stone’s throw away.  But that stone would be dropping down a cliff.  Almost two hundred feet.  Steep, rocky, stark and rough.

Seven days later… putting in over ten hours a day of excavation, digging, ripping, smoothing, grading (and definitely some shaking in our boots, because this one was more than a little scary, and I’d betcha not OSHA approved)… all while perched on the side of this precarious cliff… the little trail is complete… and we’re exhausted.

Ready to put in that little foot bridge?  Ah!  Another complication.  For with the early melt out and heat wave, high water has come early.  This is no time to be dragging timbers across the river rushing brown as chocolate milk.  So, we get a break.  From this project, that is.  Time to work on a few of the others while waiting for the run-off to subside.

For most, this is a place to get away, to rest, kick back, sit around and just watch the clouds go by.  A vacation place.

Somehow I don’t think it will ever be that for me.  And you know what?  I wouldn’t want it any other way.  It is the blood, sweat and tears that have made it mine.

It is that sense of commitment which both allows and demands that we remain.