Today it rains. It is like an exhale, gentle, letting out, letting go. A soft, easy rain, like tears, not from grief, just from a heavy burden. And sometimes you simply need to cry, to stop holding it in. The sky understands, offering just enough to dampen my dirty jeans, but not darken the earth into which I dig with calloused hands.
Yes, I am still writing. Still. I am ready to be done with this book, but the words are not there yet. Finish what you start. I do. Slowly.
I am not fast, can’t sit still for long, have other things that call me like irrigating fields, growing food, baking bread and working with the horses.
Distractions. Balance. Completing the bigger picture that paints my world.
That bigger picture. I look around, and at my empty hands, wondering what I have to contribute, to give, from this simple quiet life I live, and see that in my palms, I hold wonder.
Words. Giving. Receiving. Listening. Sharing. Holding space sincerely.
Is this enough?
Are we enough?
The simple life is never as easy as we make it look.
I live along the river yet have yet to take time to swim. Things don’t grow looking like this.
“What do you DO?” they ask, a question we smile at, rather than respond to.
If you know, you know…
Some days its more complicated than I can handle, at least, that is how it feels right now, weighing heavy, that burden, those tears, when what I want is to feel light and expansive and free.
Life as a worker bee.
Entangled with the soul of a poet.
And with the sometimes turbulent tossing of two sides of the coin that is me, I look around and within and still see I wouldn’t want to trade my life for anyone’s. So if it means I’m slower, I’m slower.
And the other side of my coin says: yes but… I am ready to finish what I started. It is time.
And so I hole up, bring my gaze back from the river and garden and horses, and with a dog on each side of the stool on which I perch to write, I dive in. Leaping. Weaving my net along the way.
And I remind myself as I braid my life, of the expansiveness of creativity. To have the courage to choose that which over-rides the constriction and restriction of fear, insecurity and anxiety. Creativity by its very nature is expansive, inclusive. Rather than shutting down and out, it opens to and of. Creativity is the radical act of awakening imagination and inspiration.
Create, my friends. Create. Maybe it will be beautiful.
Sharing some deep thoughts, as I’m known to do – and a slew of photos as I’ve not taken the time to check in for a couple weeks. Three years since getting my first phone and setting up this Facebook account, and I can’t say I’m really rocking it. Nor especially keen on it yet.
The last few weeks found me polishing up the proposal for A Long Quiet Ride. Now it’s time to kick it out of the nest and see if it can fly… time for magic and prayers… while I move onward, back to burnishing the rest of the manuscript.
What’s next?
For now, I intend to have my cake and eat it too but I’ll explain what that means when I figure it out.
What’s next? I don’t mean what adventure. What move. What I’ve got planned. Or even what horse. If you’re curious, ask me. Though I don’t know if I have the answers.
What’s next? What I want to share is that deeper thing. A thing about life, or rather, stages of life.
How’s this for a stage?
I read recently that menopause is going from taboo to trendy, so hang in there while I bring it up. (Still feels like forbidden fruit to me, and maybe just as dangerous.)
What happens after you step out of the stage of life that was the transformation from The Mother to… The Matriarch? Or is it the Crone? Or is it something else entirely?
Call it what you will, it happens. Thank God. You do leave menopause behind. At some point you look around, with an unfamiliar sense of brilliant clarity, and realize you slipped out of the sticky skin the She Dragon had enwrapped you in.
And then… who are you now?
That is a lot of what ALQR is about – trying to figure out who the hell I am and the how the hell I got here.
We go through stages of life like that – stages that shake us up like an Etch-a-Sketch, and when we’re done, the screen is clear and it’s time to draw ourselves anew.
Am I there yet?
Do we ever arrive?
Where I am at is where I want to be. But here and now is ever changing.
If in fact we do only have this one wild and precious life, I intend to make it very wild and very precious. So far so good.
What do I choose? Do we have to choose? Either way I win.
And yet, I wonder why at nearly sixty I still feel so far from… what is it? Grown up? Together? Settled down? Mature – at least in the way that word held meaning when I was growing up?
Well, at my age I can make my own definition, thank you very much.
I’m not much of a practical, stable, sensible shoe sort of gal. I color outside the lines.
At the same time, I look forward to being the old wise one – when I get there. The crone being the stereotypical model of that woman. Long gray hair, deep wrinkles, gnarled fingers, and soul seeped in her eyes. I am getting there. But I am not there yet. I am not her yet.
In the meantime, where am I? Who am I? What I see when I look around makes me smile. This is good.
Perhaps it is another stage. Or is it the time in between? The ever living Bardo of transformation that life seems to be.
There’s more to many of us than maiden, mother, matriarch or crone. Simplified by the triple goddess moon like the tattoo inked on my shoulder at a shop in El Paso when I was working at a midwifery clinic, where helping women birth brought it all together with pain and bliss and blood.
Whatever it is, it’s a good place to be. A good stage of life. And sure as hell beats the last one.
We are left to create ourselves and define our lives, beyond the constricting parameters of labels and title and roles. Define ourselves. Be ourselves. Not based on others opinions, judgments, assumptions, or social norms. I’ve never been big on normal.
Why must we be defined and confined? Rather than simply step from one neat and tidy box to the next, get messy. Have fun. Play around with your life. Kick the cardboard, set your spirit free, and soar beautifully. That’s how we each can make the world a more beautiful place.
Have the courage to create. Your self. Your dreams. Your life. Your way.
Begin and watch the universe unroll before you, welcoming you to your true nature, your highest and best self, the best you can show up with and bring to this beautiful world.
Sometimes it feels like you’re the only one out there, on the outside, looking in, and you wish you could be in there too. In the circle. A part of it all. Accepted. Allowed. Included. Embraced.
But maybe that’s not where you belong. And you remind yourself it’s okay. And that you’re not the only one. There’s a lot of us satelliting society. Not quiet fitting in to the norm. Maybe that is the norm.
Remember, stars were born in darkness, creativity sparks in stillness, passion takes root in the void. Some of us need silence. That’s the only way our souls can sing. Maybe being on the outside isn’t such a bad place after all.
Somewhere out there, beyond the circle. Apart. In your own unique space. Loving the time, the place, the peace and calm, the beauty and space for the imagination to roam wild. And maybe that’s where the circle extends after all.
Since completing my Long Quiet Ride, several people have shared links to other folks who are doing or have done long rides. Seems like lots of folks out there are doing it. Maybe what I did and am writing about isn’t so special after all, though it sure felt huge at the time. And as I am deep in the throes of writing about it, it is not feeling any smaller.
Still it was a long, quiet ride. Quiet was a prevailing theme. Most of it was not shared. I couldn’t share it. First because I didn’t want to get in trouble for being where I was and going the way I went. Second because I chose to remain present, with my horses, where I was, with the people I was meeting – not distracted by a screen. But most importantly, it was not something to be shared at that time. It was an inner journey as much as an outer one. No, even more so. It was a pilgrimage more than an adventure. Something not meant to be shared until the trip is behind you and has settled into your weary bones and weathered skin and well-earned graying hair.
It is tempting to compromise one’s trip for recognition and financial support – but that is a different trip. I was encouraged to make it a TikTok challenge – and though the idea of being “something” and “someone” tempts us all, truth is, dancing center stage is not my trip and so I bowed out. I think I’m one of those who dances like no one looking because I believe no one is. At least most of the time. Bob looked. And I’m glad he did and still does.
The story I’m writing about and will share with you soon is something I did for me – proving myself to myself. I’m too old to still be trying to prove myself to others. At least, I should be over that. By now I should have learned to live without acceptance and approval from family, community, society – though I think we’re hard wired to want and even need those things. It’s survival. Fitting in. Being a part, not apart.
Some things we never outgrow.
Some of us never did fit in.
The outlaw, outcast, outliner, drawing outside the lines, living outside the circle.
It’s not what we want, but at some point, we accept who we are, and learn to revel in the freedom it brings.
Those of us outside the circle dance in the stars rather than with the stars.
What if there were no boundaries? Nothing to contain us, define us, confine us? What if it was all open space and we were all in it together?
Opening the circle.
We see the same moon.
We breathe the same air.
I am not separate from you.
I will not turn my back, close my eyes , close my heart.
May I forever be the curious child. Reveling in the sovereignty of days before assumptions, separations, road blocks and blinders closed my circle.
May I always be able to open a conversation, a harmonious song, a melody blending notes, a whole composition, as a holy act. Dare to dream of a life exempt of boundaries and barbed wire, locked gates and closed hearts.
Instead, having the courage to craft an open circle big, broad, wild and free.
This old photo popped up online recently. Always liked it. (Thank you, Bob, for taking it probably 18 years ago.) And always loved that horse. Quatro. I used to call him my Marlon Brando. My bad boy. In a good way. He could step out like no one’s business. And flip around faster than a flapjack if I got the pack line under his tail.
He is long gone. It happens. We grow. We age. We die. Our horses even faster than us. Our dogs even faster than horses. We hold them all dear in that box found beside our heart, maybe a part of our heart. A secret place no one knows but you. Mine is full. So full. Too full it feels at times as I cram more pain, more heart ache, more loss and regrets, and always more love, compressed with time and tears and a tinge of bliss.
I imagine mine to be a small metal box, with lock and key, perchance like an old diary I had as a young girl back in the 70s into which I poured out my pre-teen grief. That diary turned out to be no more than cardboard and was easily torn open one day in fifth grade by Paul Procnoun whose desk was right behind mine. I still remember his name. A wanna-be boyfriend. It didn’t charm me. What do we know about love at age ten beyond if you are loved, or loved not enough? This was his way of expressing a crush on me.
I was crushed.
It ripped open a part of me.
Sharing is still hard to do.
I’m sitting here trying to write A Long Quiet Ride. This morning started my third re-write. Is turned out to be harder than I planned (most things are), and taking far longer (most things do).
Sharing.
How do I share what I saw out there? What I did? Who I met? How I felt? Stories of the kindness of strangers. And the blindness. And the often unorthodox way we made our way through.
Stories.
That is all I have to share. And yet it frightens me at times to do so. Like ripping open your head, your heart, the past. It hurts in a place I cannot see but from which I cannot tear myself free.
As Ernest Hemingway may or may not have said: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
I am bleeding.
And for those of you who are writers, you’ll understand this: My darlings are bleeding too.* I am killing them. One by one. They disappear from pages, screaming with a light bright blue highlight on their way out. Vanishing into a sky of white screen.
So begins re-write number three, in a pool of blue blood as mine pours forth forever fiery red.
This has nothing to do with writing or rain or riding through the wilds.
It’s political.
Because I choose not to be.
I don’t get what’s up with our world. But I can’t not see it. So what’s a gal to do? You see; you feel; you care. And then what? At some point, you’re gonna stand up and do something. Hopefully, something good. We all need that.
More and more of us can’t watch the news. Bad for mental health. It’s like watching a brutal boxing match, or ancient gladiators in a pit, or a really bad WWE show. Two sides in a barbaric fight, a fight to the death, while the spectators, show leaders and ringmasters egg the battle on, laughing at the foolish, bloody pawns they’re playing against each other.
No thanks.
If I was standing on the fence, which at times I feel I am, how could I choose sides when at their core, both sides are good? Good folks with good values wanting a good life for their children, but somehow pushed to this dark place of devaluing and dehumanizing the other side.
“We’re not the same,” some friends say about other friends.
Bullshit.
Y’all look the same to me.
Y’all want to be safe.
Y’all want to belong.
Y’all want to be loved.
So why are we ripping one another apart?
I don’t care what side of the fence you stand on.
Because it is not a fence between two sides or walls between us that will keep us safe when the danger is already within. Building bridges, not walls, is what will make us stronger.
Remember these bold words of Ronald Reagan, “Tear down this wall!”
Let’s do it. All of us. No matter what side you stand on.
There’s no room within this country for walls.
Me, I’m gonna kick the bricks when I see them stacking.
Not kick the builder, the contractor or even the client wanting them stacked.
I’m standing together. With all of you. With this country. With my home.
United we stand.
Divided we fall.
Remember?
I’m standing.
Please, stand strong, people. Together. Without a stinking wall between us.
One Nation. Under God. Indivisible. With Liberty. And Justice. For all.
I might be a sappy idealist and optimist, but I’d rather go down feeling like I’m doing the right thing, a good thing, and helping my neighbor rather throwing bricks at him.
I’d rather see the beauty that is all around and in everyone, because no matter what I’m told, shown or news I’m fed, it’s there. Beautiful stuff. Good stuff. And love.
Yes, there’s a lotta junk and bad stuff too. But you know the story: What wolf do you choose to feed?
Fear fuels hatred. Don’t be a weenie. Have courage. Choose love.
The garden roses finally called it quits for the season, right in time for wild Manzanita to begin their bloom while daffodils break through saturated ground.
It’s a beautiful world. Magical, if you will. I will! I will find magic.
This is a photo dump of magic from last month: roses blooming through to the New Year.
It’s also a sharing of some deep thoughts, because well you know, that’s where my mind goes.
I thought you might enjoy.
We all could use more beauty. And more sharing. Good stuff. Connection. Common ground.
These are things I have to tell myself.
What takes more courage?
Fighting?
Or getting along.
Because I will not be divided.
And I will stand strong for a country capable of holding its center together.
Don’t fall, I tell myself. Don’t allow yourself to be ripped apart at the seams. Like the baby before Solomon, two halves are not the same as one whole.
Building got the better of me this past week; no time to write, with a huge push to get the roof built.
Seems like all work and no play… yet tomorrow we’re taking off… something special to celebrate…the roof is built (metal comes this next week) and our anniversary is today.
For now, I’m just sharing this, because this is what matters most: LOVE. For those who have stuck it out together through hard knocks and tough times, and found yourself belonging in the shared place and space of long term love – something I never thought I’d be lucky enough to experience – I hope you’ll relate to this:
funny that all it takes
is opening eyes
to see
that you are there
beside me
right where we belong
Twenty-two years ago today, we married. We committed to become the family we chose. And in those years, we learned what unconditional love, duty and devotion, kindness and forgiveness feels like. In those years, we learned and grew, we flourished and failed, we longed and lusted and feared and found footing to stand strong, and we moved and built more than I’d like to admit.
It’s been a wild ride. The only stability was our love. Of each other. Our son. And the high wild lands where we choose to live. No matter how hard things got, how lost we felt, how tired we became, at the end of each day (or sometimes it took until the morning after) we knew we were no longer alone. And we knew someone else was counting on us, relying on us, needing us. So you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to work beside one another right where you belong.
Now we are here. In person and place and time.
Slowly we have settled in, learning the lay of the land, the feel of dried grass beneath bare feet or mud caked on our boots. Listening to the wind, tasting the water, letting the first sun of morning fall across our rawhide faces, allowing our fingers to find their place in the others hand when we walk. Finding our place, here. Finding the balance of lust and longing, energy and exhaustion, dirt and discomfort, strain and stress as we kept on keeping on building the dream – our family home and mountain homestead. Something we both wanted, together.
So it went, and so it still goes. Building together. A safe place to bring dreams to life.
Sitting at a different kitchen table, gazing out at a different view, things are different here. The mountain, the river, the elevation and air. Even the bears and birds and colors of the season as it begins to fade and summer browns and sky grays and we start to look up at distant peaks to see if snow has fallen yet.
Our relationship is different now. A little less spark but more warmth from the coals and that is what cooks the stew. And like the stew that has been simmering and been stirred and added to with care and taste and time, together we are each richer within than either of us imagined had we not chosen one another.
Maybe I am different, too. Not in spite of what we went through. But because of it. I am more. I am fuller. I am deeper and wiser. In part because of you. In part because of time. Aging is beautiful thing. At least, most days I think it is.
The wisdom of aging is perhaps best found in the skill of knowing what baggage to leave behind.
You cannot outrun the past. The past is the path that led you to where you are today.
In moving, you leave where you were behind. In a way, you leave who you were behind as well. You become the blank slate. The clay upon the potters’ wheel. You are both the clay and the hands that shape it.
In remaining, however, you face the challenge of your past lingering all around you like last years leaves that still need to be raked, and overgrown underbrush that catches and tangles as you try to walk through the woods. But you know your way through and sometimes there is comfort in knowing what to expect, what it will feel like, how bad it can be.
And how good.
Together we have done both.
Now is the time for re-writing. Not based upon where you are, but who you are.
The answers are not found out there. They are found in here. Within.
Perhaps where I should have looked all along.
But even inside, the landscape has changed. I wasn’t then who I am now.
It takes making the journey to understand the path.
It takes travelling the path to become the traveler.
Marriage is like that. At least it can be.
A mysterious path beckoning you to come hither.
A safe place in which you both can soften.
A healthy place in which you both can continue to be nourished, nurtured and thrive.
As the simmering stew, or the garden bed, deeper and richer and fuller with time.
The sky put on a display all day and seduced me back into love for life and this land after a day where she had knocked me out (quite literally) again. It was magic, reviving me, hour after hour, as my stomach settled and my feet found grounding once again. All the photos I share with you today are completely unaltered. God and/or this beautiful world graced me with this show.
As the painter cares not to color a canvas solely for the pleasure of her own eyes, so the writer is called to share words that you might enjoy; be it for entertainment, education, empowerment, and/or to find yourself somehow relating or releasing or escaping within the images the words spawn.
Yet what happens if the words I am called to share are not what I feel you will find pleasing? What if they are dark, as I confess, mine tend to tangle with? Do I harbor and hide them, or have the courage to boldly express and hope that you will not run away? Perhaps you might even shyly step closer, finding yourself still somehow in a similar state from time to time, knowing you are not the only one.
I’m not a sunshine, daisies and bunnies kinda gal. I’m more stormy skies and tempestuous wind and then a subtle glow in gray clouds to the east at dusk. Sometimes that makes for a pretty picture or enticing poem or captivating tale to share. But sometimes I’m afraid it might just scare you away.
And what about social media? Can it be a safe playground to play with words and hone my craft and reach out in the process? It is concerning as I find myself baring my soul as an outlet for both heart and art. This has always been something I have struggled with. I am an introverted introvert, and find my solace in silence and wild places. So what the hell am I doing trying to, if not master than at least muster, the craft of connecting online?
Is the intention to appease the ego or the muse? The ego is a trickster at times, fooling us to feel what we’re doing is “good” and “right” and maybe even for others, when I wonder if it is not more for her insatiable need for stroking. So does she fool me into feeling uncertain, unsettled, and a little absurd.
But the muse – oh my turbulent muse, she has a hold on me that I care not let loose of. I have always said I can’t not write. At times I wonder why. For the sake of the scratching pen, the alluring sound of words, or for the mood it imposes upon self and others when I manage to get those words write?
For when she dances within me, seduces me in her intoxicating embrace, she calls upon my courage to share. Boldly I open the curtains, as if ripping open a pearl snap shirt exposing a healthy breast, and let her fierce radiance flare outward without bounds. For she is stifled like a rained upon fire when I keep her under wraps, as a flower yearning to bloom bright from somewhere under confinement.
Oh, and as for progress… if you’re still with me…
After all those months of felling trees, clearing slash, dragging logs, milling lumber, stacking, loading and hauling across the West… to see the wood we loving harvested finally being put to use… It’s a thing of pride and joy, for sure.
And for those of you back in California. This is how deep you have to dig a water line in the mountains at 10,000 feet. Six to seven feet deep.
If you’re brave enough to live life full and rich and little wild, there is of course a downside. You will experience grief and loss and pain. It’s part of the package of life. You can try to play it safe, stay home, watch from the window or the barn stall and wonder what living really feels like. But even within castle or padded walls, there will come a day when grief will find its way in through the tiniest of cracks and fissures and fester in your heart and soul and oddly, make you something more. Something deeper, richer, fuller, wiser; something more compassionate for having experienced this part of life and living that none of us look forward to, but all of us intimately know or will know.
Grief is part of living. It is a burden we all one day will bare. A shared experience like one of those finely woven threads that bind us together.
We all know grief.
“Only those who have can lose.”
Years ago, Crow witnessed the loss of his foals, then his beloved, and then her daughter.
This week he watched me load his granddaughter in the trailer and roll down the dusty road, taking her away.
I wish he understood. I wish I could explain. I wish he knew we are simply hauling her away for a week, and she will return. Hopefully with a new family member brewing within her.
Many years ago on my old blog (the long since deleted High Mountain Muse), I shared the story of how Crow got his name. He was a three year old stallion, green and fresh and wild, I adopted in hopes of replacing the horse with whom I had been guiding. He was a hellion when he first came to the ranch – never having left the barn in which he was born. Careful what you ask for. I wanted a challenge. This was more of one than I wanted, and I wasn’t sure I was up for it.
As I sat on a stump in frustration with him on “time out” behind me, wildly pacing the fence with his head held high and the whites of his eyes exposed like a mad man (that is another name for young stud), I heard his lungs rhythmically, rapidly filling and releasing, pulsing with powerful breaths, and I remembered how it feels to run in the open places with a healthy horse pumping beneath and hair and mane and tail flying free and that sound of their lungs like the beating of wings… and just then a black bird flew over head and I heard that sound in unison.
And so he was named: Flying Crow.
That was almost twenty years ago. Twenty years of training, riding, guiding, working together in the mountains, countless pack trips, a lot of breeding, and a lot of loss. Loss I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Not him. Not me. But that was the curse we endured.
And left behind.
Always remaining within us in a dark, tender corner of our heart.
Some days that feeling resurfaces, catches us off guard, takes the wind from our lungs and we stand there wondering what has hit us. It is an emptiness. A hunger. A void. A black hole in our hearts. How else can we each describe that which we all have felt?
That is what I saw on Crow’s face this week.
He has been my faithful partner, playing and working in the mountains, and crossing the West with me, through more miles, adventures and stories than he or I shall ever dare share.
Along the way, he learned the unfortunate truth that grief is. This has happened to me too. We say that going through grief is essential to the human experience. But those of us that have spent enough time around other species know it is not reserved for humanity. It is a shared sense of soul.
This morning she revisited me, a wave of old rehashed emotion washing over me, stirring current calm waters and I want it to just go away.
Demons disappear only when we muster the courage and strength, trust and faith to stop running, turn around, face what you fear is chasing you. Look it in the eyes. And in the depth of the eyes you will see the reflections of the still forest pool where real love resides. It’s one in the same. And in that clarity, somehow, not that scary after all. The essence within every pool, every eye, every fear is still love.
As you stand there before the calming waters, allow the mud of fear to settle as you witness the love rising, radiating from the surface. It does not eliminate the pain of grief. But somehow, it does even more than balance it out. It give you something more. You dip from the pool and taste that which you have been thirsting for.
Crow has been around. He’s seen a lot. Been through a lot. Done a lot. And some of that “lot” invariably has been grief.
Witnessing his grief now makes my own somehow more bearable. I know his will be relieved in just a few more days when we bring his granddaughter home to him, hopefully with a baby growing within.
In fact, this lesson took me fifty-something years to figure out.
It’s about people.
The photos today may not be, but the writing’s about people.
The thing about people.
See, intertwined with this journey of place is one of people.
Because true belonging is a balance, unique for each of us, of connecting with people as well as with place.
Ones sense of belonging is found with and created by connection.
Connection. Connecting with land has been easy for me. Connecting with people, well, this is the part I’m finally getting.
If you’ve known me a while, likely you know that people were not my thing. I was awkward. Shy. Reserved and withdrawn. At least I usually felt all those things.
And yes, scared.
People scared me. Being around them, talking with them, trying to connect with them. Never belonged. Connection felt like an impossible mission; I felt more disconnect than connection. And then would rehash and ruminate for hours, days and years all the things I surely did wrong in those (rare) encounters.
So in my defense or some sense of self preservation, I became a bit of a recluse, a hermit, a wild woman who lived “way out there.” And I did my best not to deal with people.
I’ve lived like a lone wolf. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. However… I once proudly boasted of not leaving the mountain for five months at a time, and going from fall to spring seeing only nine people, two of which were my husband and son.
It’s not that I didn’t like people.
It’s just that I chose to be alone.
It’s just that…
I thought I’d be better off.
I thought I’d be safer.
I thought I had all I needed, was self-sufficient, could do it all by myself.
And guess what I learned?
I was wrong.
Isolation created separation.
And separation created depression.
And in that self created state of disconnection, I found myself in a rabbit hole that got deeper and deeper and deeper still.
And into that hole I fell, deeper and deeper and deeper still.
Until I finally hit the bottom, dusted myself off, and climbed back out.
It took taking my Long Quiet Ride to wake me up to the greatest truth.
It was a trial by fire.
Throwing myself out there, in front of the bus, being at the mercy of people. OMG.
And out there, I learned two things.
First, people are good. For the most part, I mean like seriously, obviously, good is so far above and beyond bad. The fact that our population has grown to over eight billion of us is proof enough for me. Good wins.
Second, I need people. We all do. No matter how independent we fool ourselves to be. We are interdependent, and that’s a good thing. On that trip, boy did I need people. For direction, for suggestions of safe passage, for companionship, for connection, for some sense of wholeness that was left as a gaping hole while I was out there trying to do it alone.
Here’s the deal. The fear that prompted me to build my armor and protected walls didn’t keep me safe, only kept me separate.
Believe me, I had spent a lifetime of plenty of time alone and proving myself capable. That’s not what I went out there to do. I didn’t know what I was looking for but I figured it out fast. Got the message, loud and clear. And right away.
And from the very first day, I realized, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to connect.
I longed to share a meal, a story, a hug, a laugh. I wanted to be a part, no longer apart.
Now, some things remain the same. I still choose to live “way out there.”
But some things are very different.
I have learned the thing about people.
And I have learned to love people.
In small doses, admittedly. I’m still not keen on parties, potlucks and group gatherings. One-on-one is more my style. Even if it’s one-on-one with the woman at the checkout or the guy in line before me, tea with a neighbor or a long walk with an old friend, getting the story of the person sitting beside me in a waiting room, or (this will always be my personal favorite) a lingering dinner shared with my husband and son with candles, fresh bread and simple homemade food, and lots and lots of laughter and love.
I believe it is a universal truth that everyone wants to belong, to be accepted, and to be loved.
Hatred is a defense. I know all about that. It’s armor. It takes more courage to drop it than to hide behind it.
But in doing so, in freeing ourselves of our so-called protective shield, we lighten our load.
Only then can our wings unfurl big and bright and wide. Only then can we rise and soar.
I’m living proof that we can learn, we can grow. We can forgive. And (I humbly bow to those who have) we can be forgiven as well.
I’m sharing this because I wish others wouldn’t make the same mistakes I made. But I know life doesn’t work that way. We have to make mistakes in order to learn. We have to live to learn. What we’re told or taught may be intelligent, but it is not wisdom. It becomes wisdom when it soaks into our heart and soul. Then we really get it.
It took me a helluva long time to learn what a lot of you knew all along. That’s a lot of unnecessary pain, for myself, and for others. That’s a lot of loss, because really, I did miss out.
But I got it.
Finally.
A late bloomer.
Better late than never.
What does this have to do with the adventure we’re currently on, building an off grid cabin “way out there” in Colorado, while still wondering where the hell we’re meant to remain?
A lot.
Because people matter as much as place. Because people are a part of the place. Because people fill my heart in a way that the wild world cannot, and hopefully I can fill others’ hearts along the way. Because connection matters, belonging matters, and no place will ever be “the” place without that bond and love and connection with the people around you.
How can I love a place without loving (at least most of) the people who live there? Am I so shallow as to love a pretty view but not the people, the stories, the interrelation of the people who are there?
The thing about creating or finding community and the place where I belong is ever present if not on my mind than in my heart.
I don’t want to ever be isolated, separated or lonely again.
I may not be totally rocking the social scene. I’m still a quiet, wild woman, silent sort that needs more time in the trees than in town – but finally I learned I do need that time in town. With people. Connecting. Belonging. And much to my surprise, it feels so good.
Yes, it’s scary. Yes I am often still afraid.
But I have to. That’s the courage I’m building.
Though I may choose to live “way out there,” reaching out regularly allows me to live as I do, and be a part, not apart.
I am a part of humanity.
And it’s a good place to be.
Wherever that physical place may be.
And yeah, that’s the biggie I’m working on.
People are basically good. Everywhere. And I can find my people where ever I go. If I have the courage enough to open.
So the question in my heart now is, how do I figure out that balance of loving the land and the people who live there, and choosing where we are meant to remain?
How can I choose one place when I find a connection with people I meet all over the place?
Oh, that’s a biggie. I’ll save all that for another time.
I’ll conclude with a few updates from the past few days. Nothing ground breaking quite yet. Soon. Believe me, you’re not near as anxious as we are to get moving forward on this big job. But before working there is living, and right now, we’re still working on those details, and there are a lot, because it’s not just about building, it’s about living, and living takes a lot, and living does come first. A lot of little details, and some big ones too, like working on the road to access our camp and worksite with some seriously Old Iron and gravel from our land.
And the shed. Oh the shed! The shed is an amazingly awesomely wonderful gift from Bob’s sister that is turning into something we didn’t know how bad we needed, and now wonder how we’d manage without. It’s got enough room to house all our tools on shelves in plain sight, have a work table out of the elements (and elements are a thing up here, with rain and hail a daily thing). And though the shed also serves as safe storage for all those things we managed to stuff in the horse trailer on the way out here, we’re finding it even provides us with a mud room – a place to leave our muddy boots and hang out weather gear, and up here, that’s a mighty appreciated thing. It’s huge – big enough to live in, far bigger than our humble camper. Though rest assured, it’s not going to stop us from building. Just help us along the way.
The things that were easy and reliable for me to share back in California – the constant and reliable beauty and abundance of the garden we created – well, not so much here. Between the mice and mornings still freezing regularly, my so-called garden, though covered with agribon and a heavy tarp at night, is not a happy place.
Though the rest of the wilds here are. And wild it is. With endless room to roam and mountains to wander and treasures to observe. All in all, it’s big and wide and wild and my heart and soul are soaring with the ever-changing but all the same expansive view before me.
Gin Getz 