change

Burning Bridges

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

Scraps of wood cut from old planks that once spanned the Rio Grande, reawakened as borders to raised beds for a garden that barely produced.

This wood, heavy and dark and four inches thick smelling of age and time and stories I’ll never know, salvaged timbers to the old Little Squaw bridge, crossing the river almost ten miles below us as the water flows, the dirt road goes.  One more life stirring, one more use, burning in my woodstove, relieving the morning chill, mesmerizing me with the crackle and hiss of its final song as the flames in the stove wave like branches in the spring wind.

Burning bridges.

Would you believe so literally?

What’s next, she asked and awaited a response to arrive in the twisting air?

Blow, wind, blow.

Share with me your secrets; allow me to share my passion.

Spread my wings, force me to take flight, lift me higher and higher again.

In a wild spiral.

My once tamed hair flying free in the wind.

My once calmed heart stirring where we thought we could keep it calm.

I cannot hold back the hoot and holler as I run down to the Rio Grande and lose my voice in the fierce flow of the last of her roaring spring waters.

 

 

Change comes in odd ways.  Often not as we expect.  Taking on an appearance so different than that which we were looking for.

The dog sits on the deck watching deer at his horse’s salt lick.

The horses settle into the routine, coming to my call, standing patiently through grooming, saddling and then keeping an open mind to the surprise of where I will lead them to today.

Summertime neighbors, old replaced by new, a changing of the guard and new life to a seasonal community, an excitement by the freshness of faces, ideas, beautiful new stories spread out like picnic blankets on a sunny day.

Evening light casting shadows of the Blue Spruce like daggers across the open flats.  The chartreuse wash of newly emerging Aspen leaves.  Freezing temperatures in the morning lace the sides of the creek with bouquets of frozen water that bloom only until eight a.m.

My son, evolving to his own direction and destination and forming his world like a sculptor. More often than not staring at the ball of clay before him and wishing it might portend the future more like a crystal ball. My husband, embracing the “encore career” and the mining community after thirty years of running his own business and, more often than not, doing it all himself.

Myself, awaiting a change I know will come, yet have no idea what to look for. I open my mouth and wait for the song to begin but the words do not come.

Yet.

I long and listen for a song I do not hear but somehow know the tune.  It is not one I have heard before.

As wild as the wind.

Nothing stays the same.

So, go ahead, burn those bridges.  Find a new use for old timbers.  And get to work spanning the river with a new one.

Home again

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the net appears

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

For those who read my post “Cowgirl Up” earlier this year, you might recall I have a track record for acting before thinking. It’s that tough girl syndrome, and I’m not so sure it’s a good thing. However it has landed me in some interesting situations. Sometimes flat on my butt.

And sometimes, just sometimes, that craziness pays off. Those few times are probably responsible for that naughty little voice inside egging me on with just enough confidence to try it again. That little voice urging me, “Sure, give it a try! What do you have to lose?” At forty-five, with a husband by my side and a son in college, dog, cats and a dozen horses, a writing career that is refusing to take flight and a fabulous property that we can’t seem to pass on… Plenty.

Leap! And the net will appear!
I told him
He believed me.
And tell you what, for a while there, I was pretty sure that was a stupid thing to say and do.

Leap! And the net will appear!
We had held hands and jumped.
Left behind everything we built and most of what we owned to forge ahead like the pioneer I dream myself to be, looking for the perfect place to settle down.
And there we were like the rabbit falling endlessly wondering where time was going and when we’d reach the bottom.

Eight days. All it took was eight days and the pieces of the puzzle began to shift into place. The picture they are forming into, I might add, is even more beautiful than I imagined.

But of course, during those eight days, it was he supporting me. My weakness was wrought with spells of tears and fears and foolishness.

Perhaps moving 1400 miles and five states away with no more than a blind rental in place is not the way to make a move. But no one told me you were supposed to have it all lined up, job and all, before you give it a go. Bob said he had heard it is usually done that way, but again, he trusted. After all, he hadn’t done this sort of thing before. I was the expert. Ha! God, I love this guy.

I haven’t figured out if it is fate, fortune, or just dumb luck. But sometimes things work out. Fall into place. Come together just so.

Go figure. I don’t know how or why, or who or what to thank, but I’m mighty grateful. Saved my butt yet again.

And this time, made me look pretty good in the eyes of my husband.

“See,” I can tell him, “Told you it would work out!”

But I don’t say that. Because I think secretly he knows I was pretty scared there for a while. But don’t tell him that.

Stepping out of the comfort zone

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

The blanket of snow I remember as a consolation for half my days of the past ten years I will no longer be allowed. Not here.

Awakening. The bubble has burst.

Stepping out of the comfort zone.

Development, just beyond where I found myself yesterday, the place and space of ease and solace. A shock of humility. I wake up and the world I thought I knew so well is gone, going, no longer what I thought it to be. Expanding views, minds, horizons, beliefs. Habits are broken. The chain tying us to past is torn loose.

I ask the woman in the mirror, “Who are you today?” There is no answer.

“What do you want of me?” Silence. A cold hard surface.

I don’t know the answers. I look for them inside. They are vague and misty and mysterious. A game I’m not sure I’d like to be playing, but there I am, in the middle of it, and the ball is thrown my way.

Still I smile. I am looking forward to not having “The Ranch” define us, bind us. But without it, the bottom falls out. I fall, seemingly endlessly. The rabbit in the dark hole.

Listen. Silence. In that void, I start to whistle. My own tune. It means nothing to no one but me. I can be myself again. Something I never was here somehow. The history, the attachments, my husband’s family, the stories told of me I still don’t know and don’t want to know. All of it. I just felt I fit into the picture. Contorted to the shape I was allowed.

Now I begin to draw my own picture, tell my own story. It starts now. With a simple breath. Deep and strong and dizzying with the dazzling stars of this high altitude I find myself staring up at as I walk the dog in the middle of the night. His wet cold nose nudging me awake becomes the blessing rather than the curse.

It’s all a matter of how we look at things. As long as we look. Even in the pitch black of mid night as the infinite stars above bedazzle my sleepy head.

A return to black and white

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

There is no black, no white, only shades of grey. Facts and stories, people and places, yesterday and tomorrow, blending together into today. Shadows and suggestions, questions and ambiguity. This is what makes life such a challenge, yet brings great depth of beauty, interest and intrigue.

Grey, the laden clouds loitering low along the sides of the mountain now recently stripped of fancy foliage. Grey, shrouding the peaks now covered in a lighter wash, snow in the faintly brightening sky, spilling into the tree line, blending with dark timber, softening the harsh defining boundaries. Grey, in layers laid like swaths of blowing silk as far as they eye can see fading to a paler wash. Grey, between earth and sky and a part of each; that which bonds and unifies, connects and conceals.

Thoughts on home

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Home.  A relative term.  Think about it.

We all know those who have spent their entire lives in the
same one, sometimes generation after generation.  And I’ve seen it brings no more stability and inner peace as those who move around because of work, family, environmental needs, excitement for change, a desire to learn and grow, or some need to get away.

A home forever, or for now. Each have their benefits and draw backs.  Yet each is only as strong and stable and beautiful as we make it.  And that’s it, isn’t it?  Home is what we make it to be.  Where ever we are.  That strength, that stability, that beauty…
it’s not found around us.  It’s in us.  Or not.

We may cling to its walls to find our own strength, or for
fear we will be lost without, unable to define who we are.  The walls do not define you, but may confine you.

Have we forgotten that we built those walls?  Therefore, ultimately, the strength once again isn’t in the logs or boards or plaster or stone, but in the hands and minds and dreams that built them.

I’m finally getting what I’ve been told for years. At least today.  Tomorrow may be something different.

Where I am now

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

Change. How do I put this into words? Share this with you? It is not what I expected. Not what I am used to writing about. Uncomfortable. Not bad, just different. So different I am out of my element. Out of touch. Out of words.

I didn’t plan this part. Guess we’re not always in control of the world around us. But we can control how we react to it all. Ride the wave. Rather than tumble under and gasp for air. I’ve been there, too.

Still, this is not how I wanted it to begin for Forrest. This is not how I wanted to come back to visit him. But we do what has to be done. And hopefully learn from it all.

I’ve learned a lot already. I’ve learned you never stop being a mother… or sister or friend. Distance doesn’t matter. If you’re needed, you’re there. I should have known this one already. I’ve tested the boundaries of my own mother (and sister and friends) plenty in the almost thirty years since leaving home, and learned that this is in fact true. Tested and proven, over and over and over again. There is comfort in this for me. I’m not ready for mothering to end. Though I look forward to where it brings me, now dealing with an exciting and interesting adult for my so-called child. For now, it’s brought me to Squamish, British Columbia to nurse him back to health after a mountain bike mishap. I can think of worse places to be.

I’ve learned my son is as strong, smart, capable and independent as I expected, which is a lot. However, there are some times one should not be alone. Like after an accident. And then dealing with broken out front teeth, a busted nose, and a rattled brain… all after living here for less than three weeks. Minor details.

So here I am. Wishing I could do more. Not as upset as I thought I’d be to see this handsome young man looking rather rough.

Here I am. Sitting with my son on our rental apartment balcony in the morning sun, with downtown Squamish bustling before us, and these wild mountains cradling us all in the shockingly soothing light. I can almost hear the call… deep, old, wise words singing in the soft moist wind as it winds from the sea through these lush green peaks jutting out from the cold Pacific waters.

Yes, I could think of worse places to be.

Leap!

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

We sat in the tent, my son and me, as the light withered.  The horses were in the trees for the night,
the little stove hissed, dinner was done, a candle or two were lit in preparation
of the darkness that was swelling.

Everything changes, but some things remain the same.  He will always be my son.  I will always be his mother, and be, give,
create everything I can for him.  I will be
there for him if he needs me, though “there” may have greater physical distance
between us.  And “needing” may not be as often.

We talked, just the two of us, as two adults, two individuals
with big hearts and big dreams, together in one quiet tent in the middle of the
Wilderness.  I gave one last
lecture.  No, there will be more.  He knows.
He’s had them his whole life.  He
knows I speak because I care.  I worry, I
want to give him all I can.

I reminded him of the Cowboy Way.  Rules to live by, each of us, as he heads out
to make his own choices without me near to intervene.  Probably better now.  He knows plenty.  He is ready.
He may not always make the right choices, but he will probably know when
he is wrong, and hopefully do what he can to amend.  He will be hurt from time to time, too.  That is life, but as a mother, that is a hard
one to accept.  We wish for a perfect,
protective bubble.  Yet we know life
doesn’t work that way.

And I reminded him of what matters most to me, for I see
these things matter to him, too.

  1. Live
    life passionately.
  2. Let
    yourself, allow yourself, or make yourself be spontaneous.  Plans are necessary, but sometimes you just
    have to do.
  3. Be
    positive in outlook.  Life IS beautiful
    and amazing, and so are you.
  4. Find
    a purpose in life that is giving, not taking, and do what you can to make the world
    a better place.  Strive to leave
    everything and everyone a little better for having had you there.
  5. Be
    yourself.  There is no one more special.

These are the words of wisdom I send my son off with as he
leaves tomorrow to begin the journey to college. The road trip begins.  The adventure begins.  A new world unfolds.  He is leaving behind the world and home he
has known for more than half his life.

He shows no regrets, sadness, loss or remorse.  Only a calm excitement, which is basically
how he handles life. He’s better at that than me.

I compare his reaction to the negative ones I hear too often
associated with change here.  I am tired
of hearing what it means to the tourists who come here for but a week a year
when humbly my job has required me to listen.
My son, for whom this has been not just a fond memory but a solid and
real home with all the ups and downs that a full rich life are built on, has still
not whined.  And I know he will not.

Tomorrow our life changes.
Just like that.  I don’t know the
answers yet.  Maybe some of them.  Like Forrest going to college.  That’s awesome.  I’m proud of him as a proud parent could ever
be for working as hard as he has to allow himself the opportunities and open
doors he found and created.  His choices.  His life.

As for me, for us, a family, a couple now, moving, changing,
growing, starting something new… I’m ready.
Bring it on.

Subtle signs

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

The birds are boisterous in the early morning, silent mid
day in the heat, heat still lingering, a heavy burden remaining from the peak of summer.  The intensity of the seasons in the high
mountains.

Summer is ending.  Longer
shadows even at noon with the sun arcing lower in the southern sky.  Crisp outlines to every object in the
landscape before us.  Signs of
change.  Promise of change.  Subtle and certain.  There is great comfort in knowing what to
expect as the seasons unfold one onto the next.

I am here listening through thin walls of the tent and
realize how separate I am. Connections to nature we created. Threads in our own
minds.  But the longer I am here the more
I understand:  we shall never be a part.  We are but observers, trespassers in the
wild.

The sound of a hummingbird zipping by, way up here on the
Divide, seemingly a world away from where you might expect such a fragile
creature to choose to be, and I think of how displaced we are here when most have
only known these delicate birds hovering around red plastic feeders and it
somehow doesn’t cross our mind they might survive without us to feed them.  Do we forget at times how the world might
manage without us?  We choose to intervene.
And deem ourselves important as we stir
the sugar water.

Am I jaded to the wilds around me as I turn my back and
prepare to leave?  Or can I learn to take
with me in a secret place inside the vastness of the time we have shared
together unlike anyone else?  Such is a
relationship ending.

They tell me I may never find such a beautiful view, as if
that is what matters most, and I consider their ignorance wondering if they
would base the quality their marriage on the most beautiful bride.

What I want beside me when I wake each morning is deeper and
richer than a pretty view.

A wild strawberry under frosty leaves

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Heavy rains, a comforting wrap about the shoulders of the
mountain.  I walk the ditch tucked under
the wide brim of my hat and the soft canopy of trees with fewer needles than I
remember each year.

It has been a while since I could walk with her alone, in
silence and peace.  Who would guess the
disruption of a puppy would have such an impact?  He’s a different sort.  Still after a year, we don’t fit together
like Alan and I did.  I miss the silent
old dog always by my side companionship.
It will be hard earned, but it will come.

Or perhaps my feeling of separation from the mountain on
which I walk it is more than that.  Now
that I finally know we are leaving.  I
separate myself.  I don’t allow myself to
hold on.  It is not mine.  Then again, it never was.

Without a new land, a new plan, a new place to be connected
with, I am incomplete.

Have I ever been complete?

 

And now August.
Middle of the month already.  I
have trouble keeping track of, keeping up with time this time of year.  I wonder if it matters.  Subtle signs show me where and when.  A change of winds, of season, of
sunlight.  Mid day and the shadows are
already showing.  Longer, sharper,
crisper.

Morning and the first frost settles in and across the open
meadow of the Divide, replacing the weeks’ worth of fog and cloud I became so
accustomed to seeing upon waking, walking through the tall grasses soaking my
pants to above my knees as I lead the horses, two by two, from the comfort of
the highline tucked into the trees to their early morning feeding on the lush
mountain grasses.

The hillside is sprinkled with tiny gems hiding beneath frosty
leaves.  Wild strawberries.  I watch every step, often end up crawling on
hands and knees to harvest a handful.

Sweet treats.  How
easy to overlook when we’re too focused forward to look at the ground before
us.  Changing ground.  Changing lives.  Reaping the harvest while it blooms.  What a pity if I had missed this.