Among the crying trees.

February 25, 2014 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

I remember the day it burned. I remember the giant plume and we were up here, out of touch with the rest of the world I have never been able to be much of a part of anyway, and together in our awkward silence we watched and worried and wondered what was burning, something big and angry and then we saw the news.

I remember walking up the Box one fall during hunting season with my son when he was still close to my height, maybe even just a little smaller. We had left the old Blazer by the summer homes at River Hill and Bob dropped us at the bottom of the Box and Forrest and I kept to that trail all the way back up, high on the hot hillside above the river, following the one-horned big horn sheep we nick-named Tighty Whitey.

I did not cry going through there yesterday. I did not think. I did not judge. I did not contemplate how I “felt.” I simply observed. I took over five hundred photos. I was with my boys and they made me laugh as they skated down the river on their knees.

It was a good way to see it, starting a little bit distant from the center of the frozen Rio Grande, the hillsides softened still by snow, the air warm and river singing loudly below us as she broke open to her black abyss at times and left you wondering so many others. By afternoon the new days water ran over the old winters ice and the dog learned to trust it would still hold him up.

On one side of us where the fire had raged were a lot of black sticks in white snow and long grey shadows. On the other side, the south facing slope, the snow had mostly melted off exposing places where spot fires had burned and the ground was ash and thick and dull and scratched into by the melting snow. Sometimes a footprint of no more than a single tree. Other times the size of a Walmart parking lot.

I look at the pictures now and want to cry but can’t. I feel I should because I know it is sad and a tremendous loss. But I am over it or distant enough or maybe still in denial. I know I should be concerned still because of the fragile soil, destroyed wildlife terrain, and inevitable years of a blank stare that these hills will remain where we are all so excited to see a new blade of grass and a spouting willow emerge but will never see a spruce forest again in our lifetime.

But there is finality there. An open slate. Ready for rebirth. And in that starkness, there is great hope.

As we drove home, back up the mountain and found ourselves passing by the last of the burn and then into the beetle killed hillsides, then is when the sadness hit. I stared out the smeared window as the trees moved by in blur of paling green and fading brown. These hills are still dying, slow and steady, in their silent way. I was tired. Too tired to shed tears.

Among the crying trees.

Today I walk the trail to Sweetgrass Meadow. The tallest of trees still standing though not a needle remains on their dried branches.

Almost fifty out after lunch and the warmer air gets the sap running.

A new batch of dying trees emerging. A new generation of expiring trees. The next wave of the slow tsunami comes to conquer.

Trees with green needles. Like watching them take their last breath, an extended exhale that will last all spring until the needles fade and fall and so silently they weep, without drama and attention, flames and fanfare, plumes or headline news. No one hears, no one listens.

I stare at a long drip line of sap sparkling in the afternoon sun and let my eyes lose focus in the light and for a moment it is almost beautiful. Watching the life blood leave the tree.

I wrap my arms around one tree and press my nose against the slipping bark and dried sap and breathe deeply and smell very little. How can I describe this odor? It is dry. It no longer smells alive. Yes, you can smell death. With my trees, it smells like nothing at all.

Now I can cry, we shed our tears together, and to them I say farewell.

Into the burn.

February 24, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Yesterday we went into the burn.

Down Box Canyon, along and on top of the Rio Grande, from the River Hill Camp Ground all the way through the Box to the road on the lower side of mountain where the hills are speckled by vacant subdivisions and within sight of a paved road, though we saw no signs of so-called civilized life stirring. That’s not what we were searching for. Though I sincerely thank our dear friends and summer neighbors for helping make this possible by bringing our truck down the mountain so we could get back up. What a welcome site that was to see rattling down the road towards us when we made it through.

Eight hours, about as many miles and it seemed like we each hauled that many pounds of food just to keep us going. My husband, my son, my dog and me.

Today I’ll share only my photos, not my words. I hope the images speak for themselves, each to all in a different way, but words of truth. These images are completely untouched, only reduced in size to share with you.

… and Out.

January 15, 2014January 16, 2014 / Gin Getz / 11 Comments

Another big one goes down.

Two more logs for a wall.

Finding the bright side does not make the dark go away.

So, you learn to see in the dark. And laugh. We definitely manage to laugh.

It lightens our tendency of taking it all too seriously. Taking ourselves too seriously. Yeah, lighten up.

From across river looking back at where we work, with the dead knocked down, burned up and dragged out, it begins to look fresh and young and alive. Green. The blue spruce are blue.

We are not fooled. This is Round One of our work. The smaller ones will be next. We see the signs. They already bleed.

At times I’d rather look at the surface and see only the remaining green. Not deeper through the branches at the slipping bark, pin holes, dripping sap, and first of the yellow needles down along the base, but I am here, and I do see.

Out of curiosity, I’ve started amassing before and after pictures. Here, before and during. Starvation Gulch. Twelve miles up the mountain. Maybe my favorite place in the world. The first picture, three years ago. The second, last year. What do you think this summer will reveal?

Maybe it will stop. Just like that. Maybe the devastation will end at the boundaries of the Weminuche or the Upper Rio Grande or… wherever the damage has now spread to.

Maybe it won’t continue. Maybe all the trees that still look alive will remain alive.

Maybe I’m wrong, there is no real problem, it’s all just me and my over active imagination and my sense of drama.

Maybe the trees will all survive and beat the beetles, the drought will end, the climate will cool, and we’ll all wake up next week and the hills will be alive with deep, dark timber once again and our children and their children will run through the big beautiful old trees and celebrate… life.

But I don’t think so.

We’re not going backwards.

Even if we don’t go any further. Look at what we lost.

Me, I’ll have a new house. Cheap.

Cleaning up our little pin prick of a piece of land in this big wide wild expanse is all we need to build with. What do we do about the other half million acres around us?

This affects us all. If you don’t see it, you’re denying it, or you just haven’t been down (or up) to these mountains in southern Colorado where it slaps you in the face.

I hear from readers who have survived the fires. Their scars are deep. They still cry.

I have dead trees. I am awaiting whatever is next. Will life return quicker in an area cleared and cleansed by fire?

Maybe that’s the big lesson in all this: Learning to believe in, if nothing else, the Great Mystery.

The big picture.

Little things like hundreds of thousands of acres of dying trees help you open your eyes, which in turn, may help you open your heart and mind.

There’s much more to it than my trees. This is just a little window. I guess I’m lucky to have this chance to see.

One night last week, I tried.

I tried to see the aurora borealis. Rumor had it, and science confirmed: they were going to make a showing this far south into Colorado.

So that night around midnight I bundled up in a fat coat and mittens and chunky boots and wool hat, and headed out with the barking dog. Bob was in town; the nearest human being was probably eighteen miles down a closed road and I’m out there running around looking like the Michelin Man in the middle of the night with my camera and it’s okay to let the dog bark all he wants for a change. Who the hell is gonna hear?

Have at it, I say. And he does.

I’m safe. In fact, I rarely see any wildlife any more, day or night.

I’ve got the wide angle lens on the camera, a tripod already attached, and the settings set for night photography. I’m gonna get me some amazing pictures of the aurora borealis.

But a snowstorm blew in and stayed in and here we are three days later and only this morning did it really blow out. No, I didn’t see the aurora borealis. I could barely see the moon.

Now I see, it wasn’t just me. Even if there were no clouds…. Would there have been no show? Depends on what you were looking for. No, I wouldn’t have seen the northern lights. But what of the light of the moon and stars across the deep winter sugar snow of the southern San Juans and the wonder of the winter sky?

Plenty of magic for me.

When was the last time Forrest saw a star? Forget the big events of the northern lights or even a shooting star. Just a star, up there, twinkling.

So, there we are.

The Great Mystery. The Big Picture.

I want to figure out why, not why me.

I am here. I can not turn my back and close my eyes and tell you it’s all okay and pretend it is natural.

The last count I saw said our loss of trees was over ten times greater than what Mother Nature has ever done in the Lower 48. And that’s before the latest figures, which are remarkably hard to find. Maybe it’s morbid, but I need to know. The death toll in my back yard. Southern Colorado. The Weminuche Wilderness. The high end edge of the Southwest and Four Corners. The beginning of the Rio Grande.

Finally, I’m getting warmer (not just me). Getting some answers. I’m not surprised what I’m finding.

Here’s the secret to bark beetles.

They only get the weak ones.

Weak trees.

Tell me, what does that say about the nearly half a million acres of Wilderness that spreads from my front door?

Rather than blame the beetles, let’s start thinking about what’s making these trees so weak.

I know, I know. I’ve spent too long on this. Let’s move on. Think of my poor husband. How many hours have I spent on the web searching in vain for current facts and figures?

Take a break, he tells me. Let’s go fell a big one. Take out your anger by burning the slash.

At least in the burned areas, recovery can begin. The past is gone and there is room for the future to take hold. A clean slate. If it does not wash away.

What will it take for the rest of the forest to recover? Rot is not really an option. We’re high and dry here. This is not a rain forest. This is the edge of the arid southwest.

There’s a log we sit on at camp. Rainy Day Camp, we call this place. At the Forks of the Utes, maybe three hours in by horseback if all goes well. Bob tells us the story of how this log was already dead and down when he and his buddy Doug were camped here on a rainy family pack trip when they were maybe ten. They hacked at that log as boys will do and finally cut it in half. That was forty-five years ago. The log is still very much there, and no, nothing is growing out of it yet.

Things don’t happen that fast here.

Can you say, “There is nothing we can do,” accept those words and walk away?

I walk away from the work site today. A growing pile of timber for my new home. For a moment I look back to the other side. It’s a green hillside. Green as I remember it, only without the big trees.

Before we finish felling the big ones, the next group of browning trees appears.

It’s the bigger picture. We’re trying to make the most of a bad situation.

That’s great, you say, but that’s not enough. Take my trees and build my house and pretend it is all okay and not look beyond my little bit of paradise to the big wide world beyond.

Felling our trees is not the answer, only a small solution to a bigger problem that most aren’t seeing, and those that see, deny or do nothing. I don’t know what to do either, so I fell my trees, plan my house, stomp my feet and raise my voice. What else can I do?

It’s not about my logs on my hill for my house. It’s not even about a half million acres of dying trees, in this part of the state alone. It’s about what caused that.

Is she beautiful now that she is a mountain of dying trees? Yes, she really is, she always will be. Will she be beautiful after she burns or rots or whatever will be her fate? Yes, I believe she will be. But can we not see beyond her surface beauty to her silent cry as tears flow like dried sap down the last of her old wise ones, and her pained wail is in the dry wind which strips her bare of needles on even her young trees?

Can we not be wise (or is it compassionate?) enough to wonder WHY and realize our answers so far are superficial, the questions deeper, the truth still out of reach, and we should be reaching if we care?

Needless to say, I’m not done. But that’s all for now. Enough food for thought, or what ever you want to call it. I might just call it fuel for the fire.

Places like this.

October 3, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

There are days I must wander
and wonder where and why
and keep going only

to find
myself at
places like this

and then
it all comes together or perhaps
no longer matters

just becomes
a matter of trust
and I go along no matter

how far and how hard and how hungry.
And my eyes cloud with tears and
the wilds tease and the wind

embraces and the mountain leads
me to where I do not know
but I trust and my dog follows and we go

and there we are.
And really,
I ask you,

my friend,
what matters
more?

And then there was… snow.

September 30, 2013September 30, 2013 / Gin Getz / 7 Comments

And then there was… snow.

Snow!

It happens every year. Lots of it, sooner or later. More or less, starting sometime early in fall.

This year just a little earlier than some. It’s been one of those kinda years. If you think you can predict it, you’re wrong. If you’re counting on it, don’t.

In this case, what I did expect, I got. Here, snow scares people away. Those that try to remain a little longer hole up indoors. Or maybe they were there all the time. They’ll all be gone soon enough. We’re still the only nuts to remain. Slightly cracked as we three may be.

Meanwhile, the mountain makes her silent transition. This is the part I love. The slow silken slide into Winter. The voyeur without a voice, only the written word within me, hiding behind a tree or out there on a browning withering slope, exposed, watching as she returns to her soft, serene existence. Sharing her secrets, this intimate time, with those who care and dare to step away from the safety of a dirt road, rattle of trucks and warmth of cabins. Far away.

Coming to life in the snow and ice. Fifteen degrees in the morning (that’s minus nine and half Celsius) and she only begins her long season of deep, dark blue days of frosty breath and sparkling white nights.

Cold and snow bring the wilds back to life. Wild life.

On the surface, the dormant season begins.

For us, it just begins to stir.

We head high.

Now is our time to play.

We ride up and across the Divide.

The snow teases, leaves us wanting for more. I see the boys on their horses and know their hearts and souls are gone, lost in deep powder and blinding sun and wind, fast and wild on the back of a snowmobile, where the white world is theirs and they are a part of it.

Nine hours in the saddle. Wildlife sightings include eagles, hawks and coyote sitting to watch us on the ridge of the Divide, one moose, more deer and elk than I have ever counted in one day, and only one other human being, a solitary bow hunter probably a little surprised to see us riding down through the snow where no tracks lead up and in.

I’m not political, prefer keeping my opinions to myself, wish y’all might do the same, and in general, like politicians about as much as big business.

But today, I let lose a roar. Why not? After all. I am woman…

Our government is again on the brink of a shutdown. Many of us have already shut down. We have lost hope in a government and people who support and vote in those who think it’s funny to read children’s stories instead of taking charge and initiating change from a place of business and a house of our government.

I am not impressed. In fact, I think it’s disgraceful.

Good riddance to this government? If so, then all of you. Does this mean the politicians won’t be paid and their benefits will be frozen? Or as usual, is it just those of us who vote, not those for whom we vote, who are affected?

I’m sorry for what it will do on the global level and all the jobs that will be lost because of this foolish choice. As for me on this mountain, all we’ll see are things like this: No more decorative fences built for the fun of it, or new hitching rails installed beside old ones left in disrepair. Shucks.

Selfishly, I can hide out up here and ride out the wave and wait for someone who really cares enough to act to wake up. I’m an optimist. I still think there might be someone in Washington who will.

Otherwise, I see a nation quick to point fingers and slow to take responsibility. It’s not just our leaders. It’s all of us. Wake up and look around.

What is the excuse the politicians (and perhaps, us?) play with this time? Fear of change?

Change, damn it.

Some change is better than no change, unless you’re too afraid to let go of the past, and are too dumb to see that past is already gone.

How silly I feel to allow myself to be down when I see how easy happiness is.

Just do it. Be it. Now.

When I was nineteen, the rat race I was born and raised to run in New York City proved to be not that which I wanted for the rest of my life. I found – or rather, made – a way out, and left.

In time, I built a life that I didn’t know then could exist and that if I wasn’t the one living now, I’d be wishing I was.

It starts with a dream. And then you have to have guts.

Or not, and be happy where you are and with what you came from, because I look around and know many who actually are.

I wasn’t one of them. So for those of you who are more like me and who had to write our own rules, I recommend this little bit of a reminder. Inspirational reading. I read it this morning on line and printed it out and pinned it on the fridge so I read it every morning.

Twelve Things Happy People Do Differently

It starts with gratitude.

Look around. See how much you have to be grateful for.

Maybe I have it easy. It’s beautiful here. Last year I invested in a good camera. Now it’s even easier. Through the lens, any lens, we can learn to see, to look, and even, to feel.

Harder still is looking within. And finding the beauty in there, too.

I leave you today on a happy note.

For all those who have helped to make this dream come true… thank you! Indi and Carlos are home in Hawaii!!!!

Farewell my friends! What a wonderful new life is beginning!

And then there was rain.

September 13, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

~

~

Days lost in the fog of fever
While rain pours outside silver smeared windows

Another day it rains
Now the feast drowns the famine
Clouds cling to the wet hillsides
Like lonely children
Lost
Trying to find their place
Amongst the blackened moss and fallen needles

The dog stays close
He has never seen me sick
Heard me cough
Remarkable the sensitivity of our four legged friends
How much I have to learn from them
Start by looking
Listening

The sound of the hard rain against the metal roof
The rush of the running creek
That has been silent since spring

Now I am grateful for the beetle kill
In a twisted sort of way
Presently burning in my woodstove
A plentiful supply

In lower grounds
Flooding streets where pavement breaks
And here above the asphalt

We are washed clean

I remember every person who reached out
During the fires here
And each offer for us and our critters to stay
When it was our time to be at risk

I remember every person who did not

Which do I choose to be
Now that I have the choice
Lest I forget my family and friends
As their time of need
Swells upon them

My first journal was a diary, one of those little baby blue faux leather books with a decorative lock and key in which I put false hope. Paul Proknoun, my boyfriend at the time, stole it, ripped it open with ease as the faux leather was no more than thin cardboard, and inspired by what he read, I suppose, shared wild but untrue stories and a passed a photo around class he must have torn from his father’s hidden Playboy magazine of a woman he said was me. I was not yet in a training bra and although in hindsight perhaps I should have been flattered, I was not. I was mad.

Privacy is not something I take lightly. You see where and how I chose to live, don’t you? And trust once lost takes close to forever to regain.

Perhaps it was this experience and resulting anger and fear that later inspired me to burn ten years of journals and memories of teenage angst rather than risk them falling into the wrong hands. As if anyone would have really found them that interesting.

And perhaps it is because of this infatuation with privacy and trust that I raised my son with my journal open at my bed stand and knew it was as safe as I kept him… and his.

I imagine there was a time or two when in his youthful anger and inevitable mother-hatred stages he may have stolen a peak as I imagine too the weight of guilt that then pressed upon him was punishment enough. Besides, I bet there was nothing there of interest to his then adolescent mind. Middle aged woman angst?

Similarly I have trusted my husband like few I know can. And I consider this an irreplaceable and indispensable element of our beautiful marriage.

Trust.

In a big plastic storage box from Wal-Mart stacked on a cedar shelf down at the Little Cabin labeled MEMORIES in black sharpie ink are the results of the thirty years since then, that fated year of burning, erasing the past, allowing room for the future, now tucked in a box filled with spiral bound pen and ink recollections that may never be seen a second time. And more than likely, none of those words and stories are worth a second glance. At least, I don’t need to remember them.

There still remained plenty of angst. Writing about loneliness from a moonlit desert with my head and shoulders sticking out of the tent in which I found myself alone, escaping another failed relationship. Frustration, poverty, hurt, confusion… Finding nature while scouring the New Mexico mountains for the elusive magic mushroom and seeking solace in the solitude found on the top of a wild mountain with my dogs on each side of my skinny tanned legs sticking boldly out of my levi jean cut offs.

Maybe someday I’ll read them over. Do something with them. Maybe not. Maybe someday my son will want to read them – I told him he could – though I think he knows me well enough and respects my past as… past. Over and done with. Maybe a curious grandchild, a little girl who sees me as the strong tough woman I am now (or will be hopefully when and if she comes into my life) and finds comfort in knowing that I wasn’t always this way. That I too have weaknesses. Faults. Soft mooshy spots. Insecurities. Problems that exist only in my head, but there are pretty weighty. That life isn’t always easy, and probably isn’t meant to be, because easy for the most part is pretty dull…

To date, I can say my life has been neither.

I don’t know why I am sharing this with you now
I guess I’m just feeling reflective
Thoughts swirling on the shifting surface of brown waters

Imagination flowing
With the waters rushing down our dirt road
Chartreuse green pasture
And wild waters of the Rio Grande

Writing from a state
In which I am living
But from which I may never belong

Today.

September 1, 2013 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Today.

Another week passes, with rain on the laden heads of grasses rich and bursting, waist high and ready to spread their store, and frost out on the flats along the Divide silver sparkling in first morning light, and clouds white and heavy and full of mischief enwrapping the stoic mountains that keep their stone face in spite of the teasing and tickling of the continued rains that drip and cover and pour and wind little ribbons of silver down charred matte black hillsides and let you know really, it will all be ok. Some day.

Some day. Today.

And now the water flows. In the ditch we have so carefully tended. It’s not our water, but we watch it, mesmerized, dancing down the course we have cared for.

A rare occurrence for this time of year. For our ditch. Perhaps it is the rains. Work is disrupted. A bittersweet parting.

Dare I complain about that which I so longed for only months ago as the moss cowering beneath the barren branches of the stripped spruce trees shriveled and dried and the grasses wilted and browned and my spirit became still in the wake of the winds that stirred mighty fires?

Today.

Now what? I ask myself as I stare at my hands held before my tired eyes. Eye lids drooping over a once solid steel grey stance. Do I already have too many years of squinting while working in the strong high sun? Too bad. I’ll take the wrinkles I have earned and hope my husband finds them as enchanting as the wild ride of a life that produced and continues to feed them.

My hands. I see calluses I have worked for. Only to watch fade away for now their work is done. For this season at least. What will the next one bring?

I hate to be done. For where does that leave me, what must I do today? Only that which I seek out and find, not that which is pressing and forced. It’s a matter of choice. And is that not often a bit more than we can bite off and chew?

Unless I knew the answer to the riddle for which I am always stirred to dance.

“What’s next?”

What’s next? Let me tell you as I try to figure it out myself. Make it up as we go along.

We leave camp, leave even our Little Cabin by the Big River. Leave silence, simplicity, hauling water, listening to the river roar brown and milky about the constant rains and the mud slide up river. Leave the outhouse, the bunk beds, the cabin twelve by twenty which we moved, for those who remember when, by snowcat away from that which was to that which will be. We’ll build some day. Soon enough. Bigger. Fancier. With a toilet and a kitchen sink.

As I move back up to main camp and luxuries like solar power and flushing toilets and washing dishes in the sink, I wonder.

Better?

Today.

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.

Digging up dirt

July 26, 2013 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Ditch Diaries.

Year Seven.

Trip One.

There is nothing like this to clear the air, erase the past, tire the body until the mind finally stops thinking.

Hard work. Good, hard, dirty work, in the purest, simple sense.

Digging ditch.

Packing into the Wilderness by horse. Just the three of us, six horses, and one bold dog to keep us all in line. Shoveling, picking, dragging, slipping, saddling up, hauling, heaving, heavy breathing and plenty of dirt, sweat and soaking from the rain. Sleeping an inch off the ground, getting comfortable with creepy, crawling, flying things, and tossing cleanliness out the window, if we had one.

Lo and behold, there before us as we sit with our tin cups filled with cheap box wine and plates hot on our lap. The Rio Grande Pyramid and Window before us.

We’ve been doing this so long we’ve seen hillsides die and new flowers bloom, drought years and decent water years which means a lot of hours working in the rain, good grass for the horses and slim pickings, early frost and late blooming, grass stalks setting seeds weeks apart from what they did the year before, and waiting for the moon to set just so in middle of that Window.

We look at the ditch in terms of what year we worked on each section. Time told around shovels, slopes, slips and blisters. By the number of ibuprofen popped, packages of hamburger helper consumed, gloves worn through, and horses trained on the job. How about the number of slip handles repaired, leather horse hobbles lost in the grass, corny jokes told in tired delirium and photos taken of that same incredible mountain looming so large before me as she does right now?

We set the tent up in the same old place. Home away from home. The horses put their heads down and proceed to graze before we even unload. They know the deal. The dog digs up an old bone and finds a faded red ball left behind from last year or the year before.

And yet nothing is ever the same.

Of course more trees have died. Now we count the devastation in terms of mountainsides ravaged, add it up by the miles of forest, not the actual trees. You couldn’t count if you wanted to. I don’t want to.

We sit by the fire in the evening with our wet socks off and tired feet drying and hear one fall in the distance. Sounds like a gun shot. Only for those of us working in the woods, far more frightening. We don’t say a word and look down at our toes.

This year the spring has gone dry. The one by which we’ve camped for the past five years. Each year a little less water. This year, not enough to water a horse. We have six here with us. We walk further and let them drink at the river. Norman, the gentle giant, pulls up his stake and walks there alone. He’s usually back by the time we notice him missing. He never goes far.

Empty trails with the only tracks being that of the elk. Eerie. This is peak season. Not that it’s ever too crowded around here, and not that we are here to see people. Really, not at all. But somehow, this time of year, they belong here. Backpackers. Hiking the Divide. A few days. A week. A month. Maybe the whole trail in one long season, Mexico to Canada. Somewhere in the distance. Bright colors and big backs. Part of the landscape. Like afternoon monsoons, early morning dew, and deer slipping in between the timber as we lead our horses out to graze.

Where are the moose this year that have in the past been a regular part of our weekly viewing? Neither home nor here. I worry about these things, too. Has the low snow taken its toll on this species as it has on the Canadian Lynx trapped up there and brought down here, and did we really think they might remain? Those that didn’t high tail it and try to head home, slowly starve. Beautiful creatures with which we’ve played God. Despite the trauma of trapping, transporting and being dumped in an area hit so hard by climate change, we still say we’re doing good. I’ve yet to hear someone say this is good for the animal. I only hope my beloved moose, slow and lumbering through the willows in the snow banks and one of the few brave enough to tough out the winters here with us, will choose to remain, and maybe even thrive.

For the first time we see repulsive brown sacks squirming in the willows, an infestation of fuzzy caterpillars, little white cocoons. Miller moths. We have not seen them here before. Not this high. The willows, already weakened from the ongoing drought, are suffering further still as their branches are stripped to feed the chrysalis.

They don’t belong. Out of place, as grotesque as initials carved into the trees by passing tourists who somehow think this is ok. It’s not graffiti because it’s on a living tree? *

And trash. Tell me this, please. Who would come this far only to leave their garbage here? Some things are better left back home. Perhaps some people, too. And tell me this, too: who the hell packs in Diet Coke to the Wilderness?

I’m having trouble bouncing back, seeing the beauty, finding the good. The fire burned a part of me too. I bet if I went to town (which chances are I won’t for a while) I’d hear others say the same.

It was hard. We all lost something. A part of the forest. A part of us. Something we all deemed sacred. Why we are here. Our connection has been burned. If we feel deeply enough, we feel the loss. We are left somehow lost, lacking, incomplete.

It’s time to heal. Rebuild. We can’t go back but we can move on. Do you know how? I can’t wait for time to heal it all. I need to do something now.

Get me back to work. Stop worrying about litter and trashy folks, forget for a while about finances, fires, future decisions, and blasts from the past still haunting me. For now, just grab a shovel and get to work. For now, nothing else matters except moving dirt.

* Forgive me, as I know of one exception where such a memorial is sincerely a sad but welcome part of this land.

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

Gin Getz

On the intimate connection between person and place. Sharing words and images of wilds within and around.

creede

Among the crying trees.

Into the burn.

… and Out.

Places like this.

And then there was… snow.

And then there was rain.

Today.

Wild. Life.

Digging up dirt

Turn Around

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post