nature writing

Burning Bridges

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

Scraps of wood cut from old planks that once spanned the Rio Grande, reawakened as borders to raised beds for a garden that barely produced.

This wood, heavy and dark and four inches thick smelling of age and time and stories I’ll never know, salvaged timbers to the old Little Squaw bridge, crossing the river almost ten miles below us as the water flows, the dirt road goes.  One more life stirring, one more use, burning in my woodstove, relieving the morning chill, mesmerizing me with the crackle and hiss of its final song as the flames in the stove wave like branches in the spring wind.

Burning bridges.

Would you believe so literally?

What’s next, she asked and awaited a response to arrive in the twisting air?

Blow, wind, blow.

Share with me your secrets; allow me to share my passion.

Spread my wings, force me to take flight, lift me higher and higher again.

In a wild spiral.

My once tamed hair flying free in the wind.

My once calmed heart stirring where we thought we could keep it calm.

I cannot hold back the hoot and holler as I run down to the Rio Grande and lose my voice in the fierce flow of the last of her roaring spring waters.

 

 

Change comes in odd ways.  Often not as we expect.  Taking on an appearance so different than that which we were looking for.

The dog sits on the deck watching deer at his horse’s salt lick.

The horses settle into the routine, coming to my call, standing patiently through grooming, saddling and then keeping an open mind to the surprise of where I will lead them to today.

Summertime neighbors, old replaced by new, a changing of the guard and new life to a seasonal community, an excitement by the freshness of faces, ideas, beautiful new stories spread out like picnic blankets on a sunny day.

Evening light casting shadows of the Blue Spruce like daggers across the open flats.  The chartreuse wash of newly emerging Aspen leaves.  Freezing temperatures in the morning lace the sides of the creek with bouquets of frozen water that bloom only until eight a.m.

My son, evolving to his own direction and destination and forming his world like a sculptor. More often than not staring at the ball of clay before him and wishing it might portend the future more like a crystal ball. My husband, embracing the “encore career” and the mining community after thirty years of running his own business and, more often than not, doing it all himself.

Myself, awaiting a change I know will come, yet have no idea what to look for. I open my mouth and wait for the song to begin but the words do not come.

Yet.

I long and listen for a song I do not hear but somehow know the tune.  It is not one I have heard before.

As wild as the wind.

Nothing stays the same.

So, go ahead, burn those bridges.  Find a new use for old timbers.  And get to work spanning the river with a new one.

Altitude Sickness

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Seventeen degrees when I woke up to a little bit of light and finally silent wind chimes at five a.m.  All those starts my husband brought me home from the nursery over two hours away, which I tenderly planted in the safe new location of the raised beds and covered with a double layer of plastic sheeting for added protection, just in case. Dead. All that promise of a juicy ripe homegrown tomato at ten thousand feet. Gone. Turned to a mushy dark sick liquid green.

I wanted to cry. Really.  May seem silly to be so upset over the death of plants, but I think it was the last straw. First it was a bad morning.  The outhouse down at the Little Cabin blew over in these brazen winds, the power tripped causing us to fire up the generator for the first time since last fall burning that dreaded fossil fuel I do my best to conserve, and there was a dead ground squirrel in the have-a-heart traps that was set to capture the danged pack rat that’s been chewing his way into our storage cabin.

Yet it was the plants, my dearly tended, fragile plants.  That was the hardest.  They represented more.  Hope.  Life, when so many friends were dealing with death.  This week, one friend lost her dog while helping her sister through the diagnosis of cancer, one lost their dear old mare, and another lost her mother.  I was going to grow life.  In the form of juicy ripe tomatoes.

A nasty blow. Enough to bring tears to my eyes.  But not enough to compare with the losses my friends are bearing.  I will sweet talk my husband into dropping another hundred bucks next time he’s in the valley, and I will replant.  Life replaced, as simple as that.  And maybe I’ll get that tomato this summer after all.

I think of my friends dealing with their losses, and I know it is not fair.  Life isn’t.  In fact, sometimes it really sucks.  And then it gets better.  Just like that.  Though maybe it takes a while.  Hours, days, weeks, maybe even years. It’s crazy, isn’t it?  This rollercoaster ride with all the ups and downs.  We heal, we forget or forgive or learn to cope, and still find the guts to buy another ticket and go for another ride.

But for now, I’m still upset.  Walking around all morning in a funk, on the verge of tears.  I let my boys know this is not OK. Such emotional creatures we are.  So affected by the simple things.  If we let it get to us, and I usually do.

So while the rest of the family gathered together to whoop it up for the holiday and partake in the traditional barbeque, I chose to be alone with my dog.  I needed to get high.

Thirteen thousand feet high.

Though my intention was merely twelve. That extra thousand feet was bonus points.  That’s where the addiction part comes in. That, my friend, is altitude sickness.  Not because at that altitude I felt queasy in my head and stomach, though that has happened before. But because somewhere in my heart and soul there was this fluttering.  This crazy, driving, lustful urge that blinds reason and tells you to keep going, like a drug you should keep taking.  Seeing nothing but one foot in front of the other, a slow ascend, and focusing on the sound of my own labored breathing.  That which controls you, guides you, forces you onward beyond reason.  All for the five minutes of sitting on top of the mountain in the blaring winds and blinding light and biting temperatures, sucking in thin air and looking around 360 degrees in absolute awe, next to Gunnar Guy, my never questioning why on earth we spend all this time trudging to the top only to turn around and scramble back down faithful side kick of a dog.

The sickness of addiction.  Mesmerized and seduced by the altitude and elements. For I didn’t mean to go so far.  But I’m glad I did.

 

Slide Lake in Spring

/ Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Wolves.  Wild horses.  Water.

Wouldn’t you say the three most controversial and divisive topics in the west?

I can see both sides on the first two topics and am unable to choose sides.  I can see through the power and passion of emotion ruling both segments to a middle ground where the two should but just won’t meet, won’t budge, won’t give, fingers pointed and backs turned and nothing positive is resolved. That’s where we need to focus.  On the compromise. I guess that’s usually how things end up getting resolved.  But in the meanwhile, it does take both borders to define the middle ground.  Change often requires conflict to come about.

And then there is water.  The first essential to life. The west was built with liquid gold, and our future is pending upon it.  I see no controversy in the obvious and inevitable. What am I missing here, because somehow, we’re not agreeing that there is a problem?  Man based, nature based, call it what you will.  While some places are getting flooded out, pummeled with regular deluges, and learning that natural disasters are a usual occurrence, the Southwest is drying up.  Yes, even in the high mountains. Even in my back yard.

Yesterday Forrest and I hiked up West Lost Trail to Slide Lake.  Elevation 11,400.   We wore shorts and t-shirts.  There was green grass, wild flowers and the dog swam in the waters while the squeals of the pika and marmot echoed on the hard face of the rocks surrounding us.  And everywhere we looked the one rich green slopes were striped with the red and brown of dead trees defining draws and shoots as the beetle kill seemed to be pouring from the top down.  If you don’t get this picture, figure this out.  11,400 feet elevation should just be melting out in May.

Data from the NRCS as of May 18th show the Upper Rio Grande Basin snowpack level, which was reading at 52% of average, dropped to 14% with the peak a full month ahead of average. Current reports from the Snotel at Beartown read the water equivalent of our snowpack to be at 1% of average.

These are not opinions.  There is no emotion here.  These are simply stated facts, real and raw.  Do you see a problem? So now the question is raised.  What are you going to do about it?  What am I going to do?

Maybe it’s just this year, we say.  Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe we don’t have a do a thing.

Hardened by the season

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

Hiding behind the veil of the softening trees.

I learn to find my place and keep my space as the tourists begin to flock, moving in like the geese soon moving on from the delta flats where they hatched their young.

Swelling of the pussy willows.

Cirrus clouds to breach an otherwise stark blue sky above me.

Soft.  The Aspen are filling with lace of caterpillar like seed pods draping delicately from their softening branches.

The subtle art of learning to stand up softly… when I see my technique is much too harsh.

Soft.  Small as I may be, this is not a word many might use for me.  At times I wish it were.  But life, or destiny, the way I was born, the path I chose, or the way things just turned out had something else in mind.  I’m not saying “tough” is good, but chances are, you’d use that word to describe me more than “soft.”

I guess it started as a skinny little girl when the biggest girl in class was after me.  You know the type. For dramatic purposes, I’ll paint her portrait as a young female version of Lennie Small from “Of Mice and Men.”

Jenny Tole was her name. Big boned and slow witted we said at the time.  Probably an unkind and untrue description.  Children are too often cruel.  She came from the wrong side of town and I never remember her around much past fourth grade.  Don’t know if she dropped out or moved on.

I became the object of her attention, me, the smallest kid in class, always sitting front row center in every class picture at the suggestion of the wide eyed and every smiling photographers, probably so I wouldn’t get lost, and being closer to the lens, perhaps I would appear larger…

It started as a rumor.  “Did you hear?  Jenny’s got it in for you…” And spread like wild fire until the entire class was abuzz with the prospect of the ensuing battle.  And I just remember feeling they all felt I would triumph.  Though half her size and weight, at least that’s how it seemed at the time, they laughed like it was a done deal.  No one would whoop me.  Why?  I do not know.  So I tried to convince myself I could win a backyard brawl, though I don’t believe I had ever hit anyone besides my brothers before then.  And the prospect truly frightened me.

I remember being sick to my stomach, the tangled gut feeling every time I walked (ran!) home from school wondering and waiting to see if she was in the bushes about to attack.  For the first time in my life, I didn’t want the school bell to ring.

Now what I don’t remember is exactly what I did, so probably no big dramatic battle scene must have ensued.  Sorry, I know that would be fun to hear.  However I have these memories of turning to face her, feeling a bit like David against Goliath, though somehow at the time being overwhelmed with this HUGE feeling and imagined myself actually towering over Jenny.  I felt strong, mighty, powerful.  A dark red rage.  I would not be scared any longer!  I remember being in her face, pointing my finger, and putting her back in her place.

No punches flew. Whatever I said, it worked.  I think we even became friends after that, which I guess is probably what she wanted in the first place. Ginny and Jenny.  The mouse and the elephant.

I told myself harshness is how to handle people. Stand up!  Be strong!  I find myself still saying that. I know no other way.  I try to learn, and usually fail.  As one friend said, sooner or later, they’re going to disappoint you.  And I will you. So why do we even try?  Such socially strangled creatures we are. How dependent upon one another.  No matter how I try and fail, try I still always do.

The harsher side of self.  Longing for an internal softening.

The land here, my husband says, is harsh.  A winter away in a softer land has reminded him anew.  There was soft, pink, moist, mild.  Here the sun, wind, air burns, cracks, parches with little comfort from hard rocks and rushing river.

And yet of course it is the people which will always hurt more than the elements. So against them must I don the heaviest cloak.  And the softness that I allow myself alone on the mountain, letting down my guard when no one but nature surrounds me, closes off and shuts down for the season as the sentinel arrives to stand guard and protect.  The inevitable conflicts await, approaching with the season.

Mid week in early May

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

By lunch the snow has melted. The grass is a shade greener. The high country remains frosted and the air that comes over the Divide from the West has a strong bite.

I take off on a quick walk to burn energy that might otherwise drive the boys nuts.  I’m not good at not doing much and the morning snow and afternoon mud has slowed me down.  The dog joins me, chasing off two separate bands of elk along the way. They are shocked that this little beast would run straight up the mountain towards them as they side hill into the trees.  He is courageous.  I cannot say fearless, for the dark of night and high waters still frighten him, and for good reason. But he is bolder than any other dog I have known.  Only now, after almost two years together, have I learned to understand and appreciate his big, brave heart.  He is a lot of dog. Not physically, for he is only seventy pounds or so, but his spirit, his soul.  Yes, my friends.  Dogs do have soul, and this one has a big one.

By evening I am finally tired enough to sit. I pour a glass of wine and visit with my boys on our deck, soaking in the last of the sun before it drops behind the far side of Pole Mountain.  Warmth on the back of my head as I gaze forward across our yard ripped up from gardening mayhem, across the pasture with the horses grazing upon the moist spring grasses while two cormorants that just arrived back in the ‘hood mill about the undisturbed, across the hills which ebb and flow down to the swollen banks of the Reservoir, high with waters retained from cutbacks, making the drought conditions appear so plentiful.  How far reaching our view from the front deck can be if we take the time to consider the reaches and impact of the expanses before us.

Today I am at peace.  Home is bliss.  And yet it is not because of the beautiful place. I am not so shallow to be impressed by no more than a pretty face. It is because of what we bring here, have done here, do here, build and grow here, give back rather than just take.  It’s a love affair. A swirling, churning, mixed up romance, at times still or drowning and other times exhilarating like wild white waters.  And like that of my marriage and relationship with growing son, becomes deeper, stronger, richer with time.

Going away and returning has taught me it is not the place.  For this place is also tainted with some of the ugliest I have seen in life.  I cannot bury these burdens but learn to rise above.

Sherie wrote, “You found home.  Hope the feeling stays.”

I know it won’t. I’ve learned that much. For you’re right, it is a feeling, and emotions change with the wind. They have no substance nor permanence, but impact us so strongly if we allow them to, and too often, I do.  This feeling too will fluctuate with the seasons and moods and events that shape us far more than the mountain. It’s not our surroundings that ground us, but our heart and soul, and yes, our loved ones.  I’m not above counting on and relying upon those I love to help me learn to live with not only where I am, but who I am.

On the outside, you might say a place like this is easier to find that peace within.  But you’re looking only on the surface.  And peace is not so shallow.  Look deep, stir the waters, and see more than the reflection in muddy waters.  The trials, tribulations and traumas I’ve been challenged with here have been harder and more painful than any I have been tested with in other places.  Ultimately, they helped (or rather, are helping, for it is forever a fluctuating process) me learn to find and make peace within myself, of myself, not because of my environment.

Likewise, with Don’s comment, and others you may see from Al, for example:  They are not as obvious, those natural, wild beauties found within city boundaries, but they are there, and open and free for the few bold enough to seek them out.  I was raised right outside and then within NYC.  I learned more about natural peace, beauty and serenity there than I did after six years in the barren hills of New Mexico. Because it mattered to me and I took the time to look.  Sitting silent along the Hudson piers to watch the sun set cast golden orange on the gentle ripples of the then foul waters.  Climbing to the rooftop to find the greatest silence and find a pocket view of the night sky sharing a secret moment with the full moon.  Like Sherie noticing all those things that so many might not see, the frogs, the sounds, the squirrels… the magic and beauty.  I cannot tell you how many near to here are surrounded with so much and see so little. It is more than the environment.  It is our heart and soul and ability to see and feel.  Or not.  For there is no doubt that wide open spaces can craft closed minds. It is always our challenge to open up, see, feel, taste and touch the world around us.  Dive in!  Or skim the surface.  The choice is ours.  Me, I’d rather dive in, fight the currents from time to time dragging me in a direction I do not wish to go.  And deal with the frigid waters, stirred up mud, and scratching rocks at the bottom  just for the chance to float calm and serene beneath the clouds reflecting on the glassy surface supporting me when the wind is still and water and mind calm for no more than a brief but beautiful repose.

(A friend and reader wrote yesterday to mention how interesting the conversations and writing in the comments can be.  Mine, yours, the prompt and interaction. I don’t know how many readers take a look at these, but I do know more of you still prefer to write me personally and directly – and that’s fine – however – sometimes there is a response I want to share or continue the conversation with, and I’ll take the risk to include it in a post – just to be sure you read it!)

“Call it what you will” Change

/ Gin Getz / 10 Comments

One advantage to beetle kill.  It’s not too hard to find a dead tree to fall  across the high spring waters.  And then I am on the other side.  Where I wanted to be.  As if I wasn’t far enough.  Not for me.

We are playing hooky from work.  I’m tired of fencing and moving the soil from my garden beds by shovel and wheelbarrow from the old place to the new.  The sun seduces and we are lured by the sound of the creek beside which we tread, as sweet as the Pied Piper calling…

We walk and walk surrounded by last year’s bunch grass, leafless trees and the swelling buds of the willows.  We see old tracks of the moose, set when the ground was still soft and damp.  New tracks of elk in the dusty top soil.  Our tracks.  None others.  This matters to me.

Dry and dusty.  Bogs that we have held our breath crossing horseback for fear of punching through and sinking in are already firm.  I don’t remember when they last were muddy.

The high country looks like early June.  Shrinking snow banks and exposed windward slopes. My husband kicks up powdered dirt behind him on his motor bike. Grass crunches underfoot. The creeks are running rather full but clear and we wonder if the high brown waters are finished for the season.  It used to peak in early June.  Then mid May.  This year it seems to me it was the end of April.

But there is no global warming.  Then what do you want to call it?  Call it something.  For something it is.  I don’t know what it is or why or how.  But I see it.  Look around.  Can’t you see the beetle kill, once green hillsides turning brown, the dried up bogs, the high country already melting, springs and little creeks going dry in early May?

Just a fluke year?  Then how come it’s been progressively worse since I arrived on the scene after the driest year on record, the start of the big drought?  I keep track of temperatures and in the last ten years, we’ve not seen much change.  But we are seeing the springs drying up, the aquifers dropping, bogs turning solid and hard. Birds arriving and nesting sooner.  High waters earlier each year.  This is nothing?

It is something.  You are not blind.

It is something.  I don’t know what, but I’m not clinging to the comfort of a closed mind.  I’m not claiming I have the answers or gripping to ones I want to believe in.  It’s not politics or religion.  It’s real and it’s kind of sad.  And maybe it’s a natural cycle.  Who knows?  But how can you be such a fool to believe that all of man’s raping of the land and burning of fuels to power our ever growing needs and greeds in such a short period of time would have no impact?

Only I believe the earth is stronger than you or me.  So though you may have a hundred years of coal left to burn, have at it.  Then fade away.  The earth might actually be better off without us.

An early summer tourist arrives on the mountain for a stay and I hear a generator being run for a microwave oven while we’re getting our power from the sun and burning dead wood that is all around us. Wood that will burn if not in my woodstove then when?  Or will man be God enough to suppress the wildfires and let the old wood rot.  Which up here where it is high and dry is longer than my lifetime.

And perhaps that’s it. We forgot how to look beyond our lifetime.

I want to leave this world a better place for my child, his children, and the generations after them.

There are consequences to every actions.  Cause and effect.

We are not God.  We are not Mother Earth.  We pretend we are one and think we can handle controlling the other, but I can’t say I’m impressed.  Some say we are stewards of the Earth.  I think we’re doing a crappy job.  We take what we want.  Burn, slash, rip and tear.  It’s all about bigger and better, shiny and slick.

I don’t know.  I look around on a day like today, with the only human trace a small path through the woods or drawn across the hillside, and I think it’s pretty darned beautiful out there. And I don’t think you or I could do much better than that.

What do you choose to do?  What do you believe? And then, what do you see?  There before you.  Not just books and papers and scientific studies and biased reports.  But there before. For real.  Open your eyes and look. And here, in a land you tell me love, though often no more than a week a year if you are lucky enough to fit that time into your busy schedule.

If you can’t see it, your eyes are more closed than your heart.

Compromise

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

On Monday as I clicked “publish” for my self-absorbed post full of insecurity and self doubt, I read it is my hundredth post at my “new” blog.  Added to 471 posts published on highmountainmuse.com, and 112 on highmountainhorse.blogspot.com.  As one friend says, that’s a lot of words.

I somehow question if there should be more.  Not more words.  But… more… I don’t know what. Answers.  Like, why am I doing this?  Where is this going? What is the point?  And even as I am unable to answer these questions, I continue to… write.

More… what? Purpose, direction, results.  Something concrete.  Something to show for all the time put into it. Something more than a lot of words.

Horse people will get this part.  Cyndee writes:  “I have a tee-shirt that says ‘The Ride is the Reward’. You know, all those hours spent feeding, mucking, doctoring & worrying in exchange for the complete freedom of time in the saddle, time to just ‘be’ – always looking for those few fleeting strides of perfect unity with your horse? There is no financial reward, no ‘atta boys’, it is simply who we are. Maybe you need a tee shirt that says ‘The Write is the Reward’.”

Some days all I see are more unanswerable questions, more desire for expression, improvement, diving deeper and/or soaring to new heights… and no interest in writing less.  More, more, more!  If only that “more” would get me somewhere.  Alas, it is the journey, not the destination.  So I am often told.  So I would like to believe.  And so I will question regularly.

Questions.  Compromise.  Trying to get somewhere but we don’t always know where “there” is.  And perhaps it does not matter.  Yes, it is the journey… I tell myself again.

We start off heading in one direction.  We learn and grow along the way (hopefully) and may find ourselves somewhere far from where we thought we were headed.

There are days I wish I married a farmer instead of a mountain man.  To be grounded, on flat land, in routine.  Though just as affected by the elements.  And just as connected with nature.  But we don’t choose who we fall in love with.  I think it’s one of the few things that is really out of our control.

But a mountain mama I suppose is what I would have been called even before coming here.  Those who knew me then… running a bit wild in the woods with my baby on my back and a couple of dogs beside me; quiet mornings alone with my dairy cow, my head resting on her flank, talking in a soft and soothing voice as my hands are warmed on her generous teats; learning to horse pack at the expense of innocent children who trusted me (hey, we always made it home alive…); out there in the rain with a shovel in hand, the moisture dripping from my face equal parts internal and external elements.

Compromise.  I think of this now.  I think of this often.  We can’t have it all. What matters most?  What are we willing to work for?  What are we willing to leave behind?  For at some point, something has to be left behind.

Here and now. The compromises to be here.  Extremes, so many extremes, from the elements to the tourists to the lack of air.  Shortness of breath as a way of breathing.  Wool hats and down jackets year round.  The endless chore of firewood, bucking, splitting, hauling, burning. Thirty days frost free and leaves on the trees for but four months. Complications with altitude that kills innocent colts unexpectedly.  The inability to fatten a pig or find a way to keep a small herd of cattle or flock of sheep year round.  Parched lips and bloody noses.  Sunburn and wrinkles.  In-laws, oh those few dreaded in-laws, who choose conflict and control, meanness and manipulation as a way of life. And the void of a sense of community, which became more bittersweet a compromise to be without after having spent the winter a part of such a wonderful one.

And what do I have?  Silence.  Solitude. Wilds.  Brilliant sunshine and radiant views.  Endless miles and mountains to wander.  Peace and love for the land like I have never felt before. Connection.  Admiration.  Adoration.  Of mountain, sky, river and air.

Why here, I wonder?  Perchance like falling in love.

Why we are such reflective beasts, when all other creatures are content focusing on a good rest, sex, survival and the next meal.  Ha, you say, we do that too.  Yes, that and more.  So much more. Too much at times.  How complicated our lives are due to thought alone.

So the best I can do on days like this is put down my shovel or my fencing tool, be still, take a deep breath, and look up at the sky with the ever changing clouds more brilliant than a painting could ever capture, cradling me and my wild world, and become lost in the roar of the spring river echoing like a distant orchestra from the cliffs above the mighty Rio, and count my blessings as a flock of blackbirds swirls around me in a joyous cacophony.

Back to the bones

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

I just want to be with her.  Hikes, explores, photos, projects galore (more on this later), I can’t get enough of her.  I stop and stare to catch my breath, and sometimes I just can’t believe this beauty.

Alone on the mountain, just me and my dog, we walk to Brewster Park, up along the Rio Grande, the back route, the horse trail.  No one has set foot on her bare ground since autumn.  I want to be by the river, wild and untouched.  Hear the rush like blood through my veins.  Enriching, reviving.  Soul food.

There, I am fed, drunk, giddy. Intoxicated by a river.

We walk back along the dirt road and there we find the pile of bones.

A cow, probably a bull.  It is big. Was. Slung on the side on the mountain.  Stripped clean by coyotes, crows and snow.

It’s harsh to see.  It’s harsh to think about.

For I think about this:  someone may have found a pile of bones years ago from the bull I left for lost in the mountains of northern California.  And I cringed to think I could have done this.  My ignorance, foolishness, selfishness.

Yet this bull here, perhaps I could have saved had I stayed here for the winter.  We would have found him earlier in the season on one of our inevitable explores up river.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.    I’m glad I wasn’t.  Leaving was the best thing we could have done at the time.  But…

There are few regrets for having our winter away.

One more.  Minor in comparison.  Damaging only a hidden hillside in the trees as the first of the spring run off floods and silts up our little water diversion that feeds our “spring.”  Early season run off is muddy, silty, fast and furious.  It’s not what you want running in your ditch. Yet someone unaware of the ways of the mountain seemed to think it would be just thing to have feed our ditch, and diverted the full head of water our way last fall.

Here at least I can clean up from someone else’s ignorance.

The price we pay for a winter away.  The mountain sighs indifferently as spring winds chill over the Divide and stir up the dried grasses and leafless Aspen.  Only I am troubled.

A walk in the park

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

Room to breath.  I need that in this thin mountain air. And I find it.

Out there miles and miles from phone, power, people.  Following a trail I have been on foot, horseback, snowshoe surely a thousand times or more. Different every time.  Now soft moist earth beneath my boots as the winter’s load is lifting and a spring storm falls on us, just me and my dog.  Only the occasional track of elk, moose or coyote crossing our path.  I see the signs well now with my head held down to reduce the resistance of the horizontal snow.  Tracks highlighted by fat white flakes on the leeward side of their impression.

Raw earth.  Umber, sienna, soil and seed.  Awaiting new life, growth, a melodious yielding, more comfortable for the eye to see, now too harsh to behold.  As the tourists await the softening of sunshine, ground cover and leaves , I am allowed this time alone.

Slowly we reconnect.  As a long lost familiar lover, knowing her secret places, her touch, her feel, her scent.  No words need be spoken.

My appetite is back as well. Those fancy dinner salads that did us fine at three thousand feet are replaced with cravings of meat and potatoes.  And still my thigh muscles shake like a washing machine on spin cycle, and my head is dizzy from the thin air as I push myself up switchback trails because flat land is no where to be found for too long round these parts.  And it feels good.

I stop again to capture another picture. An excuse to catch my breath.  I consider how many times I have stopped right here, and how many pictures I have of this view.  But it is different this time.  I say that every time.

There’s this little yellow flower, plain and simple, nothing fancy, rather rough and ungraceful.  The first flower of the season.  As wild as they get.  I see a few out there, only three or four, remaining upright in the wind though dusted with snow, as I I make my way over strewn rocks in the open park, head tucked in and down against the biting sky.  I don’t stop to whip out my camera.  My fingers are numb.  I enjoy the simple, subtle gift of color and continue on my way.

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