Diving in… the Ditch Diaries continue

August 25, 2013August 25, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Diving into the Ditch Diaries.

Twenty days in camp and counting.

After a week off, we’re feeling good. Strong, in shape, recovered, ready to hit it hard.

Not bad for a middle aged woman from the Big City, I think.

Some ask me why I don’t volunteer, help the Forest Service crews clear the trails, stop complaining and get out there and get it done. I can’t afford to, for one. Volunteering is a luxury many cannot afford.

And as much as I love working with my old fashioned tools and have utmost respect for the simpler ways, I also love an outlaw.

Besides. They don’t want me. I know. I’ve tried. Maybe you’re either a Yes-Man or a I-Don’t-Think-So kind of person. You know which one I am. My reputation precedes me. We can leave it at that.

Woke this morning to an odd scratching sound and a beeping which reminded us of a back-up warning signal on a dirt mover machine. Not something you’d expect to hear out here. What we found was a porcupine with his head hiding under the log on which we store our saddles. Glad I saw him before the dog or horses did. He’d already done some damage to Bob’s old heavy saddle, chewed on the fenders and back cinch strap.

Always something.

Early morning after putting the horses out to graze. Gunnar and I hike up the North Fork trail. It has been cleared. Traditional methods. I’m impressed, but glad I wasn’t around to witness. Mid season, and I can guess by the number of trees I had counted that need to be removed and were – what was that, sixty four? – that there may have been a good size crew or it took a while.

Yes, it’s sticking to the rules, but is it lower impact on the forest? Or the visitors to the forest?

First time in how many years I could walk without climbing over dead fall. I’m grateful, but skeptical. A usual reaction from me.

A friend tells me she tried to hike up the Ute Creek trail to Black Lake and spent too long finding her way up, over and around to make her destination. Could have sworn there was a Forest Service crew parked there with horses and a group of volunteers for about ten days. What did they do if not clear the trail?

After my indecent proposal of suggesting we take chainsaws into the Wilderness once a year, early season, before the tourists, and properly address the growing problem of dead and falling trees and resulting closed trails, the reactions I received will not surprise you.

Those in the Forest Service were adamant about sticking to the rules, the traditions, at all costs. Everyone else, not so much…

The rules, the traditions… but folks, it’s all changing. Wake up. It always does, only now, more so than ever. Things are happening, fast. Haven’t you seen? The trees are dead or dying. Now they are burning and we all know the risk and know it’s far from over.

This is a growing problem. First the beetle kill. Then the burns. It’s not going to go away any time soon and if we bury our heads in the sand (or under a fallen log like my chubby porcupine), it’s still going to remain. And probably grow.

This is my mountain. This is my forest. These are my trees. These are my trails and my back yard and my home and my business and you know what? I’m going to do something about it. If nothing else, I’m going to grab you by your shoulders, give you a good shake, and make you open your eyes and look.

It’s yours too. What are you going to do? Tell me to hold onto the past and stick to the rules? I’ve never been big on either one.

Open your eyes. Open your mouth. Breathe in the thin air that’s probably going to be a little thinner when all these trees are gone.

Maybe that’s all we can do. But I swear, that’s a helluva lot better than burying your head and pretending it’s all the same today and maybe even tomorrow as it was yesterday and everything is just peachy.

It don’t look so peachy to me.

Gunnar is lying in a big nest that is our double sleeping bag, still warm from a night of tangled flesh, while steam rises from his wet back and his nose is tucked into his fat fox like tail. Bob is getting the fire going, the coffee is done percolating, condensation on the tent roof drips, the moon has set behind the wall of fuchsia sunrise, and the horses are hiding head down in the sea of fog that settled at the base of the mountain where the thick grass grows.

The changes we are witness to. Needle-less trees provide less protection from hail, rain, and I remember when in the years before we allowed ourselves the luxury of a tent, Forrest was at ease tossing out his bedroll under the boughs of a big spruce tree and that was usually enough.

Now the birds of prey fly through and hunt in among the trees.

Grass grows taller when not in the shade.

Raspberry bushes take hold.

There’s no shortage of firewood.

There are some silver linings to these clouds of dying trees.

The first flock of geese flying in formation for this season, heading south.

We step outside the tent to listen.

No motors.

Silence after they pass.

That’s the best part of being out here.

Solace of solitude.

No, I don’t want the chainsaws all the time. Don’t be silly. You should know me better than that. Don’t you remember what I asked for? Just one week, early season, to let my horses ride in safely. I even offered to help.

And what about the noise pollution of small planes that fly low over camp and buzz our horses out in the meadow regularly enough that they no longer lift their heads?

One hundred and forty feet of ditch in a day. Not dug from scratch, but cleaned up. Vegetation removed, upper bank cut to the perfect slope, bottom slipped and shoveled, lower bank raised, compacted, re-seeded.

At the end of the day, you lean on your shovel, look around and think it’s all a work of art. The ditch. The dirt. The slope. The calluses on your hands. The view. The sun going down behind the Pyramid. The horses grazing in the thick wet grass. Hillsides, even with dead red trees. Maybe even when they’re black and burned.

I’ll find beauty. I’m here. I’ll look. Closely. An intimate view, connection, touching, tasting, finding. And in the meanwhile, I’m going to care. About every fallen needle, deer in the distance, slope of the bank, and tiny little transparent green-grey trout fry swimming in the still pristine waters of the North Fork of the Pine River.

And caring sometimes might mean speaking up, stirring the waters, and splattering a little mud. Otherwise, like that porcupine, all you’ve got is a shallow view and a sense of self preservation that probably won’t last too long.

At the end of the day… you sleep pretty well out here.

Enough of a good thing. I’m tired of the rain, wet boots, cold hands, heavy shovels, soggy Levi jeans.

What a strange summer.

Sadness in the air, heavy as the sky cries.

We mourn the loss together.

Something about our team. The three of us. Links in a chain. The secret ingredient to making it all work.

At the end of the day, we balance each other out. With chores, interests, humor, drive… You take this tool, I’ll take that. We’ll get it done, together.

I’m the one to give lectures. They listen. Conversation is killed.

Follow your passion, I tell them, live like no one else. Life is an adventure, live the life you’d be envious of if you knew someone else was living it. Be the person you want to be. Start now.

Dare not only to dream, but to make your dreams come true.

They put up with me. I don’t know if they listen, but at least they don’t interrupt.

Just before lunch another hail storm hits. We’re in the tent, steaming ramen in flimsy paper bowls perched precariously in our laps, looking out the tent flap to a ground turning white. It’s loud on the tent. Oddly enough, it makes you sleepy. Why not indulge? It’s not like you can get much done out there in this, and you know it won’t last too long…

Rodeo.

All hell breaks loose around ten a.m.

Norman’s been on edge this year. Something about his confidence. I need to help him through it. If he’s part of the team, he’s got to work too.

In the meanwhile, he explodes, all fifteen hundred plus pounds of him, bucking, four feet in the air, head down, sacks of rocks flying off, metal racks tossed in the air, and away he goes a half mile across the big wide open meadow on the Divide with the dog and me behind him.

No matter how I tried, this time, I could not keep hold of the rope.

Work season is winding down. Then the fun begins. Hikes and rides and pack trips with nothing more in mind than to be here, appreciate the wilds, make the most of where we are.

I hope to do that every day.

Even while digging ditch.

Wild. Life.

August 14, 2013 / Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Ditch diaries. Year seven, week three.

One very wet week at the ditch.

We ride up as a creek of creamy coffee colored waters rushes down the narrow trail. The horses heads hunker low, manes dripping down long faces like faucets left ajar. My hat collects and pools and dumps as I lean over the side of my horse, turning back to see that the packs are not slipping coming through the steep slope on slick footing and a wet back.

We awake to a dark morning. Rain all night, white noise in the tent, and continuing. Beneath the heavy clouds, a blanket of fog spreads in the valley below camp. Silhouettes of the horses seen from the tent. No more mountains.

Somewhere I hear a duck. Maybe a distant coyote. The small commuter planes stay away from the mountains this morning. Otherwise, nothing but the sound of rain on the tent as I sit with a silent steaming cup of coffee held tight as if in prayer.

Disparity.

I read the word on a piece of newsprint crumbled to start the fire. Old news, I don’t even know what the article was about, but I do remember the word. I write it in my journal so I don’t forget.

Disparity.

The mountain sheds tears.

Wash me in a river of tears… Cleanse me of my past…Dip me in the river of rebirth and let me live again…

Some days you wonder if you’ll ever see the sun shine, and if your boots will ever dry out. Neither will happen today, I’m pretty sure of that.

Before bed I peel off the wet socks. I’m shocked to see brightly painted toe nails laughing back up at me. Bright blue and green, each nail like a little planet earth. I smile to think of my darling niece who spoils me (shouldn’t I be the one spoiling her?) and knows I secretly love those little lady like things, though they’re hard to find and live with under all this mud and muscle and layers of wet clothes.

I can’t keep track of the calories we’re consuming, and still we’re cold, tired and hungry. Sometime in the middle of the night, Gunnar takes over the lower half of the sleeping bag. I tuck in, wrap my legs around my husband’s to make room for the dog, reach down to pat his still wet fur. He is shivering.

The spring runs again and there are puddles in the ditch where we have never seen them before and my rain pants are soaked to my waist before we even start work.

The next morning, a deep frost. Snow on the Rio Grande Pyramid visible when the fog lifts. It is colder, feels like early winter. The first of turning leaves and the last of fading wildflowers, and that’s the end of our luscious little wild strawberries.

Really, I’d like to get over the sadness. It swells sometimes like a crashing wave, catching me unprepared, out of breath, as if I fell asleep at the beach and suddenly high tide moves in and I’m under it. Walking helps. Getting out there. Listening to what you might say is nothing. A woodpecker tapping at a dead tree. The soft trickle of a little spring over moss covered rocks. Snapping branches beneath my feet.

One of these days you’ll disappoint me or maybe I’ll say something to upset you. Human nature. I try to find the good in it. I’d like to think we are evolving and see some signs that give me hope but until I’m sure, I think I’m better off… far away. Out there. Here. Alone.

Maybe with my boys if they can put up with me.

These are wild times.

I wouldn’t want to have missed this. You know how many left, how many stayed away? Afraid to see it. Or maybe it spoiled their view.

It’s real and raw. It’s dead, buried, burning. It is wild. It’s my mountain. And I am so glad to be here with her, on her, enwrapped in her, entwined in her needless arms that still hold power and grace more than I will ever see a human have the ability to embrace.

Sister soldiers standing side by side.

Stick it out. Here, with her. Stand by her. My mountain. This sad stage in her mighty cycle. What if I didn’t lay witness to what she is going through? Leave when the going gets tough and come back when it’s all ok again.

Abandoned in heart and soul.

It will never be the same. Life doesn’t work that way. Don’t fool yourself.

My intimate involvement matters to me, and somehow, I feel, to her. What else can I do, like a mother with a sick child, but be there, by her side, strong and steady while she weeps. Pat her sweaty brow until the fever breaks. I know it will one day.

I was looking forward to being home. It’s what got me through rain, hail, snow, freezing weather, soaked boots, muddy gloves, and shovels that would not let go of the dirt. Dreams of a hot bathtub, fluffy bed, solid walls, dry boots…

Well, we got home, but then all of a sudden, I wondered what the fuss was all about, leaving camp, being here. The hot water heater in the guest cabin we raided wasn’t working well enough to fill a tub, and a family of pack rats moved into our cabin during our absence. When you’re talking a little one room cabin, 12 x 20, there’s not room enough for us all. At four in the morning, we set traps, grabbed our sleeping bags, and went to sleep in a vacant guest cabin. One advantage to our grave business we’re dealing with this year.

We’re back down in the Little Cabin now. The rats are still here, hiding behind the built in pantry. I’ve had better days…

Today, I’m done with the rain. For now, I’ve had enough. How about moderation? What I want does not seem to matter. That’s OK. I know this rain is good… only right now, all I really want to do is go down to the river, lie warm in the sun, and knit. I don’t know how to knit, but today it sounds like a really good thing to do.

I’m at home now with the hawk screeching in the wind and it’s the only music I care to hear. Wilds stirring in the brown waters of the river than washes body and soul of the land and me clear from the worries of yesterday.

A girlfriend travelling in Guatemala shared a photo of a handmade road side sign which translated to this: “It produces an immense sadness to think that nature speaks, while mankind does not listen.”

Listen. The earth speaks in wild whispers. The trees talk. Even the ones that have already died. Maybe they have ghosts. Their stories told in streams of sap now hard and cold on flaking bark. What stories they share of changing times and battles fought and lost and tales of two leggeds with bright eyes that remain blind to the woods around them. Listen. There are stories to hear, beauty to behold, wisdom to absorb, lessons to learn. If we care to listen.

My dirty little secret

August 3, 2013 / Gin Getz / 7 Comments

Another week worn and older and more work done at the ditch. We do good work. Life as a work of art. Work as our palette. No matter if it’s digging ditch.

Frost already in the morning. Rain so hard you wonder if you’ll ever dry and suddenly fire becomes a treasured gift though I don’t know if I’ll ever look at thunderheads the same way and not see plumes of smoke rising from the raging flames. Our views are tainted. Maybe it’s just me.

Get on with it. Dig. Sweat. Soak through. Cringe when you pause, rest against your shovel and watch another backpacker in the distance not figure out the way across the great Divide. The spine of the sleeping beast. I feel her roar, tilt back my head, and join in her wild howl. Maybe the backpacker wonders what scary beast lurks in this high country besides the usual fear of bears. It’s just me. Some crazy middle aged mountain mama out here digging ditch for a living.

Wild life, changing seasons, strawberries beneath every step on the hill up from the horse pasture. In camp come does, bucks, bull moose, mama grouse, and Gunnar flushes out a few little ones that spook the horses as we lead them to the river for water.

Here’s life’s simple. It’s no secret, really. It’s about hard work, silence, the disturbance of airplanes, simple living, simple food. Everything tastes better when you’re tired.

Dirt work, dirty work. This week Norman packs in two hundred pounds of lumber and we lay down our shovels, pick up our hammers and hand saws for two of our days here in the wilds during which time we reframe the diversion box that was sagging almost as bad as an old barn ready to fall over under the next load of snow.

I’m out there and I want to get further. I fantasize about owning the valley. Maybe the whole mountain. I don’t want to see the bright white or fluorescent colored pin point prick of a backpacker a mile away. I want to be alone. With my boys, my critters, my hard work, the wind, the wilds. A part of the elements. Even the dirt. I’ll take it.

I never thought I needed money. Maybe I finally do. I want enough to buy a valley – both sides – so no one is in my view. And no one is near enough to hear, to roll their eyes as I run around howling like the wild woman I can be.

I don’t think it’s that I’m anti-social. I just like to be alone.

In praise of the chainsaw.

Sixty four. That’s the number of trees across the trail on the lower half mile of the North Fork of the Pine River. Most of those down are beetle killed. Trees dead, dried and snapped in the wind. A few are still green. Their needles now enough to catch the wind in this thinning forest.

Of course if the chainsaw were always allowed, like any motor or wheel, we’d be out of work in the Wilderness. Instead we have horses, shovels, the two person, cross cut saw where it’s all about rhythm. Part passion, exertion, sweat. And part Zen, losing your mind to the back and forth push and pull.

The trail is still open. In theory. No “closed” signs or reports tell you otherwise. Though crossing horseback might bring tears to your eyes and a few rips and tears to your horses’ legs trying to find a way over, around, through.

A part of the Divide system, it’s still not a popular section of trail. In peak season on a normal year, you might get three or four groups passing by on any given day, going up, going down. We know because we see. Our ditch crosses the base of the trail and every once in a while a curious backpacker or lost Forest Service Newbie takes the wrong turn and comes down the ditch instead of the trail. Water only flows down the ditch when “in priority.” Otherwise, the ditch is a dry channel. I guess I can see the possibility of someone mistaking it for one heck of a well used trail.

It’s not a popular section of the Wilderness. Our use numbers are low, elevation high. It’s far away, even to get to the trail head, away from any city, without cell phone service and internet access. This is the real back woods. The high country. Left for the hard core. Left.

Well, I haven’t even mentioned the chainsaw yet and this section was going to be about that.

Here’s the deal. The trees are dead and falling, and trails are being blocked far faster than a dandy group of young and ambitious Forest Service yes-men-and-women can get out there and clear them. The trails are becoming impassable. The point of the Wilderness, for man to come, travel lightly, enjoy the pristine and untrampled, and leave, is being lost. Man – or woman – and the few that do come this far – can barely get in there and get around. The place is a mess. It’s a disgrace in places, and getting worse fast.

So, here’s my proposal. Tell me what you think about this. As chainsaws are about 400% faster than my dear cross cut saw, what if, for say, one week at the beginning of the season, early season, you know, when no one is really out and about up here yet for the year, we let them (or better yet, they let us, if you really want this to be about efficiency, but I know it’s still about more, like rules, regulations, control and bureaucracy…) take in chainsaws for just a few days and clear the trails, open up the access, clean the place up, allow our minimal use to continue and the tradition and dedication that made these trails possible in the first place to carry on in a respectful manner, to land and man, wild and curious.

Now we’re back home. Guests have left early so there is an empty cabin with running hot water. Showers feel especially good when it’s been five days and you’ve been out there really working. So does bed.

Home is still simple. For us now, a one room cabin, still propped up on blocks of firewood until we build something else, a little bigger, down here some day. For now, we have bunk beds. Forrest on the top; Bob and I down below. In the middle of the night a cat forgets we’re back and jumps from the top bunk and lands on my face. I awake to a bloody nose and can’t find a flashlight to find my way to a little water in the jug on the counter to wipe myself clean. Sometimes a little too cozy.

Though earlier I visited the outhouse in the dark of night with the door open to the sound of the river below and a spectacular show of distance lightning in the sky above. Beat that.

Simple pleasures. You think it sounds like fun, but do you really want to be here? For how long? Are you ready to give up your bed, toilet and kitchen sink, medical insurance, job security, regular payments towards your debt which has allowed you a bigger better life? Trade that for bugs and cold and wet and dirt and sore muscles and regular cuts and bruises and a bloody nose at best? Is it not enough to come here one week out of every year and dream about if for fifty others?

You may have more comforts and luxuries and fancy foods and nights on the town and you won’t get me to want to trade places.

I’ll take my dirty life.

Turn Around

July 19, 2013 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Finally the sound of children laughing. Families out playing. I didn’t forget. This is good stuff.

Life as normal. You might say. Though maybe not. Back on track? Or is that backwards? Maybe I’m ready to jump tracks. Again.

The road is open, guests are here, leisure people in the distance sitting around with cocktails and chatter, the miller moths have hatched, this is the worst season for horse and deer flies we remember, and afternoon thunderstorms drive us and the flies to shelter. We’re finally heading off to work at the ditch, the horses are fit and shiny, the grass is green, the road is muddy, and a fire in the woodstove feels pretty good right about now.

The forest fires are out, fire ban lifted, the crews have packed up and left, the rains are plentiful.

These are the cold hard facts. Pretty nice, I’d say. Now it’s only rumors still spreading like wildfire. Get over it and don’t drink the KoolAid. No need to preach doomsday here. Nor do I want to hear blind optimism and see shallow smiles. Get real. Look around. This one’s over. What’s next? In the meanwhile, get to work and stay out of trouble. Best advice I can turn to. That’s all I need to do right now.

We’re off to the ditch. Nothing like good hard work to cure the blues. This is about as good and hard as it gets.

The book on Ginny and the time in Argentina, by the way, was completed two days ago. I love deadlines. There will be some revisions, modifications, refinements. Hopefully not too much. I want it real, raw, and most of all, a fun read and an inspiring story. I think that’s what we’ve got here.

Now it’s back to the Ditch Diaries. What are we into now, Year Seven?

Until next week…

Sending love and light from these wet wild hills.

Gin

Into Tomorrow

July 9, 2013July 9, 2013 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

A Celebration.

We have been blessed.

We have been untouched by smoke and fire, and now there is rain. Sweet, sweet rain. The smoke and plume that passed through lower ground is being replaced by afternoon sprinkles. The sky clears. The earth heals.

Our wonderful county, our beloved country, all those who worked so hard and risked their lives, we thank you. You have been amazing. Over a hundred thousand acres, and not one house or cabin lost. We are so proud of you, so proud to be here.

We at Lost Trail Ranch have remained untouched by these frightening fires. The only scars we see are in the silence of this time when there should be children running in the damp grass, laughter in the woods, singing up the trails, and tight lines along the river.

In this silence, we are reminded of why we are here, these cabins built, Bob’s major renovations, Gin’s meticulous cleaning. This is not for us. This is for you.

We await your return to your little bit of paradise. Come share in the celebration of life.

Know too that life is ever changing.

What we knew yesterday is no longer. Today is something new.

And sometimes, to change, the past must die.

Now is a time of cleansing.

Tomorrow is rebirth.

I stand in the middle of time and worlds and shed tears for what I knew and have shivers of anticipation for what I will see tomorrow. And no time, I see, is more rich than here and now.

I mourn for the mountain I already saw die, and now see strength in this purging, beauty in knowing what will come. The great mystery. Do more than open my eyes to watch. Be alive within it. Be a part of the rebirth as we are a part of the death

These words I write to Ginny and she tells me I should share: “I feel the mountain, and feel the burning is cleansing, she rids herself of the century of suppression (the Forest Service policy for over 90 years of putting out wildfires) and the beetles which have taken advantage of the situation and have ravaged. That for me was harder. That is when the trees died. This is in a way a release. Caused by the skies. She heals herself. All we need to do is get out of Her way.”

What do we do now? Where do we go from here? What have we learned, and how will we handle the rest of the trees that will burn?

And then what, we are wise to ask? Because there will be more. And I’m not going to forget. Brush it all under the carpet and call it quits and just be glad it wasn’t my part of the mountain that burned, because next time if could be.

I want to be positive, encouraging, build back my business that continue to be closed, but I also need to realistic. Responsible. And what matters more? The income I have lost and continued to lose? Or the mountain, mine, yours, the one that will be here for my grand children and their children that I hope will be here long after you and I are gone. That is our job. Mine and yours.

We are lucky to not have to rebuild. We do not even have to clean up. We just swallow the loss and deal with the debt, open our doors when the road opens and hope people come, carefully. That part is actually easy.

What about the rest? Our neighbors down mountain with a charred back yard. The river, the fish, down river for how many miles. The rest of these trees dead standing. The long term effects, including, as one friend brings up, the impact on our air. What could be more basic?

At times I’d like to turn a blind eye. Out of sight, out of mind. Wouldn’t that be easy. Today we’re fine. Who cares about tomorrow?

Only I can’t. Never could. And I don’t plan on starting now.

It has been an interesting few weeks. Holding out, holding up. Remaining in the evacuation zone. Trying to go on with life, maintain your balance, but life is turned upside down and staying upright isn’t so easy.

We stayed here because this is our home, and they knew that, and I shall always thank them for letting us remain. Understanding. We fought to be here before. We can fight for it again.

What would it have cost us if we left? We are already losing too much. But its money, only money. Look what we do have, what matters most. Home. Each other. That’s the biggie. No money in the world could buy me better.

Day before yesterday, the boys head to town for the first time since well before the closed road. I’m about out of wine, the silly little loaner hens haven’t been keeping up, and those darned squirrels are eating more of my lettuce, chard and kale than I can grow.

Our world is slowly opening. A summer homer is hanging out somewhere up here and the cowboys are hard at work gathering cows that have been scattered for miles with open fences and closed roads.

We’ve managed just fine. And not alone. The community, though far away, at times seem close. Among the many thank yous that I would like to say: Greg for his compassion (not to mention hard work), Eryn for her generosity, Sammy and Clint for their offers to help (and believe me, you both were part of the plan if push came to shove), Camille & Melvin, Betty & Jack – for helping feed us, and the Swansons for being the neighbors if you could choose you would choose, and lucky us, we can. The county, our commissioners and sheriff’s department and firefighters and EMTs. The brave and skilled crews that came from far away. All of you who have written, shared your stories, reached out, touched in words and yes, that does mean a lot to me. Karen… for more than I can put in a post… And my boys. Always my boys. Because sappy as this sounds, they are the sunshine in the smokiest of days.

To all those family and friends that have cared, shared, reached out, expressed, thought about the future more than just holding onto the past.

Thank you.

We will get through this. You know it. We will look back and say, “Remember that year with the terrible fire?” Only I know it’s not over. Maybe now, for this year, this time. But not in the big pictured, the long run.

Sherie writes, “…Make your witnessing loud & vocal… Draw the line on the map… Do it, Gin, use your ammo.”

Wise and challenging words. Thank you. This is what I need. To see the big picture. When it’s too easy to focus on me, mine, here, now, and a little business in a big forest.

I’m between a rock and a hard place. Support and encourage my business, or work for the mountain, the trees, the birds and fish and flowers, moss and air.

I feel I must. I am obliged. How can I say I care so much but be willing to do nothing? As I would fight for the life of my child, so I feel I must for the mountains, the Earth.

Ultimately, I must choose the greater good.

In the deepest darkness

light

A view from the charred hillside where a forest once stood

Green grass begins to grow.

Beauty everlasting

everchanging

Not what she was yesterday

now free to fly with great bright wings

into tomorrow

Finding beauty in a broken world. *

*From the book of that title by Terry Tempest Williams.

Leave of absence

June 6, 2013 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Taking a break from the blog for the next month in order to complete the manuscript based upon my time in Argentina and the story of Virginia Neary Carrithers. Please keep in touch, check back in, and I shall look forward to resuming posts as soon as I have this project completed.

Sending love and light from these wild mountains.

A bunch of pretty pictures and one not so happy poem

May 29, 2013June 24, 2013 / Gin Getz / 8 Comments

Thoughts in spring time

And the sun shines

and warms and

tells us it’s all ok

and we smile and

Look around as aspen leaves

open and green the hillsides

that otherwise remind me

of death

And the light is high and flat

and my cheeks burn

and we say, yes, this is how

it should be, but

something deep inside

is nagging and we try

not to listen but

it won’t go

away. And then

we have another

glass of wine and wonder

if we can wash it

away but all it does is

make it louder and then

We want the rain and

the snow and the clouds and

darkness and want to turn

within and feel instead of

see and then we know we’ll

find what we are looking

for. Do you know? I wonder

if I ever will.

Colorado

May 13, 2013May 14, 2013 / Gin Getz / 5 Comments

You wake to the smell of the familiar lover you find yourself next to in the blinding sun of early morning spreading across the pillows like spilled milk and you wonder how on earth you got your self in this position again.

Place in parts. The individual intimate parts of the land you know. Some say “like the back of my hand” but I liken it more to knowing the back of your lover’s hand. Or back of his neck, the soft spot under his arm, the muscles, the moles, the curls of hair and prick of untrimmed toe nails. Knowing the land as you know the lover, a shared intimacy that comes with time and touch and silence and lying down together waiting for something or nothing to happen. And is it these private insights that change your relationship from lust to love. From sightseeing, to being at home. From being an observer, to being a part, blending, belonging.

At first it is the big picture that pleases the eye, draws you in as the sultry dancer seduces with waving silks and swaying hips, and you stand there mesmerized but too afraid to touch. Time passes. You begin to see closer. Flaws, imperfections, rolls and wrinkles. Beauty when the veils are dropped and the land remains raw and real and exposed as the leafless trees of early spring and attraction is not as bright but must be felt perhaps more than seen. This has happened here. I wonder if it will happen there.

Another beautiful day in paradise. Another beautiful place. From one to another. Here, there, No, it is not all the same.

Paradise lost and found. There if you’re looking but if you look too hard, say, for something specific, the big picture or the sudden change or the answer to all your problems, you may only find disappointment. Who knows what you’ll find?

A river of tears

cutting

through a crying land

I had forgotten the tremendous loss of life that spreads around me here, a skeleton’s cold embrace, and am told to see only the green but half my world is turning brown. And sadness, loss, despair are no less part of life. The part we too often feel or are told “it is best” to brush under the carpet. Until we begin to see the carpet bulge. The hillsides turning brown. Dare we lift and look in earnest or do we prefer to wear those blinders and see only what we want to, what we are told to see?

Every day this week rain, hail, snow and sun. A year in a day. Every day. Here is Colorado. Where we’ve had snow every month but July, and even then have dodged snow banks or crossed drifts lingering from the season before while horseback in the high country. The world above tree line where air is as thin as skimmed milk and the sun as intense as wild fire.

Colorado.

Where our pasture is shared with an equal number of working horses and wild elk and they graze comfortably together.

Where moose droppings are left outside the outhouse.

Where warmth is rare. Mid day for maybe a month and still those nights will bring a chill.

This morning the smell of damp earth. Familiar earth. Earth on which I have birthed and buried, laughed and cried. Land on which I’ve built a home, raised a child, fallen in love, and seen seasons come and go and familiar faces do the same and where I’ve felt unwelcome in my own home for far too long and stories swell like stormy waters I never meant to navigate and I am still just looking for a place to belong.

Seeing signs. I suppose we see what we want to see. Sometimes we look for confirmations. At least I do. I take a pen and little notebook in my jacket pocket every day when I hike or ride. You never know when inspiration strikes, and I’ve found it’s quite likely when out clearing my mind. I’m hiking along the trail across river where the snow banks still remain hidden from the sun. I’ve gone far enough for today. I’m supposed to meet the boys back at the bridge for a mate. I’m already late. You know how it is once you get going. Sometimes you go too far. At least, that’s known to happen to me. So, I’m maybe a third of the way back, back tracking. Inspiration strikes. I reach for my pen and find only a new hole in my old pocket. Damn it, that pen could be anywhere. Think about it. It could be back up the trail, or anywhere between here and home. I take maybe a half dozen steps and there, no more than ten feet from where I noticed it missing, is my pen in the middle of the trail, waiting for me to write the words I did not want to forget.

Another sign. I tell myself what I have so many times before. Leap and the net appears. Only this time it is scary. I guess it usually is, but more often than not we can only see the situation directly before us and forget about the challenges we tackled six months ago, the last time we leaped. Anyway, this time it involves my career. Writing, representation, selling myself, or not, and I hate this part and had been hoping it was taken care of at least for now, only I sort of knew that wasn’t really the case because I was going against my personal beliefs by working with someone I didn’t like working with because I was pretty sure he didn’t like working with me. My ego is too fragile for that.

Stay safe and don’t risk change and remain exactly where you are even though you know where you are is not where you belong. Or… leap.

Well, what do you think I did? I wrote my agent and told him it was time to change. So once again I tell myself, leap and the net will appear. Only instead, on this afternoon’s hike, I’m thinking about this, a little bit scared and a lot bummed out, and a feather appears in the middle of the trail where I happen to be walking. And not just any feather, but a hawk feather. And I’m guessing “my” hawk who came back to visit us so late in the season last year after the ground had been covered with white and the other such birds had long since left.

This was the sign I needed.

Leap, and maybe the answer will be even better than falling into a net. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll spread your wings and learn to fly.

Back in Bigness

April 30, 2013April 30, 2013 / Gin Getz / 8 Comments

I wanted to be home before the full moon. I was thinking about riding horseback in moonlight. I forgot how cold it is here. After dark, I’m happy to be home by the woodstove. Afternoon siestas in the sand by the river seem very far away right now. About 5,600 miles away.

Travelling takes over a week. The “goodbyes” take longer. The “welcome homes” aren’t enough. Culture shock. I am learning this. It’s not as hard leaving when you know you’ll be back.

Between here and there. It starts horseback. Leaving “our” home along the Rio Trocoman. Between here and there is a long and fast car ride across Argentina, followed by a day of walking the dog through the crowds of downtown Buenos Aires. There is a beer at an outdoor café. There is mate and malbec in the courtyard. There is the refresher course in Texas hospitality, and something more about good friends. There is Wal-Mart. Biggie size it. Bigger is better. Consumerism and convenience. Channel surfing from the king size bed of the hotel room. Bombarded with commercials, violence, terrorism, and how to build an assault rifle in your back yard. Just what I need. Welcome home.

One of these days I’ll share the details. Recommendations and tips. Where to stay in Buenos Aires, the best way to get across Argentina, and what it’s like to travel with a dog. Boring but necessary. Cold hard facts. Another time.

For now I want soft and warm. Home. I want to stop worrying about paying three times as much for a bottle of bad wine, and wishing there was goat meat hanging in the shade and remembering simple smiles instead of complicated family bullshit. For now, I want to be in the sun. This sun. The here and now sun. The intense sun roasting my cheeks and forehead, the only skin exposed in the still cold wind on the deck of our home at 10,000 feet in the mountains of Southern Colorado. I guess this is the same sun that’s already dried up the run off creeks and parched the pasture and it’s only April. But it’s my sun. The same sun, like the same moon. Seen from a different perspective.

I thought maybe it’s just me. It’s not. It’s him too. Bob spends his evenings on Google Earth, seeing where we have been. Where we will be. He shows me, a digitized image on the computer screen. It almost hurts to see it now.

Being home. There is my river. My horses. My bed and my bathtub. There are the familiar sounds of robins, Steller’s Jays and crows out on the field. The metallic zipping sound announcing the early arrival of a hummingbird. There is the smell of cedar burning and bacon frying and the familiar scent of my favorite mare. There are my trails, trails we found and forged, for us to ride and clear in the softer orange light of early evening when the spring wind slows and the porch door is left open and firewood is brought in and stacked in preparation for the cold night.

Un American? I had a good excuse. No electricity. No internet. No motors. No town. Now I’ve got it all. Too comfortable. I haven’t been on Facebook in how many months. I have little to say, to share. I’m sorry. I am self absorbed. I know it’s selfish. I take a quick peak this morning and quickly sign off. It’s scary. On my wall is a picture of a mate gourd. Thank you, Amy. I should have known how much you would understand. There is nothing else I need to see. Nothing I care to share. I feel somehow lost. Lost in my own home. Funny it should be so aptly named. Lost Trail Ranch.

Writing, reflection, soaking. That’s what I’m doing now. As I remind Ginny, legend has it that Hemingway had to move to Paris before he could write about Michigan. Presumptuous to compare myself to him. If not my self, then my situation. I need the distance. I need to be away to see. I need to look inside now, not just in front of me. I cannot keep up with the stories that want to be written. Words flow like blood from a slaughtered goat.

Healing. Heal myself. Simple wounds. We are all built of flesh and blood. From time to time, we all must bleed. The earth heals me. Here, there. Here, I go for a walk. To the other side of the bridge we built together. I cannot cross. Snow on the other side. The dog falls in to his belly. Moose droppings and tracks and what looks like a big round spot where he may have lay in the last of the snow, holding fast on the north facing slope along the Rio Grande.

And wasn’t the sun to my north just a few days ago?

I remind myself there is no place I would rather be. Here and now. Yesterday and tomorrow are different stories. Stories to write about.

Now the dog gets up from his warm place in the middle of the bridge, on guard above me as I sit in the dirt of the little island with my notebook on my lap. He barks in a non-committal way. He wants my attention. We make eye contact. He looks up the hill. I know what he is thinking. It’s time to get up there. Get back to the horses. Back to work. His work. Guard duty. He has been wonderful. Putting up with me dragging him to the other side of the world. Now he’s home. His home. His herd. He is happy. I should be too.

Indepen-dance

April 11, 2013April 30, 2013 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Got my horse. Got my dog. Don’t need no cowboy. Or gaucho. I can catch my own damn fish, thank you very much.

Bob leaves me for a week. Horseback, working on a pack trip. Ouch. Isn’t that what we do, together? He temporarily forgets we are a team. I don’t. He figures I’ll be fine. Of course I will. But how independent do you want me to be? I think about wishing to soften with age, not get tougher. I don’t want a heart like rawhide to match my weathered skin.

Before leaving he says he’s going to “take care of me.” He forgets, and runs out of time. He throws four beers in a bag on the table and tells me to give them to Alcides and see if he’ll catch me some fish.

Guess what. I drank the beers and caught my own fish.

I have taken off my wedding band and yet I still feel it there after ten years. I’m mad. Chances are I’ll forgive him. He’s a good guy. But I’m a woman. And every once in a while, I need to be reminded that I’m a good one, too. He’s not big on saying such things. I tell him it is time he learned. I’ll let you know how he does.

~ ~ ~

So I’m thinking. About life. Mine. Ginny’s. Women. Women willing to live life. Really live. Not half way, part way, or sort of. It’s yes or no. It’s life with gusto. It’s having, well, if you’ll excuse the crude expression, just a little bit of balls. Not too much of course. Remember, I don’t want to be tough. I still want to be tender. At just the right times. I want to feel. And I want to be willing to feel. To get out there and do, not just stay home and wish. Take risks. You know what I always say. Leap and the net appears. Usually. Because sometimes it doesn’t. But landing on the ground isn’t all bad either.

No whining aloud. Stop complaining. If you want change, change. It’s up to you. Do it. Or don’t, but don’t come crying to me if you haven’t even tried.

What do you have, and what can you do with it? Look at Ginny. She wants her life, and thus this book, to be an inspiration to others. She has already been an inspiration to me. Little things like living with MS barely slow her down. Maybe her body, but trust me, not that mind.

I’m not going to judge you. It doesn’t matter where you’re at. This is what matters: What did you do to get here? And where are you going from here? Everyone has their story. This is mine. And I’m working on Ginny’s. What, my friend, is yours?

~ ~ ~

My thoughts are drifting to e-mails I need to check, arrangements that need to be made for our return trip. Two more weeks. Damn. I’m not ready to leave. You knew I would not be. But I’m not leaving yet.

Now is the challenge to remain Here and Now. Now is when my mind starts moving ahead of my body. My body is here. I must contain my mind. Remain present. Keep my thoughts where my body is. Live it. Feel it. Smell, taste, touch it. Dive in, roll around, and rub it on. Otherwise, I risk wasting the next two weeks, waiting for the future to happen, rather than enjoying this incredible place and time. And what a time it is.

~ ~ ~

By day, the mountains turn to gold. Flaxen hillsides, flaming trees, yellow leaves caught in the wind. “Lluvia de oro” as leaves fall like raindrops of gold. Morning frost burnishes the broad grasses that grow by the little creek, as we jump from slick stone to slick stone, crossing to lead our horses in from pasture. Crisp light casts long, sharp shadows mid-day. The river a steel ribbon wrapped about this land on days when the sky hangs low and heavy. On those days, the grease bush smells like burning sage when we brush against with wet jeans and the bright red hips of wild rose stand out shockingly as Christmas ornaments on a Christmas tree. Layers of wool and down and the fireplace a welcome relief as we sit before a big blaze at night and talk about our day, today, everyday. Not tomorrow. We’ll discuss that after we wake in the morning, build another fire, have our matέ, and wait for the sun to hit this house.

~ ~ ~

We leave at lowering light, shadows stretching wide to absorb the valley withering pale, as sand would do in the wake of a swelling wave. I am mesmerized by the motion. Swirling sands around the horses heels, diffused light, filtered through dust so thick at times you cannot see the silhouette of the horse’s feet. Constant motion of grey foot, brown sand, golden light, blending into a moving cloud, alive and changing, silent by the wind. Look up or I will miss it. For at some point, the clouds give their last encore of scarlet promise, reflecting back the same first light of morning. Then they fade, shades of grey and the earth and sky blend into black.

Last night another ride home in the dark. One more time. Riding back from Buta Mallin. Bob leads Rolo the mule. Our horses stride side by side, faster now that they are nearly home. In the middle of a roughed out road we are unable to see, only the change of light where the mountain ends and sky begins told by the subtle variation of blackness and stunning sprinkle of stars. We are talking, softly as there is little sound while the horses step out on this sandy portion of long ride home. And there is nothing, no one, no other sound otherwise around us.

Blackness enveloping, still and clear, the stars reflecting on the river below us. The final switchback, giving in completely, the closest I hope to be to blind, as my mare suddenly turns left and begins the final decent and I am surprised to be this far already. I am absorbed in the darkness. I am complete and meaningless, a part yet unimportant all at the same time, at the moment, this very moment, when all I hear is the rush of the river below and the slap of the horses’ steel shoes on the rocky ground. There is nothing else to hear. There is only to feel.

Our last visit with Ginny. For this trip. It is not “goodbye” but rather “see you later.” You know that’s how I am.

And yes, of course I forgave Bob and slipped that ring back onto my finger where it belongs. That’s how I am too.

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