commitment

(viewing this land from the top of Boot Mountain)

Another morning sitting at the table in this tiny trailer to write while my husband leans back in bed less than ten feet away holding his coffee cup in his hands as if in silent prayer, and the dog lays with gentle deep breathing at my feet beneath the little table that serves as kitchen and office, work space and desk, and the first of today’s sun pours in from over the hills to the east, spreading across the table like spilled milk.

So much I want to share with you this morning. My hands are unable to move as fast as my mind, and my mind cannot keep up with the hugeness that is my heart right now. I want to share with you about the dozen mama elk descending from dark timber on our lower pasture whilst we sit by the campfire witnessing the nursery band of their babies held safe to the side by the sentinels while the mothers graze. I want to share with you the haunting sound of a family of coyotes at last light, singing to one another, but stirring us in the process, simply by bearing witness to their wailing, while our pup even sat still in reverie close by, amazed at the mystery of his distant cousins. I want to share with you the intoxication of being high, really high, top of the mountain high, above treeline and dizzy with elevation high in thin air with rubbery legs and a tired euphoric pride from having hiked from our camp to the high peak of these mountain, standing their together, my man and me, in absolute awe of the land we are becoming.

I guess what I want to share is simply the intimate connection between person and place; exposing the sensitive openness of the soul into nature and wilds. This is what I can give you today. This is what I offer to share with you with humble outstretched arms and a very vulnerable heart.

Already we start to see forever. That’s what we do and who we are.

We try to keep ourselves reined in. We’re just committing to today. We’ll see how things go from there.

Only we can’t help ourselves. It’s what we do. Connection with land grows, tight and strong and intense as we toil. So from the get go, we’re planning and plotting where the garden will go, the big hay barn, the calving shed… the three bay garage for our son…

Slow down.

We felt the reality of age in the last couple months – the back and forth of unwanted time on the road, the physical limitations of our bodies, the unpredictable yet governing weather, the desire to enjoy the magic of whatever mountains we live in and the insatiable need to grow roots.

Can we grow old here? Can we grow old there?

We are not snowbirds. We don’t want two places, two lands, two lives. We are grounded. We work the land. Give more than we take. We become a part of the land, as the land works its way into our veins from open wounds, beneath our fingernails, into our pores, into our bones. The land finds its way into our callouses and sweat, and our blood seeps into the waterways and into the roots of the hungry trees.

I am monogamous with the land as I am with my lover, like my beloved ravens. I have mated for life, but I am not certain where we are meant to build our final nest.

The search for the sense of belonging is not found in the view but in the intimate connection between person and place that comes and grows with time, care, tending the land, committing to the community, good times and bad, hard times and easy, stories and dreams and dramas.

I don’t want advice. If I wanted a life like you, I’d have it. I want a life like me. That’s the wisest thing I can encourage you to do too – find your own way, listen to the song of your heart and have the courage to dance to that tune.

We’ll listen for the wisdom of the land and of our hearts. We’ll see what this summer brings.

Already I know I am not going to want to leave this land come fall. I want to commit. Wherever I am. But here, there is something that stirs me, tempts me, digs into my bones. I will want to see her wither and brown, then grey and white, brittle and frail and frozen. I will want to witness the silence of winter when morning birds head to lower ground and the creeks freeze over and the branches are stripped bare of quaking leaves. I will want to stand out upon her frozen grounds and listen to the distant call of the coyote and the raven, the few hearty enough to remain, and say yes, I am with you, I too not only endure, but find the beauty and awe and wonder and grace in the wide, wild, white open slate that winter will bring.

But for now I want to just be here. Experiencing the wilds. The wilds that hold us, open us with frozen mornings and biting winds, and define us with the challenge of our heart to not only endure, but to burst free.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

You see, first there is this: the footer. The solid footprint upon which to build level and square, solid, straight and true.

A slab is poured.

And a rather permanent footprint is created.

This is something solid, serious, the real deal.

It means something, though I’m not sure I can define what.

I know it means it’s happening. We’re doing this. Building a little cabin way out and way high.

But it feels like it means something more.

It’s also about building dreams, a life, hand in hand as we build the walls.

Slowly. Slowed by our aging energies. Slowed by the elements. Slowed by the schedules of others we’re working around.

Is slow such a bad thing?

Maybe it just means more time. More time to consider and refine our plans. More time to hike and explore and ride and write. More time to sit and stare at the view, in silence, together, as our hearts feel as radiant as the sky.

And along with solid grounding, those cement roots we sew into the ground, there lays a message of commitment. One of the scariest things to consider.

So today I’m thinking long and hard about commitment because… well, I’m trying to figure out how committed I am.

Is commitment the ties the bind us – the burden that has our hands held tight behind our back?

Or the devotion and responsibility that keeps us tied, which in kind creates a bond more powerful than that of freedom?

At times, you know, it is both.

Commitment can be our ocean. It is the vastness that holds us up, and that threatens to take us down if we don’t learn to swim. We must soften into the water. Allow it support us, and adjust to its ebbs and flows. That which is dense and rigid is more likely to sink. Like the concrete on the footer. How do we stay afloat in this ever changing world, these ever changing times, my ever changing mind?

Commitment takes time. It can’t be forced, but takes a subtle power and pressure like water sculpting stone. One more reason to slow down. Let it sink into your bones. Let it become you. If it will. And maybe it won’t. See if it will somehow soften you, change you, and move you to evolve.

It is a choice. Dedication, devotion and duty are the glue that adheres us, what holds us to person, to place, to profession. It holds us to center, though sometimes it is just… sticky.

It is not born but comes with time, like a fine wine rolling along your tongue. Committing to growing a garden, a dog, a horse or a kid, a relationship, a book, a building. These things don’t happen over night.

Commitment takes time and work, patience, forgiveness and acceptance. It takes a certain type of kindness that is intertwined with love. And commitment takes change. Yes, to remain committed, we not only grow into it, we flow with it. Thus along the way, something happens. We become more, we become less, we become something a little different. We change.

(Perfectionism is, if not the polar opposite, than the bucket that dosed the flame. Check out what Brene Brown has to say about that in her book, “The Gifts of Imperfection.”

Are you committed? To person, to people? To place? To your craft. To your chosen lifestyle. To your beliefs and creed and faith? To the place that you call “home?”

Am I?