This old photo popped up online recently. Always liked it. (Thank you, Bob, for taking it probably 18 years ago.) And always loved that horse. Quatro. I used to call him my Marlon Brando. My bad boy. In a good way. He could step out like no one’s business. And flip around faster than a flapjack if I got the pack line under his tail.
He is long gone. It happens. We grow. We age. We die. Our horses even faster than us. Our dogs even faster than horses. We hold them all dear in that box found beside our heart, maybe a part of our heart. A secret place no one knows but you. Mine is full. So full. Too full it feels at times as I cram more pain, more heart ache, more loss and regrets, and always more love, compressed with time and tears and a tinge of bliss.
I imagine mine to be a small metal box, with lock and key, perchance like an old diary I had as a young girl back in the 70s into which I poured out my pre-teen grief. That diary turned out to be no more than cardboard and was easily torn open one day in fifth grade by Paul Procnoun whose desk was right behind mine. I still remember his name. A wanna-be boyfriend. It didn’t charm me. What do we know about love at age ten beyond if you are loved, or loved not enough? This was his way of expressing a crush on me.
I was crushed.
It ripped open a part of me.
Sharing is still hard to do.
I’m sitting here trying to write A Long Quiet Ride. This morning started my third re-write. Is turned out to be harder than I planned (most things are), and taking far longer (most things do).
Sharing.
How do I share what I saw out there? What I did? Who I met? How I felt? Stories of the kindness of strangers. And the blindness. And the often unorthodox way we made our way through.
Stories.
That is all I have to share. And yet it frightens me at times to do so. Like ripping open your head, your heart, the past. It hurts in a place I cannot see but from which I cannot tear myself free.
As Ernest Hemingway may or may not have said: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
I am bleeding.
And for those of you who are writers, you’ll understand this: My darlings are bleeding too.* I am killing them. One by one. They disappear from pages, screaming with a light bright blue highlight on their way out. Vanishing into a sky of white screen.
So begins re-write number three, in a pool of blue blood as mine pours forth forever fiery red.
I guess this is called a teaser. From “A Long Quiet Ride”… words in the works.
I lay in bed, sheets warm and worn, pacified by gentle wind from open bedroom windows. I’m listening to the song of the river and my husband’s gentle breath. He lays beside me, still asleep, limbs still intertwined, back to belly, belly to back. My nose in his neck taking in his familiar scent of sawdust and hay. The lullaby of crickets and tree frogs slowly fades into the chatter of early awakening birds, wrens and robins, phoebes and flickers, as the sky begins to take on color with fomenting light, and the honey fragrance of flowering madrone find its way in moving air through yawning windows.
Here I am. Sleepless beside my sleeping man. Listening to white noise drifting up through morning’s breath. Serenaded by the ever background murmur of flowing water over anchored rocks, reverberating with the promise of perpetuity.
Somewhere already out there, my thoughts ramble though my body remains still, savoring the familiar. This bed. The wind. The warmth. The fragrance. The old dog, the young dog, both in their beds on each side of ours. Even the view of familiar curves like broad, ample hips as are the hills peering between waving oak leaves out the open window. I hold a little tighter to Bob and he lets out a dreamy sigh.
Ah, the carrot that lures the horse back to the barn. And the rider.
Alright, this one got long. Grab a cup of coffee and sit back when you have some time, if you’re willing to read it through.
At my age, you start to hear it more often:
You should teach that! With all your years and experience, you have so much to share! Is this a compliment, or another way to tell me I’m getting old?
In my case, it’s stuff like herbs, wild crafting, writing, cooking and baking, off grid living, and horses, which I spent a lot of years already doing.
There are plenty of experts out there. I have no interest in being one.
See, I’ve never believed I would be a good teacher because I still feel the best way to learn is by figuring it out yourself. Not being told by someone else how to do things their way. Find your own damn way.
At least, that’s how it works for me. Always thought it would be easier if someone could give me the answers. But then is that really learning, or is it remembering what someone once told you? For wisdom to sink into your bones and your belly, you have to live it. Yourself. Your own unique path. All the damned mistakes, misunderstandings, misjudgments, mess-ups and all.
Funny thing is, all the same, I’ve always secretly longed for a teacher, a guide, a guru. Sometimes just for reassurance. Because more often than not, likely I won’t agree with what he or she is telling me. But it’s a good prompt. It’s comforting. And people love to give advice so they can feel they have all the answers. But is it always in your best interest? That’s for you to figure out.
Sometimes help is a great thing. The encouragement of courage. The direction for taking the next step when sometimes you can’t see where your feet are meant to go. And it reminds you, you are not alone. Which with writing, can be a thing.
Other times, you need to figure it out yourself. After all, it is your path, and your feet ultimately that will walk it.
I think it comes down to this: Do you believe in yourself? And do you believe in others?
Believing in yourself in so far as you can stop counting on others for wisdom you already have or will figure out. Everyone is not wiser, better or more than you. You got what you need, got what it takes. You got your own trip around the sun. You have the ability to make it brighter every year. No one ever can do that for you.
Believing in others in so far as trusting that they too have the wisdom they seek inside them. They can figure it out for themselves. You are neither better nor less than them. They don’t need you to teach them your trip. You are not the expert. Everyone’s got their own trip. Let them take it.
Okay but… truth is, I have worked with coaches, and I love that. They’re different. Coaches help you find your own answers. They don’t give you theirs. That’s fun. That helps. They are more like cheerleaders. Not teachers, guides or gurus. And who amongst us couldn’t use some cheering on?
Mentors are similar, with the added bonus of they might hold a little more weight. They might actually have something you are looking for. Maybe answers. Maybe a career or life path you’re trying to follow. Sometimes a specific skill or trade or way of thinking. Good stuff here too. And a good reminder that this is where age and accrued wisdom really pays off – when you are able to share it with others. Not just amass it for your self. What good is that?
Though do remember that wisdom does not necessarily come with age. It’s not a guarantee any more than expecting wisdom to come from books or school or teachers telling you. It comes from experiencing those truths, yourself, then contemplating what they mean. It comes from learning by living. Not just going through the motions, but understanding them. Wisdom is the beautiful balance between knowledge, experience and deep understanding. Age can be on your side there.
All this rambling is inspired by this.
This past week I’ve been spending a lot more time than usual at my desk staring at the screen. In part because of the rain. In part because it’s work. Not the fun, inspiring, creative writing of getting my latest book moving along. This week has been work to get the book proposal (for A Long Quiet Ride) ready to send out. This is big and scary stuff. Finally reaching out to the pros and saying, “Is this good enough? Am I good enough?”
Of course what I really want is someone to tell me, “Yes that is good” before I even send it out. But no one does. First of all because no one but Bob has seen it. Though of course he always says it’s good.
Where are the mentors when you need one? The elders who can lend an ear, or a hand? When we’re really feeling lost, that’s when we most want a guide or guru. This week I was feeling I needed one. Guidance. Answers. Direction. A pat on the back. Something.
And then I got the answer I needed.
It came in the form of an owl.
If you take things as signs (as I tend to do), you know Owl is a symbol for inner wisdom. She’s also a symbol of the Divine Feminine.
Last time Owl came to me was after my long quiet ride, on our ride back from Colorado to California. It’s dark early morning, Bob’s driving out of the place where we camped for a few hours for a quick rest, almost halfway home, somewhere in Nevada. Crow and Bayjura are rocking back in the trailer, calm and still despite the movement of the trailer after all they’d been through. We’re pushing it, rushing to get home because we heard Canela was missing. As we ease out of the parking lot onto Highway 50, an owl crashes into the windshield. Hard. I knew it had died. I cried and screamed because I knew what it meant. Canela was dead.
This time, this past week, this handsome little fellow crashed into the glass on my kitchen door. Chances are he was after the phoebe who lives in the eve over the door. I rushed out to check on him, so afraid of what I’d find. Lifted his limp body in my hands and held him close to my chest as I brought him inside.
A moment later, I felt his talons grip strong on the flesh of my palm and my heart alighted. Within minutes, he was able to fly free.
I shared that story this weekend with a couple of soul sister poets with whom I get to gather with online once a month.
“You already have the mentor you need,” one blurted out firmly.
You know sometimes when you hear the right answer (even sometimes when you don’t want to) it hits you in the gut strong like a punch? Bam. Yes. You know it’s true.
This was one such time.
“What more of a mentor do you need?” she continued.
“Draw on your connection with the Earth, with the Divine Feminine.
She knows where you need to be, what you need to do. Ask her. Within.”
Yup. Gotcha.
The choice is yours.
How do you choose to see?
With self empowering wisdom? Balancing understanding with a continual childlike open mind?
Or feeling you don’t know enough, don’t have enough, aren’t enough, and all the answers will come from someone else? Like where, what? The perfect parent, teacher or Prince Charming?
It’s not just for work, like getting this proposal together. It’s about life.
A friend wrote recently so sad that as a new mom not enough people where showing up, helping out. When I was a young single mom, likely I felt the same way. But that’s grumbling, whining, blaming, being the victim of our life rather than the creator.
I asked her who she reached out to in kind. She hadn’t. Ah ha!
If you need a friend, go be a friend.
Don’t wait.
Don’t be the victim of your own life.
Have the courage to reach out, create connection.
Have the courage to do something beautiful for someone else.
There’s healing in that.
There’s connection in that.
There’s love in that.
We all want the same stuff. We want to feel safe, to belong, to be loved.
If you want something, if you need something, nobody knows but you. Don’t wait for someone to carry it to you when chances are they have their own issues holding them down. Go get it. Chances are, they will receive you, beautifully.
Sounds like I’m giving advice. Really, I’m just talking to myself. Reminding myself. Or trying to drum the wisdom in.
So what’s the best advice I was probably given, didn’t listen to, and eventually had to just figure out?
(besides “give more than you take,” “listen without judgments or assumptions,” and maybe just “be good.”)
It’s this:
The answers you’re looking for, the advice you’re seeking… It’s already in you.
Listen.
Inside.
Not to something or someone out there. Not all the time at least. Not for the really big stuff, or the ultimate answers.
Be your own guru.
You have heard this too.
Others can point to the moon, but only you can find your way there.
Life will test us, allow us to learn, hopefully not always the hard way.
If you’re gonna leap, and I hope you do, get to weaving your own damn net.
Find your own answers. Your own truth. Your own goodness and beauty and truth.
Today I’m simply sharing some pictures from yesterday (yes, even the blooming flowers), and a little lilting piece (from something bigger) I was working on and thought you might enjoy.
Here.
Now.
Early morning.
A morning like so many in the six years I have called this place home.
Familiarity grows like the pear trees planted along the side of the creek, an amaryllis started on Solstice preparing to bloom on the window sill over the kitchen sink, blackberries and poison oak that promise to sprout and spread even in places you wish they would not.
In the quiet hours before the sun hints at awakening, with full moon low in the west veiled behind a lavish shroud of fog, I wake with arms and legs around my sleeping man. I am comfortable with his earthy scent and even breath and a little reluctant to rise. I slip on sweats, pull the covers back up around him, then quietly find my way around in the dark.
Stepping over snoozing dogs, lighting the wood stove, filling the coffee pot at that kitchen sink, all as I have done so many mornings before. I feel the ease in knowing where I am and what to expect. What time the sun clears the mountain to the east. When to hope for the last frost late spring and when the first frost of fall will arrive. What bird belongs to the flicker of wings that distracted me from my work or the song that rises each morning around the same time I wake. When to turn the soil, start the seeds, when to water, and when to drain or cover pipes. When to watch for leaves turning gold and brown blowing down, and when to look for new life at the tip of each naked branch, swollen and slowly unfurling in fertile subtleties.
Familiar. Is it the place or the pattern? For I have done this here. And I have done this other places I have been, and still will be.
This place, this pattern, has become familiar; intimate and expected as the view out that kitchen window which as the sun comes up and chores are done, awakens to an ever green pasture where horses graze, chickens free range, dogs play, and a brave cat or two may creep cautiously not too far from the house.
Familiar too is the sound, the ever present prevailing sound of the river, which ebbs from summer’s gentle roil over smooth rocks ever shaped by the ever movement of the ever changing flow – to winters rage and roar. A sound so familiar I often forget it is there.
In this semi-silence I am able to hold the world, embrace it like a big bear having found a honey hole, and my heart feels full.
Comfort in the familiar.
I do not take these things for granted. I have known what the unknown feels like. I think I’ll choose a balance of the two. The first keeps me grounded. The second, on my toes. Both can be magical or mundane.
The same worn boots left by the back door. Same old truck parked out front. Same cast iron pans curing on the wood cook stove. Same table, same chairs, same sofa, same rug. Same silly jokes that still make me laugh every time.
And comfort in accepting change, as the road map of my life unfurls on my face. Stories embedded within wrinkles that spread across my skin like dusty webs, and every graying hair that begins to outnumber the brown. I can laugh at my own fleeting vanity, because truth is, though I’m not thrilled with how I look now, I can’t say I ever was. Good looks are not what got me where I am. I’m more of a guts and grit sort of gal.
The inner landscape has changed, too. There is a calmer storm blowing within me now. Muddy waters have stilled and settled. Menopause, depression and drinking have been left behind. Hot flashes and explosive emotions have subsided. I sure don’t miss them. Neither does Bob.
Some days I look within and expect those frightening facets to surface again. But they do not. Can I claim to have slayed those evil beasts? Or rather, did they simply fade away, one more good thing that comes with age?
So it is into this calmer, quieter space that I feel myself finding a new familiar. Settling in. Not that I’m settled down; it’s more like the gradual un-letting of the belt cinched around my well worn levi jeans. You can only fight it for so long. Then you stop holding in, exhale, let it out a notch, and realize it’s not such a bad place to be.
I am getting there. Closer to that place deep inside that whispers, “Welcome home.”
Mornings hang cold and heavy, mysterious, shrouded in thick fog. Woods aglow in emerald moss. Branches draped in languid swaths of lichen. Water drops cling to swollen tips of the oaks gnarled branches. By mid day, the ground clouds dissolve into high blue sky, revealing distant hills dusted with snow. Sun is a welcomed visitor, warming sprouted starts in the greenhouse, while cats lay in its illumination sprawling across the old worn rug.
Rain has held for days now. Before bed I sit out under stars, oh the magic of the stars that have been hidden from sight for weeks, with my tobacco pipe and river babble and distant prattling of frogs in the marsh on the other end of the meadow. Frogs I rarely see, only hear. I used to stalk them, felt I had to see them, maybe to prove they were real. Invariably, as I got closer, they would fall silent. I never could find them in the reeds and mud. I have since learned to let them be. Live with them harmoniously. Enjoy the gift they share of song on moist nights; without annoyance of this two legged creeping up in chunky rubber boots as if they wouldn’t notice.
This is enough.
The river calms, slightly subsides, subdues to an even background drone. It is noticeably quieter, though you’re never without the river’s pulse here. Last week, I noted the return of robins, little leaves emerging on gooseberry branches, and delicate buds on tips of dogwood.
Who knows if the braced for snow and cold will come, or if she will be mild, gentle with us this winter.
Bob has been away. In his absence, I find myself speaking to the dogs and horses, cats and chickens as we putter about the ranch finding plenty to do in the sunlight. Probably, I do this even when he’s home. Apparently, I’ve got plenty to say. No one around here seems to mind. They are as used to my chatter as I am with their silent yet attentive response.
I will keep this short this week. There are other places I get to ramble, as the story of a journey, inner and outer, unfurls in ways I didn’t realize it was meant to go. Not too different, I suppose, from how journeys actually progress.
Into morning fog so thick it leaves sheen of droplets covering your heavy coat and the dogs’ coarse fur.
Turn to close the door to the comfort of the woodstove and Christmas lights and a still half filled cup of coffee behind you.
Suddenly engulfed in wet whitewashed morning air, you feel as if you’re swimming, trying to stay afloat on solid ground, your head above water, somehow struggling to breathe.
Step out into it, shrouded as if in a daze, a dream, an altered state, as the season spirals around you like sufi whirling, almost a madness to dance the year to an end. Heading into new moon, as even the night sky darkens before solstice this year. A powerful dark presence stirring within, feeling somehow more so than most years, or is this how you selectively forget each year?
And all around you, defused energy washed over in morning fog and sparkling frost as if waking from a dream while the sun finally clears the hill to the east and you watch horses stand like sundials, flat side to the sun; a heron sitting stoic in the tree in need of the warmth it brings.
And the day begins, beautifully.
Back in where the wood stove hums and Christmas lights twinkle and that coffee is still warm in my favorite cup.
And my mind is haunted by places I have been and am reliving in words alone.
My stomach bunches up in a twisted knot as I write along with where we rode along.
It’s scary to tell you what I did, how it happened.
Tangled in the isolation of writing, as it was in the isolation of riding.
Writing about it takes me there and my breathing becomes tight and shallow; nostrils flare, jaw tightens, teeth clench and my heart feels like it weighs as much as the saddle I hoisted up on the horse each day.
It was the loneliness I have ever been. I don’t want to be alone now. I want to take you with me, sharing the smell of damp leather, fresh sweat, horse hair when I brush them each morning or better yet at the end of day as I slip off the damp saddle blanket that will be the pad upon which I sleep that night, and the horses heads are down in some place lush with field grass, tangled barbed wire off to the side, and the primordial call between a pair of nesting sand hill cranes like a beacon, leading the way, for where they nest, we always find tall greenery and fresh water and a safe place for the horses, and me.
And just out of reach, just beyond the thread of searching for a sense of belonging, that ever and continuous theme for me as it is for some many of us, I thought that journey was going to be about inner strength and independence. Prove to myself (and everyone else) that I was strong and capable. Beyond badass.
Found out I wasn’t and don’t need to be.
See, I set out expecting some solo trial for me and my horses out on the open road.
No people, please.
People scared me more than all the bears, bulls and bugs I slept beside; barbed wire gates and snow banks that stopped me cold in my tracks, as well as maps and apps I never could figure out.
I just wanted to be alone.
And then I was, and no longer wanted to be.
Funny thing is, people turned out to be what the trip was about.
I’ve had a lifetime trying to perfect the art of being the outcast, outlaw, outsider, off gridder, misfit, black sheep, stray cat and/or rebel without a cause. I daresay I’ve done rather well.
People were not my thing.
That journey turned me around.
Rather than it be an adventure based on independence, something I’d always known, I had to learn about interdependence. That was new to me. And it was force fed. Trial by fire, thrown under the bus, sink or swim – call it what you will.
This is what it taught me.
People are good.
Yes, you heard me right.
Never thought I’d say that.
If you know me at all, you never thought I’d say that too.
It’s hard to relive it. Though of course not as hard as it was to do it.
But now the challenge is in sharing it. Writing the real story.
And my fears are no longer about finding good grass, fresh water and a safe place to rest my horses.
It’s finding the right words. It’s wondering if I can write this story well.
Humbly I bow my head as my fingers get work.
No longer gripping well worn reins, lifting packs or pulling cinches tight. Now dancing freely across the keyboard, watching stories come to life.
Here’s a thing. Not my usual, that’s for sure. It’s a little book. A weekly planner. Nothing fancy, but kinda sweet, and something I really need. See, I was looking for a new planner for the new year, something clear and simple, pleasing to look at on my desk all year, and even somewhat inspiring. Couldn’t find what I was looking for… so I made it myself. How about that? Just a little something I created for me… but then I thought some of you might like it too.
You see, there was this. My coach challenged me. And you know how I am with challenges. This one was a helluva lot easier than building a cabin in one summer off grid at 10k feet, or finding my way from California to Colorado, with my horses.
“Get a coffee table book out with your poems and photos,” she said. Well, that’s a bigger project than I have time for right now. My hands are full getting “A Long Quiet Ride” complete. So this is what I created instead. The photos are with the theme of “awakening and unfurling,” thus flowers and branches and leaves, which you know I’m wild about. And the weekly quotes are from my “Be Her Now” journals and posters crafted years ago.
All in all, it was a fun project, and it came out well. I’ve never done anything like this before – but I think it’s lovely, and hoping some of you might think so too. Maybe that coffee table book can happen next year.
In the meanwhile… this project is done, this challenge complete, and I rather love how it came out. So much so that I thought, who knows? Maybe you would enjoy it too. So if you have any interest, you can follow this link, check it out for yourself, and purchase a copy with the company that printed mine.
Lit from a window with dark and drama as if a Vermeer farm house woman painted on old canvas, weathered and worn with time. Where is my pitcher, my cup, a book held just so, or an open letter draped in my perfectly poised hand?
Instead, I loom mighty over a laptop, screen cold blue and buzzing, surreal, unimaginable back in baroque days. Both the computer and me.
The window is open. Damp air thick, smelling of wood smoke wafting from another clean up fire Bob is burning. And the sound of roosters competing in a crowing match, one on the river side, one by the garden. Diligent guards, knowing the hawks are close by. Allowing their ladies to peck and scratch through the fresh layer of damp decay.
And always, over and through it all, here has an ever present thrum of river. The sound a ubiquitous murmur, something that’s always there though so familiar you don’t always hear. Similar to that of traffic I was once used to in other days and feeling far away lands. This is what I hear, here and now.
A gray day. Ancient oaks with spindly outstretched arms like old woman’s fingers, gnarled and swollen from too many years gripping the shovel, the hoe, the broom, the wooden spoon; stand silent over ground matted with leaves still a robust brown covering ever green grass and rich black earth.
The writing desk, before which I’m perched, and upon which my lap top resides, this week brings me out beyond this familiar view to strange places on the open road where I once was. It’s that vibrant green and lush of late spring. The sound is of horses walking in unison, clip clop on some unnamed logging road or alongside a foreboding highway where cars and trucks zip by without meeting eyes or noticing the oddity of a woman riding along miles and miles of barbed wire fences, locked gates and “no trespassing” signs, still somewhere in the north of California.
A Long Quiet Ride, coming back to life in words. It’s not always easy to share. Of course it was harder to do. How does one share what happened out there? How do I bring you with me?
Conserving my words as I sit and stare out the window above my desk.
Wanting them to flow forth for the work at hand.
The book that’s stirring, simmering and working its way out of me now.
Yet poems are what mess around in my mind.
And what can a gal do but play with them, with a mischievous smile and twinkling, rolling gray eyes?
Evening now, leaning back with bent knees.
The familiar feel of warm worn leather holding the bones of my back.
I’m on one side of the sofa.
You are on the other.
Your feet are bare, broad, firm and warm.
While mine look half your size, wrapped in striped wool socks, holes in the toes worn through from wet leather boots left by the door beneath a dripping slicker.
Feet entangled, intertwined. An easy touch. Mindless and comforting as toes play with one another, finding familiar places to be.
While rain pounds down outside onto saturated deck shiny with water coating each old wood board, shimmering alive with pounding rain. And inside the old wood cook stove crackles and casts an amber glow into the half lit room smelling of the last of this seasons roses, rubbed down dogs drying by the fire, and chicken soup simmering on the stove.
We’re quiet.
You are softly spoken.
Teaching me to conserve my words.
A challenge for this rambling mind.
Lost in thought as silent phrases spill across pages of the notebook pressed against my thighs.
As I look up to meet your eyes, looking into, through you and back into me.
Entangled.
With words.
Sitting alone with my muse.
This weekend was rich with poems, poets and a coffee buzz. It’s hard not to succumb to the words that dance in my mind and twirl along my tongue as I read them aloud.
Tonight I watch the waxing moon rise as I lean back into the damp bark and moist moss of my favorite ancient oak. The air is soothing with the sound of crickets in thick woods, now low as if played on tired wings, and the ever present sound of the river, as steady and familiar as my lovers warm breath.
They say a big storm approaches. Be it rain or snow, I am ready. The wood shed and pantry are full. And like the bear still finding plenty on these moon filled nights, we are prepared to settle into the season of dark days.
With stiff shoulders and hands swollen and sore, I am as tired as the leaves that fall, and long for the season of rest. Of turning within. Life, death, pause and rebirth.
Acceptance of the seasons. Of change.
What else can we do?
But for now, right now, the moon and me and the dogs close by, the haunting call of an owl not too far away, all of it, a part of the season, of the land.
A spider’s silk, twinkling from moist air that rises as soon as the sun goes down, is moved by the evening breeze pushing up from the river, and gracefully wraps its silver thread upon my lap.
I take it as a sign. I do that a lot.
Considering the eternal connection, separate as it feels at times.
Wondering how my life has become.
And imagining where it will lead me next.
For now, it feels to be a story more beautiful than I ever imagined life could be.
Here now, the air is gentle, laced with gold as amber leaves fall in the light of bright moon, and the earthy scent of fallen leaves becoming a part of warm wet ground, a salve for the unsettled soul.
Time to return home. I take leave of the substantial oak, signal to the dogs and head towards the glow of the kitchen window. Mushrooms break ground beneath dark timber, and I find myself watching my step as I wander the forest floor in waning light.
The land has yet to freeze and the garden, always a place of solace, lingers, sharing vibrant bounty and beauty surrounded by a golden halo of autumn trees.
This is our first year to harvest zucchini into November, and as we were away for the main season, no, we’re not sick of it yet.
Leaves of tobacco, the sacred bold noble of the garden, are still harvested, ready to be cured and dried.
And roses, the beloved wise women of the grounds, still bloom, fragrant, rich and a little wild.
Yet I feel the natural close of season and have begun to cut back flowers and herbs and am eager to prune the fruit trees, though the flowers still bloom, herbs still aromatic, and fruit is still producing.
The quiet season unfurls. All we can do is settle back into it as if slipping into a warm tub and letting yourself go.
It begins by allowing time. Time to rest. To recover. Time to reflect and plot and plan.
And time to write. Something I still don’t know why I do it except it’s one of those things I can’t not do. I am incomplete without it. Perhaps it is creative passion, an expression of the feral soul, and/or the one thing I have always somehow felt I had that was worthy to give to others.
Lost at my desk, I’m found diving in to words, stories, places, time… some deeply moving, some simply hard, just as was the story I am starting to put into words.
For now, it’s still called, A Long Quiet Ride, because that is what I called it then. Though I’m open to suggestions, and hope you may share some ideas. The title, they say, is one of the hardest parts to write. And yet, possibly the most important words a reader may ever see.
And so it is that mornings are at my desk going places perhaps I should never have gone.
Maybe writing will help make it something you (and I) might finally understand.
Likely not fully, for every good adventure, every good story, should hold an element of inexplicable magic and mystery than can never be fully shared.
“What are you looking for?” I was asked time and again.
“Myself,” was the first thing that came to mind.
“A reason to live,” was the second.
And the third, was something beautiful.
I leave you today with this thought, something that followed me on that journey like a mysterious fragrance from a flower I could never see:
Remember to find magic, everywhere, everyday, in everyone.
It is there, waiting for us to find it, if only we take the time to see, to listen, to feel.
Gin Getz 