nature writing

Inside looking out

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

The world returns to white. 

The view out my window is soft and heavy and wet and white.  I slip on my boots and down jacket and head out to feed the horses.  The boots I thought were retired for the season, now brimming with snow, deep snow, dampening my jeans because the boots aren’t high enough snow.

Ten. That’s how many Mays I’ve been here.  Ten. And I’d never seen snow like this in May.  “Back in the day,” my husband tells me. And even then, he says, snow like this was a crazy thing.   You just never know.  The mountain is mightier than we are.  The best we can do is work with what we she gives us.  She gives us plenty.  And this spring, that’s plenty of snow.

It’s crazy, alright. The robins are perched on the fence post looking down at the white ground and wondering what went wrong.  The chickens hide under the shelter of their coop and can’t figure out what cruel joke was played on them this year, just when they started laying regularly again.  And Norman, dear Norman, the new guy – his training continues in spite of the snow.  Perhaps he’ll learn to pull a sleigh before he has to pull a slip and plow.

Ten Mays.  I came and said I’d stay a while.  Now it’s been a while.  Some days, it feels like too long.  We were ready to leave long ago.  A friend wrote yesterday, “How do you like your new mountain and your new ranch?”  He can’t believe I am still here.  I can’t either.

Ten Mays and still it is not mine.  I knew it never would be. Not because of the elements, the elevation, not even the snow.  Those things are in way mine.  I know them, feel them, am with them intimately. Those things we can work with. It’s something more.  Deeper.  A connection.  Was it severed, or did it never grow? 

A land that is both a mirage and memory for most.

I seek something fuller and richer and deeper than that.  Hands immersed in warm soil, toes buried in sand.  Seeds scattered, roots spreading.   A connection.  A place to live and die and toil.  I’m not looking for a place to get away but to remain. 

It seems so simple.  Basic.  A good place to start.  Funny it should take me so long to find. 

And so, where will my mornings find me, with what view out my window in the lightening sky as I sit here and write you?

Ah, the view before me. White and muted behind the veil of falling snow.  I have been glad to be here, am gladder still to leave.

I’m not big on retrospect, too often filled with sadness or anger.  Let it go.  I’ve seen too many hold onto a lifetime of resentment, hurting themselves most of all.  A bitter pill swallowed every day.

I’d rather take my chances, spit it out, and see what lies ahead.  Or right now, for that matter, because now is a wonderful time too.  A time of change.

Change. To where? Where am I going?  What will I be doing? What adventures are we creating?

For now, our hands are full, tied.  Tied to mops and window cleaners, to reins and driving lines, hammers, saws and moving boxes. 

And that’s just the beginning. But I guess that’s enough for now.

Beginning with the birds

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

Starting with the birds. 

The sky is alive. A speckled sky, fluttering with activity, motion, wings and song, as the snow continues to fall. Birds everywhere.  Black dots in leafless trees. Brewers blackbirds, nuthatch, starling, common crows, mountain blue birds, stellar jays, finches, juncos and grosbeaks. 

The shrill call of the redwing blackbird lends a staccato refrain to the gentle background melody of the robin.  Such beauty in their simple tune.

The ground moves, and upon second glace, down there with the doves, we see the cowbirds scratching at last year’s seeds, melting out a tiny patch of snow about them, leaving a tell tale circle of dark, wet ground when they fly away all together, all at once, only to settle back down almost where they started from.

During breakfast, while the snow falls in white feathered flakes, the long black bird I can only figure might be a cormorant or ibis (anyone know?) cuts across the view in a perpendicular line along the storm  softened horizon.

And then a raven on the fence post looking down. I follow his gaze to the ground.  Beneath a blue spruce we planted there years ago, now well established, a healthy young tree much taller than me.  There in the wake of the boughs, a ruffled mass of brown and spots.  I slip on my boots to inspect. The injured grouse flies off, the raven trailing, leaving a trace of blood and feathers behind.

At times I wish to intervene with nature. 

And then the weather.

A little bit of everything.  I have felt rain.  Seen our fair share of spring snow.  And then in one sunny day, the ground melts out, dries and promises us a productive spring.  The grass is greening in the moisture. When we can see it, beneath the regular coverings of white.

It’s up for grabs.  And we grab it all. A longing to see everything, feel touch taste smell each softening change of the season, experience the intimacy we have known and shared at a time when the mountain opens, beckons and still no one stays.  A bittersweet acceptance, knowing it will not last.  On one hand, such excitement.  On the other, a combination of fear and grasping for the past.  The latter is the weaker hand.  The past does not draw me like the future does.  Can we work to make a better past? Yet how many try? We can work for a better tomorrow. 

Remember the quote by Hunter S. Thompson:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a ride!’”

Seems not a popular view as I look around lives and towns and a country of safe and easy and holding on tight to memories and positions and safe choices.  But I like it.  I think I want to slide into home base.  Only quietly.  So I can hear the birds along the way.

I begin by listening.  In the darkness of the early morning before I look up and out, and remain safe and warm in my own little world, my home.

Still, even there and then, the robin’s song, the spring song, penetrates.  I am warmer still by their refrain.

Spring mornings are all about birds. A dramatic change from the silence of winter, when the only sound of birds is the slow scratching panic of the jays on frigid mornings as they await their handout, or the slow steady pulsing beat of one of the two ravens that share the cover of our trees all winter long.  Like the sound of air through the lungs of a running horse.

Now the morning cacophony as I step out under the sheltered deck to check on the horses before feeding time. 

These birds. Congregating here and now.  Regrouping perhaps, resting, enjoying their free meal after their long journey north.  Some will continue onward.  We won’t see them again until fall, if fall finds me still here. The rest will dissipate as the tourists congregate.

Many will head for the hills, for the shelter of higher ground and fewer people, dogs and roaring motors.  We will see them up at the ditch.  A fine place to meet again.

And then I will be gone.  And the birds will fare fine on their own.  And I will be out there feeding a new flock, in a new home, in a new land.

And so, about us. 

Though I guess I’ve taken up enough of your time for one sitting.

I’ll save the rest for next time.

Updates

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

It’s spring.  Time flies. Spring ahead. Sorry for the clichés.  It’s easier.  I’m busy.  Bet you are too. That, my friend, is what spring is famous for.  Enjoy it.  I intend to.  And in fact, I do. 

I’ll start with gardens.  I said I wouldn’t but I couldn’t resist. And our friend Bob (another Bob) who will be spending part of the summer here with us is a gardener too, so might as well.  So there I am back and forth with wheelbarrow upon wheelbarrow of horse manure, one more thing that’s both a blessing and a curse, but one I’m glad I have plenty of, and for more than one reason.

And the horses, ah, my beautiful graceful eloquent graceful beings!  To see them begin to shed their winter coats and sleek out for the season.  Bob trims their feet, we begin with ground work, and start to saddle up.  Quickly they remember their manners after the winter off.  They forget nothing, and are surprisingly eager to please.  Moving feels good.  Using their brain doesn’t hurt either.  These are smart creatures with a need for a purpose and a desire to get a job done.  Just watch their attention as they think about the task at hand and slowly shift gears and figure it out. And then we watch the glorious spectacle of them running, finally running, out on pasture, on solid ground, for the first time in so many months, and they do because it feels so sweet and that’s what those long legs are really for, and we dream of being there, on them, with them, riding like the wind, and can’t wait for the trails to open, just a little more melting and drying, and then, yes, we too will be out there riding with them, on them, in the wind, on the wind, of the wind.

And then there were the huge white wings.  Two big white birds.  The only pure white bird I have seen up here before was once a Whooping Crane that I still have trouble believing I actually saw.  And yesterday there were two.  Broad white graceful expanses like angels in the mountains.  They were far away when I sited them, and I never got a good enough look.  I don’t know what they were.  Except beautiful, and some might say a good omen, and that is enough for me.

There’s also the big black bird, I can only guess a cormorant, the closest bird I could find in the book, who was hiding amongst the crows.  Clever disguise.

We know our birds.  Plenty of seasons for plenty of years alone with them, feeding, watching, singing back and forth, our only neighbors for the better part of the year.  Out there, in there, with them. When you know your regular birds so well, an unusual exotic new one stands out and is quite noticeable.  We noticed.

I’m getting long winded here and haven’t covered half of what I wanted to share. Time to get out there and get things done!  I’ll save the rest for tomorrow…