Plant trees. Got a dozen in the ground on our fifth day here. Native aspen and baby blue spruce planted on the hill behind the outhouse. Just feels good to give back to the land, whether we are here to enjoy them, or someone else is.
Second thing is this. Get the garden in. Well, it’s not much of a garden. Eight feet by thirty inches. “What are you gonna grow?” our neighbors back in CA ask. “Radishes?” Not much else would fit in that space.
But I’m hoping it’s just enough space to fit in the plants I started and brought. A little kale (admittedly, the chickens “pruned” these plants rather severely). A few pepper plants, a zucchini, some herbs A half dozen tomato plants already laden with green fruit because they were born in raised in California. Don’t know if they’ll ever turn red, but a gals gotta do what a gals gotta do. And this gal grows things. And yes, maybe I’ll get a few radishes going because seems like you always can grown them.
Admittedly I’m missing the abundance of fresh veggies I was able to provide for us year round, but Bob reminds me: There were no fresh veggies when we moved to California either. There was no garden! These things take time.
You gotta start somewhere, so this is how we’re starting.
A chilly 33 degrees this morning, but chillier when I walk the dog at dawn down by the creek and spook off a couple of cow elk bedded in the frosty bunch grass.
Now the sun is up and our world is already warming. In this elevation, that sun is intense!
So is the elevation.
My nose bled last night (again) and this morning I have (another) headache. I’m surprised and disappointed to be having trouble adjusting to the elevation, after living at 1,500 feet in Northern California for the past six years. I think we’re at 10,200 feet here. I spent 17 years living year round at 9,800 feet and didn’t have trouble then. Does this additional 400 feet really make such a difference, or am I getting too soft and old to handle this?
~
Now that more is going on here –with both building and writing – I will try to post twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. It’s good discipline for me to finish my thoughts, as well as a challenge to honor and hone my craft. Plus it might keep my ramblings a little shorter each time. As always, my hope is that you will enjoy reading and seeing as much as I enjoy sharing with you. I’d really appreciate your feedback – please let me know.
On the road with the rooster crowing at every truck stop and sleeping beside the horses at night.
The sound of the familiar, the feel of home. It’s not our first time on the road.
With a load containing chickens, horses, hay and hoses, tools, bicycles, the quad, a dozen pots filled with tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and kale, and the last of the lumber we milled – this is our most eclectic load yet. Our rig could be a site riding across Highway 50. Only there, we fit right in.
Two years ago, when I set out across this West with my horses on a Long Quiet Ride, what I wanted most was to fall in love with life again. I did. And in the process, I fell in love with this country, more than ever before. Being on the road again brings that feeling back again. Love for my country. Love for the ever changing beauty of the land, and of the people I get to meet. Love for the man beside me.
Funny it takes driving a little bit back east from California to breathe in the essence of what I expect the West to be. Maybe because the first place out West that called me was Santa Fe. Thus the smell of sage brush, salt flats and juniper berries, pinon smoke and a film of fine dust open my heart with a wakening surge of spaciousness that few times and places before allowed me to feel.
Wide open spaces, wild horses, a seemingly endless horizon that our rig chases through dusty air with not a tree in sight. Big trucks, fine thin dirt coating every single thing you touch, and dust devils out in the open brush, turkey vultures effortless soaring, and some indescribable feeling of freedom found under these uncontained wild skies.
Out there in the middle of this big open sky and seemingly endless air of spaciousness, it feels like your heart and mind, your spirit and soul, are all ripped open boundless as well.
I wish to live with a heart wide open where wild horses can roam free.
And then we are there.
Another hail storm passes through and I’m holed up in here writing to you inside what will be home for this season – a 14 foot camper circa 1964 with a pan on the little bit of floor between me and the pup, catching water that drips from the skylight, and a little counter cluttered with stuff that hasn’t yet found a place to reside for the season in the already stuffed shelves. There’s a small bed we can spoon sleep in (sometimes with the puppy as well), and a little table that will serve as kitchen, drafting table and writing desk for the season. As for plumbing, there’s a nearby outhouse, and when we finishing unpacking the trailer, a little wooden shed in which we can bath out of the cold which this place just is. As for electricity, we invested in a small portable solar system just big enough to (hopefully) keep our power tools in power, our devices operational, and provide the occational, luxurious StarLink connection. The nearest cell phone service is down the dirt road a good fifteen miles or so, but that’s nothing new for us.
Yesterday ended with store bought cheesecake (nothing like the kind Lisa makes back in CA) shared in that little bed while over Bob’s shoulder I watched a band of cow elk meandering along our path. This morning started with two big bull moose crossing pasture so close I thought it was my horses. It also began with ice in the dog water bowl and a heavy frost across our land. If you don’t think I’m regretting leaving that heavy chore coat back in California… I should have known better, but it’s hard to think of frost and freezing and chill when you’re sweating in shorts and flip flops.
Warm coats and blankets and a sense of patience and humor and we’ll get us through this season well.
Before we begin building, there’s the all essential setting up camp, our living situation, ensuring a safe and warm place for the dog, horses and chickens and us. No bragging rights here; it’s boring but necessary and stuff we forget how long it takes. But you can’t get to work without having your make shift home life function. So you gotta get camp set up and situated with things like unpacking the trailer, building shelves, clearing a work space, gathering fire wood, putting up corral panels, setting up water systems, a place to bathe (we still haven’t done that, so if you’re thinking of visiting, you may want to wait). Stuff like that. Not the exciting stuff to share, and certainly doesn’t feel like “progress” but it’s all part of the process.
Part of the process of arriving, too, is connecting slowly with the land around you. Where to look for the elk and moose. What wild flowers here are beginning their bloom. Who are the nearest neighbors and what blessings of connection do they share. What’s the best way to dip water from the creek for our camp. And of course, setting up camp.
These things take time. Now I’m kicking myself for taking more time getting the garden in and our caretaker set up back in California than anticipating what we would need here. But that’s part of the process too, part of the journey, figuring it out as we go along. And knowing we’ll be just fine.
The chickens settled right in to their new digs, They’re out there scratching in some newly leveled dirt, and didn’t miss a day laying eggs even on the road. It takes us longer, but we’ll get there too. Not laying eggs, of course, but we too will be scratching around in the dirt for sure.
Adjusting. Like a snake shedding her skin. Leaving a land already sizzling in heat waves and where fire danger is the hot topic around town. Returning to the high, wild, rough and rugged… and yes, just about always cold. Trading in those flip flops and shorty-shorts for wool socks, down vest and mittens. Yes, even in June.
Even in the trailer, my hands are cold and it’s a little hard to type. Oh, those poor tomato and pepper plants. They survived the trip. We’ll see how well they fare now living in Colorado’s high, wild country. For now, until we build a make shift greenhouse (one more project on the list), we’re putting them back in the trailer at night and covering them with cozy row cover, which comes in handy outside during the hail storms too.
Of course it’s rough to begin with. We’re used to that. Sort of. Funny we kinda forget just how hard some days can be.
You know how it is – we look back and remember the good stuff, allowing memories to be colored rose. It east to just reminisce on the laughter, the adventures, the stories, the love. And good, because there is always a lot of that too.
This time twenty something years ago, our first season together, in the one room cabin, the two of us and a nine year old boy, three cats, three dogs, and as usual, an outhouse near by.
That summer and for years afterward, living and working together, in tiny cabins, tents and construction zones, has been the norm for our home life. And often on the trail, guiding trips in the high country where we’d sleep under a tarp because tents were luxuries reserved for our guests.
When one house was done, before we even got a chance to settle in and unpack, we’d be back at it again.
This is the guy I married and the life I chose. The rough and rugged, high and wild, simple living is all good with me. The moving around, well, not so much. We’re both thinking that choosing to settle down might not be a bad idea after all. Mind you, the gypsy life is not what we wanted. It’s just that finding the place to remain forever never came to be. Life happened. Shit happened. And we moved on.
Will we have to again?
For now, all I know is, here we go again, said with both a bit of a heavy sigh and a little laugh upon my smiling lips.
And in that time and space between here and there and somewhere yet to be, there is a place, safe and warm and gentle as a quiet voice or hidden stream. Almost imperceptible, but there if we stand still long enough to hear. Like the pause between the inhale and the exhale. It is there. Just waiting for us to sit down and take a breath.
Early morning low sun through massive fir trees on the edge of the forest behind me casts shadows like daggers across the meadow where the dogs romp together in tall grasses still wet with dew.
Today I sit on a simple little bench built of scraps of lumber from this land. Surrounded by soothing sounds, sounds of the familiar – the river, the birds, wind through broad oak leaves. Sounds that hold us in place.
Held by branches of a sprawling ancient oak.
I lean back into thick bark of the old oak tree. She holds me. Her branches reach around me and I feel like maybe I belong. Right here, right now.
At least for now.
I feel her embrace, like a mother, not a lover, allowing me a safe place to simply sit and be. She asks for nothing in return. The Giving Tree. As if she were only here for me.
Maybe it’s the stillness, the solitude, the simplicity, the natural beauty of this precious moment that every moment could be. Or is it the knowing that I have chosen to leave her let again to fulfill some persistent longing. Whatever it is, it washes over and I find myself for some reason wanting to cry, something that rarely happens (and I’m glad for this) since leaving menopause a safe distance behind.
It’s not that I’m sad or mad. It’s more like some sort of melting, a letting go, a complete release now that the armor is gone. Allowing myself to feel the connection with the tree, the air, the light, the dogs and the world around. All of it. Big stuff. I’m just one grain of sand along an endless shore.
Connected. Belonging. No matter where I am, though for now I find myself here against this solid tree.
I bow my head humbly into my hands and offer a place for tears to land, but really, there is no need to cry. It just feels good to know I can. Knowing I am somewhere safe enough to do so, to express myself with nature, with a natural release, a shared sense of humanity, of all living things.
And that feeling of belonging, to the trees, the grass, my dogs, to all of it, the bigger picture…
Yeah, this is big stuff I’m feeling.
And when you feel like that, what else can a gal do but cry?
And as I prepare to leave, if only for a little while, I wonder:
What holds us in place?
What brings us together?
That is what I want to know.
That is what I’m curious about. This is what I want courage for.
There’s too much separation.
A rift, a void between us all, like a looming black hole and we’re all afraid to step in and see if there’s common ground in there. But I believe there is.
A common thread that holds us together if we dare to feel it. It’s that which connects us, reminds us we’re all in this together. Maybe it’s something shared, like emotion or beauty or awe. These are things we all know. Not only that “beauty in the eye of the beholder.” But beauty in the universal sense. Like looking at the moon from fifteen hundred miles apart. Far apart as we may be, we both stare in wonder.
Please, tell me there is. Solid ground between us. Somehow I need to know this as I find myself leaving something solid, and stepping into the air of unknown.
No more time for baby steps. Now it’s time to leap.
Still, somehow there’s plenty of time to run after baby chicks with my camera and cut a barrage of bouquets just because. But packing? Ha! It’s oddly easy to put that off, waiting until the last minute, then stressing and sweating and running around like a wild hare… But no matter how it gets done, it will get done, and we’ll be on the road. Again.
This time will be different. Every time is.
This time, we’ll be together, and that is a comfort I don’t take for granted. Always harder alone, but sometimes we gotta do that too.
This time too I know where we are heading and the route we’ll take to get there. At least I know this more or less. It’s high and wild, rough and raw and rugged, and I am drawn to all of that as well.
It’s that pioneer spirit.
Or is it gypsy blood?
Maybe I’m just curious.
Curiosity is a curious thing.
How will I know unless I try, taste, touch and see for myself?
For is not curiosity the driving force behind pioneers, travelers, explorers, and even us simple folks with itchy feet?
In any case, curiosity calls. Loud and clear. And as if lured by the Pied Piper, I’m dancing that way.
For now, we are here, and at this very moment, there is no place I’d rather be.
A morning cacophony of summer bird songs makes me smile before I even get out of bed. From the kitchen table over morning coffee, we watch chicks on pasture and goslings in the river and rose blooms so heavy the bushes bend in abundance. Finally the garden has hit that point of saturation where we’re harvesting more than we can eat each day. There are few things, like a barn full of hay and the firewood shed stacked full, that make me feel like a wealthy woman. Today, my coffee cup runs over.
Now begins the challenge of seeing all over again. The promise of polish in a very rough stone.
Fair thee well for now, my beloved Riverwind, my haven in the hills holding me as if between generous breasts with your untamed river wrapped around this mild, wild land and entangling my spirited heart along the way.
Things shifted overnight from, “We got this,” to “Holy crap, are we gonna get this?”
We leave in one week.
So far, the stress hasn’t come from thinking about building a cabin from the ground up in one season (we’ll see how far we get), at an elevation of 10,000 feet, while tending to horses, chickens, dog, and garden (yes, I am bringing a “portable garden”) all the while spending the summer together in a 14 foot camper circa 1964 without running water or electricity but with an outhouse nearby, a bucket to bathe in, and as usual, no where near neighbors, pavement or cell phone service. That said, we are setting up a simple solar system just large enough to charge cordless tools and operate starlink from time to time. Our compromise at modern living.
What has been harder is preparing to leave this place behind.
That’s where our attentions and efforts have been. Mowing, weedwacking, weeding, watering, organizing, tidying, trying to get this place in a space that will safely hold its center in our absence. And still finding time to be with beloved friends and neighbors, the river, the wind, the air and essence and little bit of tended wild that is this wonderful place.
And of course… there is this. The garden. My baby.
For anyone who has ever tended to the land with nearly as much love as we gave to our children, you know what it’s like.
Seems like this baby is always the biggest user of my time. Sucks time away and I don’t even notice it’s disappeared until I wonder where the day has gone and why I am so hungry. But you know, they say it’s those kinds of things, those things that you totally lose yourself in, and lose track of time, that show you where your true passion lies. Gardening is one. Most anything outdoors, I guess. Working the horses, riding, hiking, and writing inspired by the wild…
It wasn’t always that way, and maybe that’s part of what makes it so endearing to me.
Here are a few “before” pictures Bob pulled up of this land, to share the perspective of space where the garden now grows.
This was a baby born in a painful birth of being scraped with a skid steer to clear the open slate.
That was nearly six years ago. Almost six years of watching her grow, spread her wings, and fly, deeply grounded. Six years of hauling a shit load of top soil from the other side of our land, mail ordered earthworms, innumerable bags of steer manure and organic amendments to get her growing, and shoveling manure every single day I was here. Keeping the poop in the loop, and the loop ever growing.
And now, see what a few years can do?
To her, I have given blood, sweat and tears. Lots of tears. I cried a lot when we first broke ground. “It will never work, it will never grow, it will never be beautiful,” I would cry to Bob quite regularly. As usual, he’d just patiently listen and watch as I got back to work. I am glad to say I was wrong.
She has provided for us in kind year round. For a couple with a primarily vegetable based diet, that’s something to be proud of. Yes, it means we eat simply and yes, it gets boring at times. Believe me, by March we’re usually pretty sick of old winter squash and bitter kale while we’re waiting for the new crops to outgrow the slugs after winter’s heavy rains.
I’m sitting there now, flip flops kicked off and toes thick in grass, listening to swallows chatter about their nesting box while swallowtail butterflies and hummingbirds dance around the profusion of brilliant colors just beginning to emerge for the season. And all the while this intoxicating fragrance of rose, oh! all these roses! gracefully bowing as they bend in abundance, most of which were started by sticks I stuck in the ground and trusted they would grow. They did. While meanwhile and always, this space is serenaded by the ever present hum of the river that wraps around this land.
Of all the work we did here, clearing, cleaning, caring, opening dry and dead and overgrown, trash strewn and fire damaged that was this land when we first arrived, the garden has grown to the crown jewel of the land.
Beside the roses, what I’m most enamored by is all the fruit trees we’ve gifted to the land: apples and pears, plum and persimmons, walnut and almond and fig. And most endearing to me are the peach trees started from seed. You see, four years ago, the Old Man gave me five pits. He had saved them ten years and handed them over with reverence. Told me they were the best peaches he ever had, so he planned on planting them some day. I gave it a try. Put those pits in a pot with some soil and set them out in the garden all winter and lo and behold, by spring, shoots shot up and last year, I picked the first peaches. A humble start, but worth it indeed. This year, those trees, though still somewhat small, are laden with fruit and bending to the weight of their juicy promise… which (don’t remind me, please!) I will not be here to enjoy. Funny things is, one of those peach trees looked a little different. Turns out it’s a nectarine. I love these little surprises in life.
One final breath out here in this little bit of paradise, then time to get back to work, loading the last of the lumber into the horse trailer that will carry a lot more than horses on this trip across the West.
A deep breath. With our departure just a week away, yes, it gets scary at times.
Scared? Yes. Change is always scary, isn’t it? Change of pace, change of place.
Change of heart?
Hopefully only a heart growing, expanding, unfurling like the roses surrounding me.
Mine is not a fearless heart.
I would rather it be a courageous heart.
For I would rather a heart that loves and cares and longs deeply enough that it knows what fear feels like, and chooses to love and care and long above that fear. I would rather a heart courageous enough to step forth into fear, like stepping into the stirrup and settling onto the back of a bronc.
It’s not what you might be thinking. It’s not about trying to be bigger, badder, better than badass.
Hell no.
Instead, it’s about what you do, where you go, who you are when you (try to) leave being badass behind. When you begin to push that part of your identity, or at least, that thing you’ve always strived to be, to the wayside. When the time comes to strip yourself of your armor, and find true courage to just be you… whatever, whoever that may be.
Maybe it will mean being badass after all.
Or maybe not.
We’ll see.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve worn a big knife on my belt. My first one was gifted to me well before my son was born. It’s been over three decades of different knives, but almost always some sort of blade hanging at my hip.
People think it’s to be badass or something (and yes, maybe it is a little of that) but if you walk around with me, you’ll see it’s used to cut thistles, dig up dandelions, open bales of hay, and a dozen other things daily. It gets used a lot. In fact, the few times I leave it home (it doesn’t go over so well in big cities, kids camps nor airplane travel), I end up feeling a little lost and find myself reaching for it like the handy tool it really is. Nothing badass about it, you see?
Is there life beyond badass?
Now, with just two weeks before we load up horses, chickens, tools and camp and head towards Colorado, that’s what I’m trying to keep in mind (and heart and soul) as we prepare to leave leave this safe, secure, serene oasis behind, at least for a little while, and head to rough and rugged, high and wild, and the adventurous spirit that ain’t about comfort and ease.
Do I have to be badass again?
Just when I thought I was softening…
“The hell I won’t.”
“Different” is the word they used to describe me when I was growing up. Gee, thanks.
WTF is different?
My brothers had brains, my sister had beauty, so me, I decided, I’d have… I’d be badass.
That was my personal choice for defining different. And when you’re different, I guess you have a choice.
And so it was. Badass it would be. It became that protective shield I could hide behind, felt safe behind.
I did my darnedest to keep up that identity, though I’ll save those stories for another time.
All I knew as a kid was that I was different, and well, that kinda sucks.
Different.
As in…?
I decided it meant find your own way. Take care of yourself. Get tough. Be badass.
Badass it would be. I’d carry that like a badge. Or a shield. Of course, a lot of us carry a shield we think will keep us safe, but all it really does is keep us apart.
What the hell did I know then?
Different they said I was; different I would be.
Now I’m old enough to be me. And very much a part.
Time to crack that badass armor open.
What’s underneath? We’ll see. Maybe a lot of mush. If so, would that really be so bad?
I’m thinking it’s a little more solid than that. Maybe more like clay. Soft and smooth and pliable, resilient and creative. Good stuff. The stuff we’ve all been waiting to share. The really rich inner river where you can lay back and float and find yourself flowing just fine, thank you very much.
Underneath that armor a lot of us hide behind (I think I’m not the only one) we all have a part of that river flowing through us, the surge of common humanity, streaming with shared experiences and emotions which serve as both fragile and tenacious veins like silken threads that hold us together, and keep us afloat.
But that’s deeper than I care to go this week. You’re off the hook for now.
Seems like badass is a popular thing to be these days. Right on, I get it. It’s been a guiding principle in my life, that’s for sure.
But it has a downside. Everything does. And maybe that downside makes it, at least for me in my ripening years, something I’m seriously thinking of leaving behind.
You know “badass” is a shell we hide behind that’s supposed to keep us safe. Maybe it does. Worked well enough for me. But badass as an identity can also be a wall that separates us from others. A wall that can be pretty hard to scale, you know?
It separates. Sets you apart. At least that’s how it worked for me. When what I really wanted (don’t we all?) is to be a part.
Time to connect.
Here’s an update:
I broke down and got a phone two years ago. I’m still not proud to admit that.
And if I didn’t then, now it’s really happening. I’m entering the modern era. At least I’m giving it a try. I’m learning social media. Just last week, I set up an Instagram account, mostly so I can check out the tiny homes and puppy pictures my sister likes to share. But it’s kind of fun. Maybe it’s not all that evil. (Just a little bit.) Maybe it really can help us all connect and find that common thread. Though so much of what I see out there is still about separation.
For now, I’m going to use it as a way of connecting. And of softening, a medium to share something beautiful everyday, something beautiful from this beautiful, gentle land and river that hold me, that let me soften and see, deeply, clearly, leaning in, safely.
And then, well, we’ll see. Then we’ll be in the high country where it’s all about open spaces, harsh and wild, and safety is a little more uncertain. But that doesn’t mean I have to be like the land.
One can be a soft spot in a hard place.
I think.
We’ll see.
So about being on social media, please, that does not mean I’m suddenly going to be posting selfies!
However…
I did it. Did a selfie with a bestie.
See? Modern woman.
“Sometimes a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.”
Oh, and… as for that new nose piercing? You might say I should know better at my age. I say I’m old enough to know what I want. That’s one of my favorite things about aging. I don’t need to give a damn any more (though oft times I choose to). Thirty five years ago when I got my first tattoo, it was something I had to hide. Now even my parents say ink is cool. In the shop where Cindy and I went in for our bling, the kids working there said about fifty percent of their clients were old as us. Times change, and so do we.
In my ripening age, I’m thinking it’s time to stop striving for badass. Really, my muscles and skin are already softening, or at least starting to sag. Go with the flow sort of thing.
Maybe softening is one of the privileges of age. It’s not so much becoming a fine wine. At least not for me. Feels more like oak barrel whiskey, and that’s okay by me.
That said, I don’t think I’m gonna turn to mush anytime soon.
It’s more like I’ve cracked the badass shell and now am learning to let molten lava flow.
And yet that thing about leaving this comfortable place for a while and heading out and up to high, harsh and wild… for sure it’s a little scary. And nuts. The challenge is in being in the harsh environment and still allowing my self to soften. Can I? Or does that work and world require badass, like Jeremiah Johnson and the Man from Stony River?
Not any more. Besides, they both had a soft side too.
I can write my own adventure. Be my own hero. Need not try to be the Terminator any more. And certainly never wanted to be a Disney princess. Just me.
And maybe being me need not require being badass. Just a little crazy.
In that time and space between here and there and somewhere else, there is this.
A slow gentle unfurling. Of the breath, of your heart, of all the crazy busy things we all have to do and should have done yesterday but really, you know, can wait.
A time to smell the roses, quite literally in this case, in the garden, as blooms begin their annual renaissance and the grande display for nose and eyes begins one petal at a time.
In the days before we leave here and head there, there is time to lay back in the lush grass of the garden and revel in the roses just coming on, heavy and bending and fragrant and bright.
Just enough time.
There has to be.
What matters more?
One more milled board, mowed lawn, window washed, garden bed weeded, or top of cupboard cleaned?
Well, maybe.
But no. Take time. Make time. There is time.
Would my life go on if I missed a weed? What about if I missed this moment?
I’m trying to remain present. Here and now. Be her now, you know how it goes.
Love where I am which is not hard to do as there is so much to love.
Vibrant green meadows, glossy new full leaves on these ancient sprawling oaks, baby chicks hidden in the jungle that the grass is growing into, swelling fruit on peach trees. Geese and ravens, redwing and quail, and the phoebe that has nested in the eve above the picnic table every year since we’ve been here. Horses fat and sassy needing to be escorted into the barn at night because really, leaving that lush meadow is not what they choose to do. The new dog running circles around the old dog (funny since the old dog was the young one just a few years ago).
And yes, those roses.
I sit out on the steps at night under the light of the waxing moon, tired sore and sunburned from a full day which for so many of us is an integral part of spring, and a calm sense of anticipation washes over me, soft and silver as the light in the cloudless night sky.
A heavy letting go.
I have left and returned before.
The calm before the chaos. Twenty days before we load the horses and chickens and last of the lumber we milled and make our way across Highway 50, heading to the high country of Colorado to break ground.
Leaving our little bit of paradise behind is not new for me. Remember, two years ago how I up and left this time of year with a few horses and a four month challenge to make it Colorado?
This time we’re driving.
A different adventure awaits.
After a journey of seeking, which the Long Quiet Ride was, I thought I found the answers. My excitement to be “home” was overwhelming, coming over me soft and bright like a gentle swell ready to embrace me. So close I could taste it. Only rather than receiving the loving arms of this land, I was punched in the gut. I returned to the greatest trauma of the whole trip, which kind of broke the whole thing up. And left me wondering (among other things): Where?
That was then.
Now, it’s a different adventure, different journey.
I’m not saying my inability to sit still is a good thing. But it is a thing.
It’s not just itchy feet. It’s a longing. That longing to belong. Harmonizing with curiosity.
Stepping outside the box is easier when you don’t have a box to begin with.
So we’re setting out to build another box.
And holding onto this one, just in case.
Alas, it’s just a box. Something to define and confine.
And at the same time, hold you tight.
Here’s little ditty for Mother’s Day.
As the garden grows and the seasons change, so do we.
I don’t have a bucket list. If I really want to do something, chances are I’ll do it.
I have few regrets, few things I didn’t do that I wish I had.
I hope you feel the same.
Not that I did them all well. That’s not the point.
The point is, I tried. And failure is part of the path. The yin to the yang. You know.
Still…
There are times I wish I knew more before I dove in to certain things.
Mothering tops that list.
As in: if I knew then what I know now…
But it takes living and learning to know.
I am somewhat in awe of the few mothers I know who feel they did it all right. I was not one of them. Few mothers are.
For it takes failing, falling and fucking up. Really. I’m afraid it does. If you don’t do all those things, you haven’t tried. And if you’re not trying, you’re not learning and growing and really living. You’re stuck like a stick in the mud, right? Like all living things, we cannot remain stagnant for long.
Okay, so I failed, fell and fucked up maybe more than most, I dunno. But no one ever accused me of not trying.
That’s how mothering was for me.
The things I wish I knew… Why don’t they teach that stuff in school? I don’t mean changing diapers and dealing with leaking boobs; I mean the important stuff like understanding emotions, communicating clearly, listening. Tools to remain calm and patient and kind when you’re sleep deprived, financially strapped, frustrated, confused, and feeling alone. Seriously, that stuff is way more important than Roman History and Algebra, right?
Seems like there is a trend and current expectation that mothers are now meant to be perfect, and parent perfectly. That’s not only wrong, it’s not possible. Besides, if perfect was possible, by whose standards of perfection would we judge?
Sheltering children, coddling their wisdom, padding their world and giving them all the answers rather than allowing them the time and space to figure it out themselves? How will they learn to learn? Sometimes you gotta skin your knees.
A balance between the two, between being handed life to you in a silver spoon or on a silver platter – and the school of hard core hard knocks, would of course be ideal. But I’ve yet to see a truly ideal life. Reality is unique, not ideal. There’s always ups and down, good and bad, so accepting and learning to live with that reality is one of those things we don’t want but we do need.
I’ve been a mama for 32 years. I don’t write about him much because (1) he probably doesn’t appreciate it, and (2) he’s is Colorado, not California. (Suddenly that choice to build in Colorado makes some sense, yes?)
Nothing has ever mattered more to me, or defined my choices more, than being a mom.
So many say the same. As we stare off softly, upward, maybe inward, a gentle smile upon our lips, and you know what we are thinking about.
Our children.
Our pride and joy. Not the pride for having, say, built a cabin or put in a gorgeous garden. It’s different. It’s not ours. It’s for them. I can’t explain that kind of pride well. Can you?
Have I told you how proud I am of mine? Not for making the most of what I gave him, but for making so much on his own. From his adaptability to his authenticity, from his self-earned college education to his successful career. From his empathy in dealing with dear old mom and dad, to his badass ways behind the wheel or at the shooting range.
I’d like to take credit for teaching him. I used to say I homeschooled him. Truth is, he self-schooled. I’m a pretty crappy teacher, and the two of us, well, we butt heads. He figured it out himself. Pretty damn well, I dare say.
I am guilty all too often of giving unsolicited advice. But the best advice I think I gave him, showing, not telling, thus teaching by example, was this: you gotta figure it out yourself. That is how we learn. And you can. If you want to. You can make mistakes, and change direction, and drop out and divorce, fall apart and get back up, and with all of that, we learn, we grow, we live, our own beautiful, unique, magical, mysterious, authentic life.
It’s like the old Zen teacher telling her student:
I can point to the moon. But you have to find your own way there.
And if you’re stubborn, like my son is (can’t imagine where he learned that) then chances are, you also gotta find your own moon.
So what do I know now that I wish I knew then?
Oh, so much! Let’s start with:
Cultivating curiosity and compassion.
Took me along time to learn this was okay. More than okay. That’s where the beauty of life is born.
Then propagate creativity and courage, which can come naturally with a solid foundation and safe place to “try.”
Get comfortable making mistakes, and learn how to learn from each one.
For sure, the Old Man’s Three C’s: care, connect and contribute.
Belong. To the land. To the people. To your dreams.
And finally, love. Deeply, passionately, beautifully. Whatever, whoever you want to love. Love. Have the courage to love. Even when (not if) your heart gets broken, you lose someone or something, or you change your mind. Find the courage to open your heart wide, more fully, more wholly, less discriminating. That’s the key to living fully, deeply, richly.
Connection, connecting from the heart, is the greatest reason to live.
Love.
Don’t be stingy with love. I promise: it will never run out.
Okay, finally, that thing about an invitation.
Ready?
Here it goes.
Yes, I ramble. But have you noticed? I’m rambling to you.
My writing is meant to be a conversation between us. At times it feels one sided. I do the sharing. You do the reading. But there’s no connection between us.
Why not?
I’ve said this before: This blog was started as a way of sharing our “out there” lifestyle. But instead of being a how-to or pretending to be an expert, more often than not it’s about “in there.” Usually it’s a combination of the two, and always, always, a good excuse for me to work on my craft, for the love of writing. However in addition to all that, it’s also a way for me to reach out, share, and connect.
That said, it matters to me to know people are out there, reading this regular random outpouring. When I check the numbers on this blog, folks are reading it. But only a small percentage, it appears, leave comments, “like” on Facebook, write me directly, sign up to subscribe or otherwise share the connection.
Speaking of sharing, this is a video shared by Cathy this week. It’s wonderful. If you’ve “listened to” some of the videos I shared in the past, you’ll see why she shared it, and why I love it:
So here’s the invitation.
Inviting you to share in kind.
I’m putting myself out there for you.
Will you please let me know you’re reading, that you’re with me, that somehow we are in this together?
To those who have been responding via the blog, leaving a note or like on Facebook, or writing me directly – I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
For those who are just passing by, seeing if you want to stay a while, I welcome you to return and see if what I say and how I say it is worthy of your time.
For those who DO return to read somewhat regularly, if you enjoy my work, please let me know.
BTW, WordPress, who hosts this blog, makes it real easy to subscribe (see the bottom of this page), and equally easy to unsubscribe. I do hope to share more often (maybe twice a week?) once the building project gets underway. Right now we’re just warming up, in the early, what would you call this milling madness: pre-fun stage? In kind, I will do my best to honor your time, not flood your inbox, sell my meager mailing list, or otherwise curse you with spam and bad karma.
Meanwhile, the garden grows. And though I obsess each day in hours spent digging, watering, transplanting, tending, weeding and seeding, the magic that makes it grow humbles me. I think it is that sense of humility and wonder that drives some of us to toil endlessly over things growing in the dirt, when going to a grocery store would be so much easier.
End of the day I sit on the swing above the garden while dogs and wind chimes joyously play, noting that the grass needs mowing, the horses feet are in need of a trim as are my fingernails embedded with black from the soil where my hands are digging deep, and a good kind of tired eases into me, over me, down to my bones.
A break from sawdust and gear grease, in this season of chartreuse in the sun, and in the shade a shamrock green, I keep busy keeping the homestead going, getting irrigation up for the season, brushing the horses and dogs all of which are losing their winter coats, repairing broken pipes, and endless entertainment provided for free by the latest batch of chicks born just before Easter.
I sit here at the computer beginning and end of each day, a little sore and sunburned from earlier or the day before, searching my soul for a creative outpouring to share with you, inspire you, or maybe make you laugh. But tonight it feels more like just sitting there beside you in our tiredness, maybe in a comfortable silence, feet up and heads back and a smile upon our lips. That’s how it is in high spring. I think you feel that too.
As my fingers pause above the keyboard, hoovering, awaiting the moment to descend, I wonder what can I share beyond the view, the sounds, the scents, the seasons, and somedays that feels like enough.
And so I write, as I have done over ten thousand days before this one.
Just to write.
What’s the point, I question?
Just to write.
To hone my craft creatively. And share my words courageously.
It may not seem like much, but sometimes I feel it’s all I have to give.
What else can I do to contribute and connect?
Do we ever really know?
But what we can always do is try.
So I try and write, and hope that what I share may be well received.
I returned to blogging for the creative outlet. I told you I’d focus on alternative building, off grid being and slow living. Funny I find myself sharing more about what’s in my head or the view before me.
A quiet life.
A quiet voice.
A life with time and space to listen.
I never felt as lonely as in a big city surrounded by so many.
So much noise, I could not hear.
So many voices, I could not be heard.
Solace was found in wide and wild, open space and emptiness.
I wish to live with the sound of rushing waters and robins early morning, the redwing in the willows and wind chimes keeping me company on breezy afternoons, the evening shrill of frogs and crickets or endless silence and stillness as you star up into the stars.
These are the sounds I wish to hear, above the mindless chatter and seemingly senseless cacophony bombarding from big loud places.
And at the same time I know that this silence can be uncomfortable for many, maybe even most, like sitting across from someone at a table and finding yourself stuck in that awkward pause that silence so often can be.
When I first started building and living off grid over thirty years ago, I don’t think we used the term “off grid.” It was more like “un grid.” It wasn’t about living without dependency upon public utilities. It was simply living. “Without” was a part of it by necessity, not choice. Most of us were just trying to get away, be away, or trying to make do, and that was what we could do.
We were an odd sort back then. (Maybe we still are.)
There was old man Brinker, a WWII vet and eclectic artist who would take me to the coffee shops by the galleries of Taos or Canyon Road. He’d offer black coffee to my two year old son and chain smoke cigarettes in his old red Ford, smiling at and waving to young low riders that would raise their hands cussing us because he drove so slow.
There was Tim the goat man who’d pop up half clad in the wild sage bush when and where you’d least expect, with wide eyes and disheveled hair, looking around saying, “Seen my goats?”
There was the Mama Cass mama with long flowing floral skirts and a big booming voice that would hug you so tight you’d find yourself lost in her abundant bosom.
There were potential relationships that never would be with the bad ass biker, the grizzled cowboy and the spanish outlaw with scars on his legs inviting me to go into the firewood business with him. Alas, back then, my baby was the only man I had eyes for. My hands and heart were kept full.
There were the women’s women who taught me about women’s circles and full moon drummings and wild women collectives, permaculture, hand suede stuccoing, and killing rattlers that loomed in the lumber piles where my child played.
Then, we called our world “alternative.” Choosing to build, live and be outside the box. Not a part of the system. None of the above.
Building a straw bale shack myself with a baby on my back wasn’t a choice based on lack of trust in the system or wishing for more independence or feeling it was a “greener” way of living. It was a choice born from necessity. It was all I could afford.
Don’t get me wrong. That didn’t mean I felt lacking. Though there certainly were thing I was longing for, like stability, security and connection, and even a little cash to get a full tank of gas, I loved the simplicity, being closer to the earth, and doing it myself. Whatever it was. Or have the community kick in, and in kind, be there for them when it was their turn.
There was excitement, pride, and respect for the naturalness, plainness, and directness that simplicity allows. It was a time and space comprised of a group of folks out there doing the same thing. So there was camaraderie. It wasn’t about outdoing the Jones. It was about helping the Jones’ out. Knowing the Jones’ needed it, and so did you. We’d roll up our sleeves and lift bales and spread stucco and share whatever building materials, seeds or groceries we had salvaging that could help another out.
So you see, it wasn’t about intentionally living without. It was just about living. However we could.
Solid walls were an upgrade to a tent, and that’s where my baby and dogs and I had been living before my first strawbale was built.
In those days, at least in my circle, there was no solar power, no running water, no building codes. Way down some dusty dirt roads, and a little outlaw, we hauled water. Used outhouses or a shovel in the shade behind a pinon tree. Foraged and dumpster dived not to be hip but because we were hungry. Used pay phones. Siphoned gas. My meager garden was kept alive by the water that first was used to bathe the baby and wash my clothes.
Now “off grid” often means living with all the comforts of “on grid,” but with a sense of responsibility and independence. And that’s great too.
But some times, an added element of simplicity can take you beyond “off grid” and back to the bare bones. And really, one way isn’t right nor wrong. It’s all just personal choice. And sometimes, just all that one can do.
Last week, a friend asked where our solar array was. He hadn’t seen it at our homestead. It doesn’t stick out. We have three little panels sitting on the roof of our garden shed. That’s it. It was a small start up system we had set up back in Colorado and brought in the horse trailer as we traveled west. It was meant to be enough to charge power tools, devices, use limited satellite connectivity and maybe an occasional light. Enough to get us started. That was six years ago. It continues to be enough. I still prefer candles and gas lamps to the latest greatest LEDs.
I’m not saying this is “the” way. It’s just our way. It works for me.
In light of that…
We spent the last several months downsizing our plans for the cabin we will be building this summer.
Over and over, we worked the plans out to be smaller and smaller. Not a trendy tiny house. Just a Little Cabin.
Less foot print. Less concrete. Less plumbing and electric (if at all to begin with).
And built with our trees, and our hands. A labor of love.
The smaller our plans got, the more simple our ideas became, the less stress we felt, and the lighter we became.
Simplicity is a temptation that entices me.
I may forever be lured by the fantasy of getting back on my horse and heading out, with nothing more than my pack horse can carry.
Just get on your horse and go.
Though the likelihood of me ever doing that again is slim. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.
The stress of forever seeking grass and water for the horses, slipping of steel shoes on hard pavement, sharing roads and camps with swarms of mormon crickets, roads with traffic and without safe shoulders to ride on, too many bears and not enough cell service to talk with my husband at the end of most days, forever fences and eternally locked gates and map apps that I never could quite figure, and feeling far more lonely than I ever wanted to be… I found simple is not always easy.
Staying home is easier. Turn the horses out in morning; call them in for the night. All the mowing, hoeing, weedwacking and watering is still easier than life on the road in today’s not so wild Wild West with a culture primarily clueless to horses and blind to horse travel.
Sure, I think about it. Where and how I’d go. What I’d do differently next time. What else I’d take and what I could leave behind. Maybe I’d even try to convince my husband to go.
But that’s a whole other story, another adventure I don’t need to be thinking about now.
In fact, this week, I’m not even thinking about logs, sawdust, milling, cleaning slash and making one board and beam at a time, and the story we’ll share of putting them all together.
Right now, my story is simply about preparing, planting, weeding and watering.
Watching the garden grow, one row at time, one breath at a time, one gentle wind at time, moving the oak leaves, tall late spring grass, wind chimes, the table cloth on the picnic table, and the refuse-to-be-contained wisp of hair that flutters across my smiling face.
Covered in sawdust and gear grease and dressed in baggy shorts not long enough to hide skinny white legs sticking out below, scraped up knees and all. Skin like rawhide and at times, admittedly, a personality to match.
This is no hot date.
These are two videos I took yesterday of us at the mill for anyone curious what our hot times look – and sound – like. In this case, loud. Yes, we wear ear protection. Bob is already hearing impaired. I can’t afford to be too.
My cinematography sucks, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s just an attempt to show you how it works.
There’s a sign I found a few years back that I just had to have and hung at the entrance to our ranch.
“Beware of the wife,” it reads, and if you know, you know it’s no joke. Depending on what mood I’m in, how tired I am, how late it is, and how late you are.
Still, I’ve been told more than once,”She cleans up well.” I think that was a compliment. I think?
In any case, this week found us dirtier than usual, arguing out of short tempters and frustration, not with one another but from working with rotten wood, in the heat and wondering why we’re doing this – and how the hell are we going to make it work. And of course, taking it out on each other. That’s the downside of partnership, of working with the one you love. They get the brunt of it, whatever “it” may be. We both are guilty of this. And working alongside one another as we’ve done for over twenty years, when the going gets rough, you can’t just walk away.
I wouldn’t want to if I could.
The comfort in commitment. The joy in being able to make each other smirk and smile, laugh and long, even during a downright dirty day. That’s good stuff.
Comfort in commitment… above and beyond love, and that’s the absolute essence. There’s commitment to habit and routine as well.
This is mine.
Early morning.
The alarm rouses me before the roosters. Right now that’s just past five. Slowly outside shapes emerge in shades of gray. Colors are slow to awaken. It’s a while still before sun graces the top of the farthest hill I can see from this little land tucked in as womb along the untamed river.
Now is the quiet time after frogs have settled and before robins wake. Even the dogs still sleep. The only sound is the river, humming as a steady wind. It is a time of tranquility, as if life on hold, the pause between the inhale and the exhale. It is a time to get in yoga and meditation practice, sharing the mat with two dogs and two cats. It is a time to softly putter about the cabin, often lit only by the setting moon or a single flickering flame. Time to get the wood stove going and the kettle on, coffee ready before Bob wakes, then time to write (often by candle light) before heading out to care for chickens and horses and walk the dogs.
Comfort comes in the familiar, in sounds like rain on the metal roof when I’m still in bed and the ticking of the cast iron woodstove contracting, a signal for me to put another log on the fire.
I like routine. It’s a safe place. In a world filled with chaos and conflict and unknowns, this is my solid ground, my foundation, a cradle that gives me some sense of stillness and calm. A time to be and breathe before the dirt and grease, sawdust and sweat, grit and grind.
The quiet before the noise.
(If you saw that video of the mill, you know what I’m talking about.)
Late afternoon.
Taking a break, laying back on lush grass, together with a couple of dogs.
Long golden shadows. Big cumulus clouds like plumes of smoke growing and gathering. The air is perfumed with blossoms of wild madrone and apple. Oak leaves suddenly full and waving in the wind as abundant undergrowth comes to life. The first of the turtles and gopher snakes cross the dirt road. Wild geese have come to rest among chickens and horses on pasture of the greenest grass I’ve ever seen. The puppy plays with the big old dog (funny because the big old one was the young one just a few years ago), and mama hen pecks in the grass with her five little chicks around her.
Sawdust and the sound of the mill feel far away. This feels like a dream. A dream I didn’t know was in me.
Get real. It’s unreal.
Who’s to say what’s real?
Living in a place which most days feel pretty dreamy, we’re often told this isn’t real.
Okay then, what is?
“It’s not the real world,” they may say of this kind of life, this place, how folks like us chose to live.
I get it. Growing up in the suburbs just outside “the” city, I didn’t know a life like this was possible, didn’t know this world existed.
“Grow up and get a real job,” you’re taught.
“Wake up and get real,” people tell you.
“C’mon… get over it… join the real world,” is what you hear.
Took growing up for me to figure out what “real” really was.
Am I living a dream? I dunno. Pinch me. I’m awake. Seems pretty real to me. And at the same time, sure enough, this is a dream come true.
Guess you gotta start by having dreams. Boy, did (and do) I.
I dream. Then get to work. Hard work. Willing to live with dirt and bugs, blood and bruises, and regular cold and wind; live in cars and tents, mud shacks and mobile homes in someone else’s back yard; live without indoor plumbing, central heating and heaven forbid, luxuries like hair dryers, coffee makers and cell phone service. “Live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later,” we once read. I am willing to try.
That’s what dreaming has meant for me. That was the price I paid. And I wouldn’t change a thing.
Everyone’s got their own price, their own path, their own definition of what “living a dream” might be. I don’t know what that means for you. I just hope you’re living it too.
If not, there’s still time.
Who says you’re too old (or young or poor or whatever the excuse)?
I don’t ever want to stop growing up. And I don’t ever want to be stuck being grown up, either.
Growing up doesn’t mean to me now what it meant when I was young. Maybe because now I’m easily as old as what I thought grown ups were supposed to be, but I sure don’t feel like them. Then I thought grown up meant boring and stuffy and sensible shoes, clean jeans and finger nails and well groomed hair, sitting at a desk all day and raking leaves on weekends; cocktails promptly at five o’clock and nothing much gets done after that. No thanks. That’s not for me.
As a kid, too, I remember thinking that being grown up was some required state of feeling like you know it all, losing that sense of curiosity, wonder, and awe. I haven’t felt that, and hope I never do because the moment we feel we know it all, have all the answers and/or have the right to speak our truth as if it were “the” truth, we start closing. We stop seeing. Stop hearing. We lose our sense of wonder and we turn into old farts. Not the most eloquent choice of words, but you get the point.
What makes life living more than curiosity, wonder and awe?
And of course, love.
That’s the magic of life. The hot and spicy. The zip and zesty. The fascination and enchantment that makes life worth living.
That childlike sense of openness.
The beginners mind.
Finding magic every day.
Making magic, too.
The ability to laugh at dumb jokes. And laugh at yourself.
The reminder to smile warmly at strangers, and enjoy watching kids and puppies play.
The nudging to just let it go when you’re cut off at the end of a passing lane or that parking spot you were vying for is taken before you can back in.
It’s taking time to smell the roses, watching baby geese take their maiden voyage, laying back in the grass or against the front steps with your eyes closed and listening to crickets on a still summer eve.
It’s listening to the same old stories from an old man or same old jokes from your partner, and still chuckling every time.
It’s having your breath taken away as a pair of red tail hawk do their courtship dance overhead or watching thunderheads build for the first time this year gracing us with an unexpected blast of thunder so sudden the puppy barks.
It’s accepting that you’ll never know it all, control it all, or do it all, but having fun trying, maybe failing, and trying again.
If missing out on any of that is what growing up means, I’m glad it didn’t happen to me.
Growing up is a work of art, fluid and ever changing, like an endless emerging of butterfly wings.
It’s not a place we get to – you know, as in “being there.” Rather, it’s an evolution that lasts as long as we are blessed to live our one wild life.
Now it’s the end of the week. We’ve kissed and made up. And washed up. Even got a little rain to keep down the dust and water the garden without moving a hose.
Now we’re back out there, getting ready to stack the next load of boards and beams for Bob to take to Colorado. All the bells and whistle and gears and grease are doing what they’re supposed to do. The broken rototiller remains broken but we borrowed the neighbor’s working one. (Thank you, George.) The garden shines and grows, somehow joyously. And looks like we finally figured out a floor plan we can build in one season with the material we’ve been working to amass.
Keep on keeping on.
It’s what we do. Would I want it any other way?
I choose to keep living the life we live and love doing what we’re doing, with wonder and awe, feeling fulfilled and full of joy by doing what we do, together.
All of it. The ups and downs and ins and outs and round and rounds and all.
If only. Only that’s not how the simple life seems to work. Or at least, I haven’t figure it to work that way. Not yet at least.
Funny thing is, a lot of us striving to live simply find ourselves explaining that really, no, it’s not about sitting around eating bon-bons. We just make it look easy.
It’s one of those things. If you know, you know.
But a lot of folks don’t.
Simplicity is a lot of work.
“Don’t you get bored?” we’re too often asked.
Bored? Really? When?
When we’re kicking back tilling the garden, pulling weeds, pruning trees, moving sprinklers, mowing meadows, kneading bread, feeding chickens, fixing fences, flushing out lines of our water system and maintaining batteries of our solar system. And then, figuring out what to cook for dinner from all those eggs we gathered and fresh veggies we just harvested when we’re so dang tired at the end of the day, and hopefully sitting down to eat before 9pm (after being up, of course, at the crack of dawn). Oh yeah. And we’re building our own homes. All the while, kicking back with those bon-bons.
This was something the Old Man used to laugh about often. He had spent the greater part of his 95 years hard at work for the “easy” life. Up till 2am canning, starting seeds, grafting fruit trees, splitting wood, caring for critters, and somehow, caring for his community as well. He was still planning on planting potatoes and garlic until the very end.
There’s a lot of folks out this way living that way. Simple, but not easy. My closest neighbors are primo examples. They’ve got that off-grid-pioneer-self-sufficient spirit mastered! But I’m not gonna talk about them since they might be reading this ;) Just know that if I did, it would be impressive and inspiring.
It’s tempting to sit down and write a whining rant about what felt like a set back, or at least a week of slow progress. Between the sudden heat wave and learning how well sawdust sticks to sweat, the frustration of rot in the beetle killed trees coming on faster than we can cut out, a wave of bugs hatching out of bark we’re peeling, crawling in my shirt and pelting me in the face as I mill; that mill breaking down requiring us both to spend the day deep in grease and gears instead of whipping out (okay so, it actually never happens that fast with our old mill) boards and beams or getting the garden that feeds us in; and the looming dread of thinking there’s no way in hell we’re going to get this all done.
But no, I’m not going there. Why bother whine?
Because at the same time, there is grass growing greener and more lush than I ever remember seeing, a young hen hatching new chicks , apple blossoms blooming thick as cherries, the puppy reminding us how joyous every day should be, and my beloved garden providing so bountifully even though I *whine* that I don’t get enough done. As I’m serenaded daily by tree frogs and the first of the crickets and the Redwing and robins and always, always the soothing hum of the river, I am very well aware how sweet life is. Most days I can’t believe how lucky I am. It’s a beautiful world and a day does not go by without my appreciation and gratitude to be right here, right now.
Even when I’m covered with pine beetles, sawdust and grease.
Instead, what I’ll tell you about today is the Old Man.
That’s what some of my friends and family called him, but to me, he seemed almost childlike. After almost a century of life, John had retained a sense humor, wonder and awe, still open, willing to learn, with a deep heart rich with wounds, sensitivities and insecurities like the rest of us.
For years, I had the honor of visiting him on Tuesdays. Kind of funny to note that we started with Mondays, but he changed the date, inspired by the wonderful little book he loved, “Tuesday’s with Morrie.” So Tuesdays it was with John!
Tuesdays became the big day for me that the rest of my week sort of revolved around. Mondays were spent in preparation of actually leaving the homestead – harvesting, washing, sorting, boxing up produce, gathering eggs and picking bouquets, Then Tuesday morning I’d load up boxes and a dog or two and head to town.
All I had to do was show up. Sure, I’d bring him flowers just about every week, almost all year, produce in season, and sometimes, homemade biscuits to go with that packaged breakfast gravy he’d like to share with my husband and me. But mostly what he wanted, and what I’d do is listen. Just listen. Without judgment, and with humor. Yes, there was a lot of laughter.
Just showing up, consistently.
That was enough for him. And enough for me.
When I returned from my Long Quiet Ride, his eyes swelled with tears as he said, “I was afraid I’d never see you again.” He never asked about my trip, or anything about my life except my garden, fruit trees and chickens. That never mattered to me. I was there for him. It was an honor. Just listening. His stories would fill the hours. My favorites were tales of his childhood in the suburbs of Indiana with immigrant parents who worked their way through the Great Depression while raising three boys with a sense of goodness. Goodness. I don’t know if that’s something people care about much these days. But it’s good stuff.
Just showing up.
Being there for someone.
Listening.
This I learned was the greatest gift I could give. The greatest “community service” I could offer. I didn’t need a title or join a group or be a part of any clique or club. After all, I’m not much of a potluck, community center, PTA type of gal. But nor am I a lone wolf. I’m just a quiet sort who has more to give one on one, face to face, than in front of a crowd or enmeshed in a group.
Just be there. For him.
Some folks thanked me for taking the time for him.
But you and I know better. It was still for me. The honor of caring for another – not your kids or your parents, your partner, your dog or best friend – just a person. A human being with no strings attached. No ulterior motives. Someone who just wanted to be heard.
And me, I got the gift of almost endless stories, insightful wisdom, and a lot of ridiculous jokes thrown in there, just because.
Initially, he said he was going to tell me the story of the property my husband and I moved to. Well, after five and a half years, I never did get the whole story, but I got a lot of other great ones. About life. His childhood. Growing, canning, pruning, grafting, building, all these things he did so well. What ever he wanted to share, I gladly received.
The greatest stories and greatest lessons he shared were based upon these three things. I called them The Three C’s.
Care. Connection. Contribution.
He’d lecture me (and the other handful or two of dear friends he had that were a regular part of his life) with this wit and wisdom:
“Take care of your health. Your loved ones. The land.”
“Connect with your people – friends and family and community.”
“Contribute to the community or society in whatever way you can, in whatever work you do.”
That was his formula for a good, long life. When I look around, I’d say he got that right.
And when I stop to think about it further, I see that John’s Three C’s is the formula for finding that sense of belonging I’ve been seeking too.
Belonging is a balance of the Three C’s. The place or state where you care, connect, contribute.
When I moved here 28 years ago as a single mom to serve as caretaker at a kids camp I could never have otherwise afforded to attend, I didn’t feel I belonged (well, sometimes I still don’t). But John accepted me and my son, and embraced us unconditionally. I’ve seen him use that open heart quality with so many folks. Forget your story, your past, what others might say. John would give you a chance.
Back then I had moved here with a couple dogs and a three year old kid but no tangible skills to speak of. I figured I’d figure it out. How hard could it be?
Learning was hard. And slow. And most of what I learned came because of the kindness of a generous community full of folks who knew how to do all those things I was hungry to learn in order to, yes, you got it: live simply. Garden, grow, can, tend to calving, raise chicks, milk goats, make cheese, bake bread, fix pipes, clear ditches, plane boards, skin bears… There’s a lot to it, and a lot to learn. First thing I learned was that it was a lot more work than my romantic notion made it out to be.
The season we first arrived was right before winter, and that full shed of firewood I was promised was empty. I was gifted a chainsaw instead. I looked at the damn thing like it was a feral beast and battled with it just the same. Remember, I was from New York. Chainsaws don’t really exist there. Well, John got news of this and though still a stranger to me, put on his angel wings and got to work. He arranged for me to get a full on lesson in chainsaws. Like taming the wild beast, John set up a friend to take the time to teach me the basics, from sharpening, cleaning, caring for and using – and (most of the time) even starting the damn thing. Then to the woods we went, time to fell my first tree. It was just a little ways up off the road, easy to get to, and easy to see. I’m shy so that wasn’t ideal. Cars stopped along the country road to watch the newbie cut a tree, which really got me scared because this tree (at least in my memory) was HUGE and I’m kind of small. I got this, I thought, and tried to fluff up my feathers and look bigger. I went to work with my new found skills, made my face cut, and then the back cut, and then tapped in a wedge, and there the tree began to fall… slowly… falling… looking pretty impressive… I’m really puffing up now… until… that darned tree got snagged up in another even bigger tree. It stayed stuck there for years, reminding me that this firewood thing, and the simple life, ain’t always easy. And humility is indeed a prerequisite.
Later that winter when I ran out of firewood (so much for my chainsaw skills!), John got wind again. And again, angel John quietly came to the rescue. He asked me if I’d come meet him on this back road because there was a tree that fell in the way and he could use some help with it. Of course I’d be glad to help, but lo and behold, when I got there, that tree was cut, blocked, stacked and ready for me to load to take home.
These kinds of stories happened all the time with John as so many in this community know. It’s what he did. Cared about people. And did something about it.
When I had to move away, John convoyed with me, driving all the way to Colorado to help me get to my new home and start my new life. And when I returned, nearly twenty years later, he made me feel like I was never gone.
He’s not really gone. Parts of him are all over my house and garden, not to mention my heart. From the white daffodils blooming along my garden fence beneath the peach trees started from pits he had saved, to the bird house box in which the swallows are nesting, and the pie tins and bakeware and all these silly little kitchen gadgets that I said I didn’t need but funny, I find myself using them all the time.
The last thing he said to me was something he often said so often to anyone willing to listen:. “Follow your bliss!”
And though we are not our lovers, we are more whole for having loved.
And so you see this need to choose one place becomes as complicated and complex as being torn between two lovers.
~
Like leaving a lover on one hand.
And with the other, holding onto your hat as you lean into the wind
trembling with the thrill of what lies ahead.
~
Here’s a rambling I’ve been working on a while yet have been slow to share. If you have time and want to read it, grab a cup of coffee, kick back, and enjoy the ride. It’s still rough, but I’ve been having fun working with it, so I thought I’d share what I’ve written so far, and one of these days, maybe I’ll get it figured out and share the rest with you.
I was not an apple that fell close to the tree, but one that rolled away.
The roots of that tree did not hold me, nurture me, nor call me to remain. Yet we are hard wired with that longing to belong, and so I set out, seeking.
In the search for finding belonging, always somewhere outside myself, I thought I found it many times.
Thus there are places I have fallen for, fallen in love with, where I wanted to belong, to be held and where I wished to remain forever. Places I wanted to wake beside as with an intoxicating lover tangled in rumpled sheets still hot and musky as dawn’s first light reminds us it’s time to move on. Or places soothing and solid and comfortable, as when with the lover you’ve slept beside for what feels like forever. She may no longer hold the thrill, but she holds you still, and when you are with her, with that sense of contentment that cannot be compared, there is no place you’d rather be.
Are we not more for each one we have loved? The lessons they shared, the memories we learned to laugh at, the scars on our heart and soul we cannot shake off, all of it cultivating us deeper, richer, wiser for having tasted forbidden fruits.
As with person, so with place.
Me, I have moved. Every time, always yearning for forever.
It’s not how I planned it to be. I was not looking for greener grass (there is none greener, for example, then where I am here and now). But responding to how life unfolds at times, and sometimes that means you gotta move on. Other times, it means following my heart for some calling I thought I heard somewhere out there, only to realize it is found only in the quietest, stillest moments when I allow myself to listen.
Still, I look back on all the places I have wanted to call home, wanted to belong, wanting to be so captivated and fulfilled and content… and yes, always hoping to find these things outside of my self rather than within.
Yet each place we settle into, each one we are with, we say to ourselves, “This is the one.” Until it is not, and then we move on.
I have been many places. Each like a lover, teaching me how to be, how to feel, how to grow, how to leave.
Sure, I could be shallow, pick one and remain. Just tell you I’ll let go of my dreams and “it’s good enough” knowing it’s safer to stay put where it’s easy and simple, and simple is good.
But that is not my style. I tend to dive deep.
Growing up we thought and were taught that New York City was the center of the universe, and for many of us in the suburbs a bridge or tunnel away, it was. My childhood was defined by the sense of not belonging – not to my class nor my peers, not to my family nor my home, not the town where I was raised nor the big city that loomed a mere thirty minute train ride away. It should have been easy to hold onto what is right there before you, and what everyone (but your own inner voice) tells you is true. It was not.
Sure it was a city full of energy, excitement and diversity that kept my younger self entertained. But the prevailing mentality is the same as you’ll find in any small town: where you are is where it’s at; what you see is all there is. Looking beyond is taboo.
I was accepting of that until I left and felt something else, something open, expansive, vast and wild, tearing my heart open as it burned into the once narrow view of my pale eyes and pasty white skin. It was intense, somewhat violent in a way, the process of being ripped free to the wildness of open spaces. Yet that sense of space held me all the same, wrapping around and capturing me. And once I breathed in that spaciousness and had my breath held in the bigness of it all, the search for where I belong began.
Odd that we use the term “deflowering” for the end of virginity when for so many of us it signifies the beginning of so much more. It can be a blooming, blossoming, flourishing. It can be more of an awakening as the floret unfurls, rather than a plucking of petals as in the childish game of, “He loves me; he loves me not.”
Though my innocence had been lost years before, heading to the Greek Islands at nineteen felt like the first awakening. Standing bronzed naked on the cliffs over the Aegean Sea while gazing out into what first felt like forever (though cheap pink wine and an oddly bewitching man probably had something to do with that) my soul expanded into the horizon; that urge to remain in that moment, that place, that ethereal bliss forever overwhelmed. And I realized we could live somehow limitless, boundless, ungrounded as my imagination took me soaring over arid cliffs and ancient stone walls and into gentle, saline waters that held me in her womb, softly singing into my ear, like a temptress snake hissing “Yessssssss, you belong here.”
Until of course there comes the day that you wake up from the daze of the dream and get dumped or somehow shaken or stirred and find yourself moving on.
The calling started then and the voice of wild spaces continued to lure me, like the Pied Piper, leading me out of town.
From the mountains north of Santa Fe with magic mushrooms, dizzy from high altitude and giddy from clear light – to the desert to the south, where we sought to unleash our inner Carlos Castaneda with sand in our sleeping bag and scorpions underfoot.
From the stark vastness of the Patagonia steppe where my heart soared like the condor that I swear called to me – to the high country of the San Juan Mountains where the snow and cold and a culmination of a painful past whipped me like spring wind.
~
The sky appeared above as
a familiar lover I have not slept with in years
but still haunts me in my dreams.
spread out on top of, over, next to, entwined with me
I vaguely recognize the warmth against my back,
wind like lazy fingers through let down hair,
a familiar sweet musky dusty breath.
swelling wide above me was
Colorado high and wild
~
And then there is here, the gentle embrace of this nor Cal river and hills. This is not the California I knew of or heard of and tried to avoid with sunsets cafes and volleyball beaches, strip malls and silicon valley, Hollywood and parking lot traffic. Really, did you think you’d find me there? Trinity is a different sort of state, in mountains and in mind.
Here I am held, softly, gently, kindly in a matriarch’s embrace. Wise old woman arms around me, healing, nurturing, tending the land as I tend to my soul. Nourishing me, not to remain safe, sound and secure – but building courage and vigor to leap once again. The crone’s craft with a basket of herbs, potions and remedies to create a resilient soul. She allows me time to weave my web, the net that will catch me when next I leap, as invariably I will do.
Held, embraced. A womb or cocoon. Wondering what will emerge when I leave these protective walls that confine and define. What is beyond the hills?
Look inside your cells as you look within your soul and tell me what you see? A sense of wonder, awe and curiosity?
Quiet as my voice may be, it whispers of this wisdom: I am more than this space, bigger than one place.
~
Roots unfurling
soaring through deep earth
grounded in the stars
she breaks free the shackles of solid ground
as a whale bounding from the sea for air
finding her breath as if for the first time, each time
finally understanding what wings were made for
ascending into spaciousness.
~
Slowly I fell for this land, with each shovel of dirt moved, brush mowed, branches burned and tree planted, Time sweating in the garden, sleeping beneath the stars or bathing naked at the beach.
Things grow here. Maybe even dreams. Apple trees, pears and plums, even peach trees I have planted. And already their branches bend with abundance.
This land gently grew in me. Her roots spread beneath my flip-flopped feet. I wonder how deep they have sprawled. The garden, full and lush and bountiful enriched by horse droppings I shovel each day. The upper meadow in early evening adorned with long golden shadows and a rolling view of distant hills. Sharing space with deer and turkey and a pair of ravens. Turtles at the swim hole and osprey hunting a shallow pool. The eagle on his daily pass down river as we watch from the kitchen table and the heron gracefully rises as I throw the ball for the dog too close to the bank of the river where he silently stood. The big bend in the river with sheer south facing cliffs above that heat from the sun and in kind warm the water below. The chattering chorus of evening frogs and the full moon dancing behind undulating waves of clouds. And rapids close to the house sing like voices I try to understand as we lay in our starlit bed at night after the wind and crickets have quieted and listen. I still do not know what they say.
It is a gentle land, pastel and creamy. Here is the good boy, fine and nice, the high school sweetheart. Here is not passion, devotion and fierce attachment as I have felt other places, and likely will never be. Yet here holds me in a state of contentment I am not familiar with, cannot describe, something that comes I suppose with age.
Comfort is new for me.
Do you know what it is like to hold the land as dearly as you do a lover; to be seduced, enthralled, captivated by the scent of rich soil and vanilla bark and the feel of wind and light and approaching storms? Go ahead and lose yourself in the embrace of a sudden updraft of high mountain air, or the fragrance of rich earth stirred by heavy rain, or the ecstasy of endlessness of open plains sprawling wide before you, or the soothing sound of waves as tide ever so slowly moves in.
If you have never loved land this deeply, I hope one day you will.
Let yourself be seduced by place.
But, my friend, be warned.
This kind of love is one sided.
For land remains indifferent.
And the connection we feel is that which we create.
I have fooled myself into believing I was embraced by place.
The stories we hold to are ours.
At best, the land allows.
At worst, she’ll chew you up and spit you out.
Likely she’ll do nothing at all but be as she will be, while we hold tight to a sense and security of the familiar, wanting to find ourselves in her rocks and trees, our stories in her wind and waves, wishing her spring rains to define us, and her generous load of winter snow to hold us tight.
So be it. Let it go. The attachment it all ours alone.
Really, that’s not a bad place to be.
Reflecting back, would I have chosen to forfeit the pleasure and pain and played it safe?
Commitment comes. Some of us are late to settle in. Settle into place as I settle into self with the softening of time and age and the perspective of experience.
Am I not all the richer, wiser, more resilient and complete for having frolicked with the land?
Though at times I tumbled, falling for place has led me to soar.
As at times we must lose our self in order to be found. Not only in place but in spirit and soul.
Are we willing to be lost in place order to find the essence of where we belong?
The land has held me, holds me, lets me be.
What more could I ask for with a lover or land?
Places that have called. lured me, seduced and tangled a web within my heart and made it into a place unto itself.
I have been held in place, by place, and that has allowed me to know the land, intimately and intensely, as I have learned to know my self.
Yes, I belong with the land as fiercely as I connect with my lover.
I am not the land, though I will love her, bestow upon her my wild passions and commit to her as long as I am there, wherever there may be.
Gin Getz 