high mountain musing

Take a break!

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

My dear readers,

I am taking a brief break in posting while I’m completing another writing project. But before I sign off for a little hiatus, I believe a brief “thank you” is in order. A thank you to my readers – especially those who have been with me for years, who I now feel I know intimately though many I have never met.

(I always say I write to be read, to express, reach out and share. Not just to get the words out of my head. Though sometimes it feels like the latter.)

My gratitude is sincere though my ability to express it might be a bit lacking.

While I’m off for a while working on my “other” writing project, please continue to keep in touch, through this blog or by writing me directly. I’ll be here. Writing, and reading, and as always, thinkin’ and dreamin’.

For now, I leave you with a list below of a few of my favorite posts written over the years, just in case you have a few minutes to share here with me a while over a good cup of strong coffee.

Warmly,
Gin

The Night the Chicken Blew Away
Moving the Little Cabin by the Big River and a few words about Hillbilly Ingenuity
Untitled (The death of Artemis)
Grains of Sand
Losing the Bull
The Homestead Bear
Grill Chicken
Ditch Diaries
On Truth
Newcomer
Lucky Girl
Return
More on the Fear Factor
Two Poems by Two Special People
About Not Getting Lost

From a New Perspective
 Cowgirl Up
Leap!
An Open Letter to My Son
Seduced by Earth and Sky

After the early snow clears

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Forget Part Two.

I have pages and pages of drafts of stories to tell you, explanations of why ultimately I decided to keep the man and leave the land. But none of it really matters. Maybe it should. But not now. Now when I read it, it holds me back. To the past, to the place, to the same and safe and known and often times things I’d rather never were.

So I’m moving on. I’m leaving that behind. Yes, just like that. And yes, I’m scared. But scared won’t stop me.

Learning to live

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

It’s not what I was expecting
Is it ever?
Or are we best learning to live without expectation, allowing each day to unfold as it may, and remain in the present? Can we really survive as such without memories of the past and plans for the future?
I think not.

It’s all about balance.
We are products of our past, and crops for our futures. Is that really so bad? And can’t we accept that and still enjoy the present? What kind of a fool feels today is all that matters?
What matters? The air, the mountain, the river cutting through hard rock? Elements, harsh and mild, wild and calm. My husband, my son, my dog and cats, horses, birds in the back yard, the hawk hunting in the willows out on pasture. The feel of wind chapping my cheeks and rain tapping my hat and snow falling soft on my sweaty face as I tip my head upward and taste the simple sweet essence of changing seasons.
All of it.

That’s what I want.
Not just today. Certainly not just yesterday. And not only tomorrow. The whole enchilada. Life. Rich and full, hot and cold, pleasure and pain, birth and death and every day I am allowed to live in between the two.

Touch me
Soft and wet and warm
The fullness of life like
Water rushing over pale flesh
At times too deep to breath
I find myself in the middle of
A river I cannot stand in
Flowing too fast for a foothold

End of color

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

And then it is over
The gaudy display
The song and dance
The brilliant appealing attractive spectacle

After weeks of the gradual climb to climax
Suddenly it comes to an end
Blown away
Stripped in one windy afternoon
The gradual crescendo
Followed by the Grande Finale
Now the audience claps and clears the theatre

Her inner core is left exposed
And therein lies her greatest beauty
Raw and unrefined
Real and without fanfare and comforts and attractions ready made
And for the first time in ten years I won’t remain
At the one time I belong

I long for wild
My wild winters
What has allowed me through the rest
Will I find this calling somewhere else
Or will I lose that part of me
Silenced in the din
Of traffic, talk and schedules
Based not on the rise and fall of sunlight
But on the numeric display on your modern phones

It won’t be long
It’s who I am
How I define myself
My wild side is dominant
Now dormant
Unable to awaken
But I do not let tears flow unless they may nourish and join the river and rain
Perhaps another river
And a rain storm building above another range

The wind is silent now
I do not hear the mountain
I do not hear myself
Instead I hear the wild call somewhere farther
Somewhere else
And I shiver to think of joining her there soon

A few more

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Ok, I know… that’s enough.  Time to get back to work…

 

A poem behind a rain streaked window

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Rain on the window sill like anxious fingers drumming on the top of a table
The unsteady pulse of traffic below
Kicking up puddles that flash florescent in passing low beams above the slick ink black pavement covered by two days of rain
And above the colored flashing chaotic lights of town
The mountains calmly stand serene
An instant space of silence
Secrets hidden behind veils
Layers unfolding
As skirts on such a grand Victorian lady
Ashen coating softens the deeper you dive in
Irresistibly drawn
Back into the seemingly endless sea of jagged peaks
Back towards the richest of treasures
Sparkling a faint silvery gold
Diamonds in coal
There before me
Changing views as the heavy clouds
Languidly rolling about her hips
Unveil new secrets just long enough for me to question
To draw me in
Back there
And all that is or was the foreground suddenly disappears
My breath calms and gaze widens and I am there
Somewhere between the sea and sky
In the layers of grey fading like a childhood memory
A blurred vision I saw once in the back seat of the station wagon
As the motor hummed and my family loudly carried on
A faded photo with colors washed out over time to a pale patina of light and dark
There before me the view which lifts me over the lights and noise and now a siren I think I heard
Now so far below me
As I somehow progress deeper and higher into the infinite wilds
A place with expanding boundaries
Is anything anywhere left untouched
That I may be the pioneer I dream of

Rain at night

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment


Rain. Its primordial rhythm on the metal roof calls me, lures me seductively like an enigmatic wood nymph out into the ink black night. Akin to the murky depths of the ocean, the moon and stars are shrouded behind this heavy cloak. Darkness is complete. I stand in the doorway and look out as if with closed eyes.

Suddenly a close strike of lightening, the ranch illuminated before me instantly, seemingly unnaturally as if under glaring spot lights of a semi truck and I can see it all for just a second, the dirt drive, the cabins, the grove of aspen trees and old manure spreader we set there as an odd sort of decoration. Then the blackness returns and seems cavernous.

The dog and I step out into the abyss. Now the rain taps on my hard brim hat and I break the blackness with a beam from my flashlight. The drops of cold rain illuminated like a million diamonds falling from the sky. They feel close to ice, close to snow. A soft sign that summer fades as the tired aspen, leaves paling as their annual brilliant grande finale is about to begin.

We follow the flashlight’s beam to the barn and open the gates to allow the mare and foal a warm dry shelter for the night. They are there waiting, bright yellow eyes captured by the flashlight. I return to the cabin and release a contented sigh, kicking off the muddy boots and hanging the damp slicker by the door. They will be dry by morning when I slip into them again.

Mornings

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments


One morning I wake in the rain forest, surrounded by ferns and cedars and moss covered rocks and undergrowth so think my dog remains on the road with me as we jog in the heavy humid air, thick like syrup, it has texture and substance so unlike the thin clear high mountain skies I am used to. My forehead and cheeks are damp with sweat. Early morning light filters through opaque woods, soft and faint like falling snow from the first storm of the year, somehow with a similar anticipation for what it will bring. Today will be a hot one.

Another morning I wake in the wide open flats of corn and alfalfa and the stench of dairy cows in a muddy lot that was stronger last night so I must be getting used to it after breathing it in all night for I don’t smell it as strong this morning. And there is the magenta of first light coming from what seems like a million miles away, a vibrant red swath on the edge of the horizon where the earth meets the sky, lightening, brightening, as the sun prepares to rise from so far away. Something we never see in the mountains, where morning arrives abruptly after the sun struggles and climbs and finally clears the mountains to the east.

The next morning we are driving through the cradled basin of Salt Lake City in the still dark hour as the mountains to the west capture the first of the sunlight and glows like a sparkling crown in the distance, and those to the east remain a rugged looming black silhouette. In between, a twisting ribbon of on-coming headlights and quickly passing billboards telling me where to go for the best care for a heart attack, eat the finest fast food, or shop for sexy lingerie. Pieces to a puzzle oddly out of place.

And then I am home. A familiar morning. An odd place to be. Betwixt and between. A separation I am setting in motion. And the closer it gets, the more I find myself grasping to hold on to what I had. For fear of having nothing but the unknown.

How uncomfortable a place when we find ourselves standing with nothing beneath our feet to support us?

Where we started and where we will be. Change brings us to a higher place, a step above, if only because we have learned and grown from the experience. (For if we have not, we have not changed, only the circumstances surrounding us have.)

Of course between where we started and where we will be, there is that period down below. A dark place at times. The inevitable flutter of the rollercoaster ride. Fluctuations between fears and excitement. These dramatic ups and downs and little stable ground in between.

“It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear . . . . It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.” Marilyn Ferguson

For now, I am in between. How much of our lives must we find ourselves there?

Beyond the surface

/ Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Beyond the surface
Dragonflies, big and blue and about the size of hummingbirds
But mute, mysterious, and yet somehow, more real.
There are no red plastic feeders here
Wild and silent and shimmering in the otherwise flat grey light of dawn
Leaving big ripples on the still forest pool
Perfect circles expanding
A bull’s-eye.
It is different here
New and as such, slightly odd.

We are camping beside a large pond with cattails taller than the camper on our truck and lily pads the size of dinner plates skirting the edges. Earlier this morning the largest bull moose I ever saw splashed in through these lilies and swam to the other side, his huge and heavy rack held above the black silk surface in the haze of first light like a burdensome and looming ship crossing a medieval mote.

At our camp site is trash, always an unwelcome site. Local trash. Tell tale signs of broken beer bottles, cigarette butts, shotgun shells and business cards from a shop in the nearest town about a half hour down the mountain. Little pride in their beautiful land. I’ve never understood that. Does it form from a sense of helplessness or ignorance? In any case, I call it a bad sign.

I am looking for signs. Signs that tell me “this is the place.” Home. I’m not finding it and it’s somewhat scary since I am committed to make this move and soon, yet have not figure where this move will take me. And depressing because I keep hoping to find it clear and simple, “Eureka!” there it is, and am disappointed each day as I sit in the back seat of the pickup and look out the side window at the landscape rushing by, hoping something there will call me, tell me I belong here. But I hear nothing beside the rush of the motor and the blaring music of my son and the regular outbursts of silly humor of the three of us telling jokes and stories in our funny and familiar way.

I lose faith in myself and wish I had faith in higher powers. But higher powers haven’t got me where I am. Hard work and a strong sense of daring have. I have no blind faith. My eyes are wide open. I know that will upset some to read. The same few who might admire my life and keep praying to live where and how I have lived. I would like to believe prayers will get you as far as grit but haven’t seen this first hand.

Funny though that I still keep praying, asking for a sign, asking to be put where I belong and do what I can to best serve this beautiful world.

And the truck rumbles on, and another day passes as fast as the view outside the side window, and in a blur I remember the answer but it’s not as clear and comforting as I wish it were.

Make it happen. There is no red carpet laid out for the journey of life. Weave it as you go along. And weave it yourself. All the velvety red ribbon is already inside you. It’s not the place; it is you. All you need to do is get to work and weave the path yourself. Believe in yourself. I’ve heard those words before.

There’s more to it than that. I’m listening for the answers. But I’m learning to listen within.

Leap!

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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