nature

Wide Open: An Ode to the Wild West.

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Somewhere along the way 

of this long, quiet ride that life is

a calling becomes lucid.

Maybe even glaring. Too big to brush aside.

Listen. Deeply.

And if you dare, heed the counsel:

Throw open the gates that define and confine you

and set the wild horses of your spirit free.

Open. This is the initiation. The invitation. Again and again. Over and over. The eternal unfurling. A boundless break to something far bigger than you and yours. You feel it out here in a land raw and vast as the shades of sand and stars and a transient autumn storm and the rugged landscape passing between the rapid beating of the windshield wipers offering temporary clarity to the road ahead.

Open. To something you cannot tame, you cannot hold, you cannot confine nor contain, but you can be with, a part of, like one more star in that starry sky. Some complete connection of space in a land so vast it does not separate us in these distances, but allows us each to be. Each of us. Those who dare to be out here. Together, though not too close. We come here lusting room to roam. After all, some of us weren’t made to fit in. We’re made to step out. This is the land of black sheep on the outskirts of a field of white ones bunched in a flock of concrete and pavement, chairs in a row, drawing within dotted lines. Out here, even the misfit fits in, between the sand and stars and amongst the wild beasts that we are, just enough feral and free. 

We’re driving across the Wild West. Once again on Highway 50. Nevada. Eastern Utah. Between sorrel earth and stormy sky, corrugated mountains and swaths of seemingly endless basins in between. 

It is a land that coincides with the opening of one’s soul, synchronizing with the opening of time and space, all of which out here appears unbridled. This is the land of freedom. unable to be tamed, conquered, claimed and branded. Not a place to set your plow, build to code, and remain safe and sound. No, it is a land that will rip open your armor and test your true strength, of body, mind and soul. 

Opening as we drive across this Wild West where I am reminded how to breathe.

I am driving the 25-year-old van decorated with chipped paint as camo-covering and a window replaced with roofing screws holding tight a piece of a plastic tote in an attempt to keep out rain. It works. The van is where we and the two big dogs camp at night close enough to our horses to see them in the big moon that this last week afforded, rising later each night, lingering longer into the white light of morning each day.

Bob drives the flatbed with racks. My people use racks. Showing our true colors. Red may be our necks. White may be our trash. Blue may be our collars. Black may be our sheep. As brown and tan are the landscape that allows us a place to be.

The West opens to us. Not holding us in, but letting us be. This is the way of the Wild West. It is not a land to contain you, confine you, though in that freedom, it may define you. It is a place to let you be.

There’s lightning in the rearview mirror. To the side, a band of wild horses with wind swept manes stirring up a dust devil in the distance. Yellow blooming rabbit brush and the soothing scent of sage speckling silver across the sunburned auburn ground framing the pencil straight road ahead. Sunflowers burst in between tumbleweeds along the road that leads into a view that goes on for a hundred miles. Tan earth, dried grass, the color of dirt, of the desert, of mountains, high and harsh and ancient, changing into autumn bronze as it weathers my skin and fades my hair and turns my blue jeans brown.

Ahead the only lights are the taillights of Bob’s flatbed and the horse trailer loaded down with three horses, a flock of chickens, a thousand pounds of garden plants I can’t help but try to grow (indoors) at ten thousand feet (thank you Bob, for allowing this of me) and another thousand pounds of a wide assortment of home-canned jars of home-grown produce, since where we are going is not like where we were.

Opening. To what feels like home. Coming home like the Joads, the Beverly Hillbillies, with everything but the rocking chair where laughingly I would like to be; for there’s no person, no place, I’d rather be than in the true grit of this Wild West. How could you not fall in love with these wide open spaces? 

In my reverence of this land, I may be blind to assume this wild vastness is what everyone’s soul longs for. It is not. It’s not for everyone. Certainly not for those who prefer to remain held, helped, where they fit in, conform and are confined as they cling to the comfort of their castle walls, not seeing the shackles they have chosen to wear, or so those things feel to me.

Out here a person feels stripped of those restraints. You may not be safe, but you are free. Safety is a myth we cling to like the search for the place where we belong, until we wake one day and realize that where we belong is where we are, who we are, and no matter where we are, we are a part of this big bright beautiful world. 

Open up and strip yourself of the burden of fitting in with the flock and keeping up with Jones. And in that nakedness, freedom is found. 

What do you choose? 

The only right answer is what your soul says. Listen deeply to what she says.

Mine calls for freedom. 

That is what I choose.

I choose this rugged land and life. 

Somehow in my forming, conformity was not a thing.

Out here in these wide open spaces, with every breath, an opening, calming, welcoming, home. This is my Wild West. This is my home. A land where outlaws and outcasts have room to roam beyond confines of social media and social norms; a land where black sheep remain untamed outside of the fluffy white flock.

Opening into the Mountain West as we move onward. Opening like wings unfurling, catching air,  rising high, soaring upward, as we move from outside one small town to outside another small town and along the way is this big wide open space like the endless sky that rips open your fears and you realize you have been holding your breath for too long.

Open. Open your heart, your mind, your eyes. Soften your gaze and let the magic in. Magic can’t be found staying safe in your box. Open the lid. Have the courage to step out. Magic is there waiting for you. The invitation. The initiation. It doesn’t appear suddenly while you’re still sleeping in the same old box.

Opening to the ritual of moving, in our case across Hwy 50, from the far North of California, back to the Southern Mountains of Colorado. Opening as our convoy rumbles eastward with the sound of down-pouring rain drowning out the chugging motor and scratchy western ballads on a distant FM radio station and the snore of sleeping dogs as I drive down the loneliest road in the mesmerizing trance following the horse trailer’s taillights.

This opening is a return to grit and gusto, high and wild, cold and harsh, rough and rugged. 

And yet into this landscape, I soften. My heart opens. My spirit soars.

And now…

Opening. To a new life, a new world, a new homestead waiting to be created. Roll up my sleeves. Get to work. There’s lots of work be done. Starting over. Again. Building from scratch. A home. A homestead. A dream. A fiery passionate way of life not for the mild mannered, yet nor for those needing to be heard. Not when the nearest neighbor is eight miles away.

The open road ends, horses unloaded, chickens and dogs and a stray cat picked up along the way find their way, settle in, heels and hands grounded in black soil while spirits soar into this wild open starry sky as never before though something I have always been.

Writing has been bumped to the back seat for a while. Social media too, but admittedly I am enjoying the distance from that distraction while enjoying the reality of face-to-face, one-on-one, real connection, real touch.

Beginning again. There is always a before and after. And in the middle, there is the real-deal cliche of blood, sweat and tears. There is tending. Nurturing. Caring. Stewarding. Giving. And a good dose of dreaming.

Beginning again. Starting over. It is hard, but I’ve always said easy isn’t always good. Security is a false hope to hold fast to. Stop clinging. Leap. And if you don’t find a net at first, get to work; start weaving one.

And so I weave. With calloused hands and soiled jeans, dusty boots and windswept hair blowing like the tails of those wild horses.

And a fear arrises as I see how far I am, how far I have come, how far I have yet to go. Can I do it all over again?

I imagine myself someday in the hopefully not so distant future when we have a hot water tub and a safe chicken run, a warm barn for the horses, fencing for cows and the garden grows.

I will be standing there, strong, leaning into the wind. Hair ever wisping like that of the wild horses. The brown a little grayer. Arms and legs a little more wiry. I hope to stand proud not against but with, into the elements as I wear the weather with the roadmap of my wild life etched across my face. 

And one day years to come I will think once again of before and after, knowing that in the middle there is seemingly endless work, dirty floors and dirt imbedded in the skin, bruises and sore muscles, broken tools and re-framed plans, using the outhouse and stuffing insulation between logs – all of this and more along with a good dose of dreaming and laugher, awe and love. Always, always, love.

For now I am there. Here. Deep in the Wild West. In the transition of ever opening. Into a new world. A very old world. A world we are only beginning to bring to life.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Simply silver and gold.

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Call me simple – and indeed, I strive to be – but I’m not a colorful gal. Black and white is more my thing. Give me a gray sky any day when aspen are turning gold or I just stand there and stare overwhelmed.

This week has been colorful. Oddly enough, or so it still seems to me, inundated with the color green. Something you get a lot of here in the far northwest of California. Nothing I’m used to seeing in southern Colorado since the beetle kill decimation fifteen years ago or so. I wish I could capture it better in images to share with you now, but my camera doesn’t work well in the rain. And rain remains a prevailing theme. Rather I’ll try to capture it all in words.

In blue nights

White washed over in shades of grey

I dream of blood red days

And yet I awaken

Finding myself held

In a sea of dazzling green

Lush wet grass from last night’s rain

Into which I plunge

Letting it permeate my rawhide skin

As I lay back in damp darkening jeans

And heavy rubber boots

While over me fog hangs molten silver

Until sky is pierced with a golden sword

And emerging through steel mornings

The vibrant verdant bowl that holds me

Is suddenly awash in flaxen light

Though maybe my mood remains magenta.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Ode to the soil.

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

I’ve spent more time than usual sitting the past few weeks, the only way to gain momentum and leap ahead with progress on a book. It’s working. But you know what they say about all work and no play.

I reward myself with time in the garden. Sipping hot tea while wandering through the rows, touching and talking to tender growth. Tending to spring crops, watering the greenhouse, planting cover crops, spreading wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of compost and manure – manure that has been ritually shoveled every day without exception that I am home, for the well being of the horses and health of soil. This is why the garden grows.

Most days it’s hard to tear away and return to work.

Right now I lay on the grass with my fingers penetrating the soil like little rounded trowels, pulling a weed, disturbing an earthworm, connecting with soil and space.

Soil is humbling. A basic need. From which it all grows. Life, hope and dreams.

Funny how one learns to love their soil.

The dogs traipse it in after every rain. It lingers under my nails, between my toes and the creases of my soles are emblazed with it. It also grows my food and feeds my soul and brings the community of life, wild life, together.

Digging deep into the soil now, I pause to watch the earthworms wriggle around wanting to return to the cold, moist black gold they have helped me build.

Couldn’t find one worm when we moved here. They may have been there hiding, but in my haste I ordered a bag online (yes, you can buy live worms) and got the magic moving.

Couldn’t find a garden either, of course, because there wasn’t one back then.

Now, nearly seven years later, I look around and can’t say I created this unless I am some magician – though often it feels like there’s magic here – I simply helped awaken it, brought it to life, and moved a helluva lotta dirt along the way.

I’m grateful for the experience of witnessing the awakening of the land, as if it were waiting, just waiting, to be tended to.

It is an honor to be steward of the land. Growing respect and responsibility to leave land better – healthier and more beautiful – than how it was found.

It all pays off – not just in ways you want and what you can get out of it. You must ask yourself: what can I give the soil, not just what can I get in return.

And oh, I get so much.

A  beautiful place.

A healing place.

A sacred space.

It is far beyond the food it provides. It’s the nourishment it brings body and even soul, feeding the collective realm – beneficial bugs and birds, earth worms, grass that welcomes bare feet and rolling dogs, and clover that will shine all summer to feed the bees and reaches down into deep dark places, sharing some secret goodness with the soil.

And yet, it does provide. Bountifully. It might not be a gourmet grocers produce dept all year, but it is plenty. We eat simply. Seasonally. I am hardly lacking. I may not have a tomato in April but my artichokes have already started, the asparagus are almost obscene, there’s onion and garlic greens and last year’s leeks, lettuce overwintered in the greenhouse, spinach just about ready, kale left from volunteers that reseeded in last year’s cover crop, cauliflower cabbage broccoli fresh chard and kale nearly ready to be shared, and last spring’s chard has yet to bolt.

And then the crown jewel of the soil, of the garden. Next week begins the show. Well over thirty rose bushes will begin to share their abundance. The symbiotic relationship with soil in all its glory, ever growing.

Oh, the beauty, bounty and blessings of soil!

Alright, woman… go back inside and get to work…

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Simple late winter welcoming.

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

Today I’m simply sharing some pictures from yesterday (yes, even the blooming flowers), and a little lilting piece (from something bigger) I was working on and thought you might enjoy.

               Here.

               Now.

               Early morning.

               A morning like so many in the six years I have called this place home.

               Familiarity grows like the pear trees planted along the side of the creek, an amaryllis started on Solstice preparing to bloom on the window sill over the kitchen sink, blackberries and poison oak that promise to sprout and spread even in places you wish they would not.

               In the quiet hours before the sun hints at awakening, with full moon low in the west veiled behind a lavish shroud of fog, I wake with arms and legs around my sleeping man. I am comfortable with his earthy scent and even breath and a little reluctant to rise. I slip on sweats, pull the covers back up around him, then quietly find my way around in the dark.

               Stepping over snoozing dogs, lighting the wood stove, filling the coffee pot at that kitchen sink, all as I have done so many mornings before. I feel the ease in knowing where I am and what to expect. What time the sun clears the mountain to the east. When to hope for the last frost late spring and when the first frost of fall will arrive. What bird belongs to the flicker of wings that distracted me from my work or the song that rises each morning around the same time I wake. When to turn the soil, start the seeds, when to water, and when to drain or cover pipes. When to watch for leaves turning gold and brown blowing down, and when to look for new life at the tip of each naked branch, swollen and slowly unfurling in fertile subtleties.

               Familiar. Is it the place or the pattern? For I have done this here. And I have done this other places I have been, and still will be.

               This place, this pattern, has become familiar; intimate and expected as the view out that kitchen window which as the sun comes up and chores are done, awakens to an ever green pasture where horses graze, chickens free range, dogs play, and a brave cat or two may creep cautiously not too far from the house.

               Familiar too is the sound, the ever present prevailing sound of the river, which ebbs from summer’s gentle roil over smooth rocks ever shaped by the ever movement of the ever changing flow – to winters rage and roar. A sound so familiar I often forget it is there.

               In this semi-silence I am able to hold the world, embrace it like a big bear having found a honey hole, and my heart feels full.

               Comfort in the familiar.

               I do not take these things for granted. I have known what the unknown feels like. I think I’ll choose a balance of the two. The first keeps me grounded. The second, on my toes. Both can be magical or mundane.

               The same worn boots left by the back door. Same old truck parked out front. Same cast iron pans curing on the wood cook stove. Same table, same chairs, same sofa, same rug. Same silly jokes that still make me laugh every time.

               And comfort in accepting change, as the road map of my life unfurls on my face. Stories embedded within wrinkles that spread across my skin like dusty webs, and every graying hair that begins to outnumber the brown. I can laugh at my own fleeting vanity, because truth is, though I’m not thrilled with how I look now, I can’t say I ever was. Good looks are not what got me where I am. I’m more of a guts and grit sort of gal.

               The inner landscape has changed, too. There is a calmer storm blowing within me now. Muddy waters have stilled and settled. Menopause, depression and drinking have been left behind. Hot flashes and explosive emotions have subsided. I sure don’t miss them. Neither does Bob.

               Some days I look within and expect those frightening facets to surface again. But they do not. Can I claim to have slayed those evil beasts? Or rather, did they simply fade away, one more good thing that comes with age?

               So it is into this calmer, quieter space that I feel myself finding a new familiar. Settling in. Not that I’m settled down; it’s more like the gradual un-letting of the belt cinched around my well worn levi jeans. You can only fight it for so long. Then you stop holding in, exhale, let it out a notch, and realize it’s not such a bad place to be.

               I am getting there. Closer to that place deep inside that whispers, “Welcome home.”

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

January leaves.

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

With a wooden palette strapped onto the forks of the tractor, Bob makes a platform upon which to stand for washing the high windows overlooking the river. Hillbilly ingenuity. Not OSHA approved. Tends to be how we do things. And we get them done. I think of all the years we ran the guest ranch business and weekly window washing of these huge picture windows on the south sides of several rental cabins was part of the Saturday morning workout. On second thought, I’d rather not think about that.

Now the windows sparkle and the river course shines luminous, unencumbered. A heron perched in a lofty ponderosa just up and to the right of Bob’s head as we linger at the breakfast table catches my eye. We’re not in a rush to get back out there. It’s cold. Takes a while for subtle winter sun to do its thing. The heron, we notice, is waiting too. He’s up there preening as the sun clears the mountain to the east. Even as I open and close the window between us to take his picture, he’s going no where in a hurry.

Later I sit at my writing table, and with newly clean windows front and center, the view is distracting. Long shadows seemingly dancing through fir trees across frosty ground on the shady path. The radiance of the river. The intrigue of gnarled branches and swollen tips on ancient oaks. Birds. Don’t get me started on them.

Keep your head down, I tell myself, and get back to work. We’re getting there. Writing is slow. Hard some days. Some days I just wish it were done. Not unlike the journey I’m writing about. Well, not quite that challenging. Though it is somewhat amusing that writing about an adventure takes longer than taking the adventure. What’s with that?

It could be easy. There’s an easier way. There’s this tab I could click on my computer screen. It says, “help me write button.” Really. What’s with that? I’m not going to find out what it does, how it works, but even seeing it freaks me out. As in, is this the future of writing? Is this the future of creating? Of art? I don’t like it. I’m not going there. It took me until two and half years ago before I even got a phone. I’m still cursing it, but it’s a mighty powerful tool. Will I one day say the same of AI?

Yet I can’t help but cringe. Can computers be programmed to create? To feel? What about imagination? Art is an expression of the human experience. It is emotive. Are we programming computers to try to do this for us? To express passion and pain, grief and joy, fear and comfort, loneliness and belonging? All of these are shared through art. Can we resort to machines for conveying these universal emotions, this part of the human experience, or the experience we once called human? The uniqueness and best of life lies in our capacity to feel. Feelings are the delicate threads that hold humanity together. They are tested severely right now in real life. Hope lies in allowing our hearts to sense these threads that hold us, weave us all together. Art in all its shapes and forms helps us convey those threads. Seems to me, what we need is more depth and clarity to the real deal, not a quick cop out. We need to both feel deeply and see the humanity in everyone. That is where beauty lies, even in diversity and differences. Or maybe even because of those things.

This is the creative process. Creativity, expressed through writing, painting, music, dance, any of the arts, draws humanity together with these fine threads consciously woven of mystery, wonder and awe. This is a universal truth.

What happens if we take these cords away? Is that where discord arises? Can computers feel? Can they be compassionate? At what point will we draw the line of progress?

I wonder how far from the consciousness of emotions will we wander, and what the threat to their expressions entail. How far we may go? How far from creating, from feeling, from compassion, from the human experience? When will know the limits, know when we are going too far?

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

On rain and writing.

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

If the two were together, black ink would be smeared across the page, some Rorschach picture divulging my secret psyche. Not, of course, to determine what the image reveals, but rather what I choose to see.

Alas, they remain apart.

And this is what I see.

Out there, outside fragile weather worn glass separating me from the elements and allowing continual comfort from the wood stove as long as I remember to stoke it, rain continues.

Everything is drenched – beyond saturation – running off in drips, smears, pools and rivulets. Streams pour around fence posts and tree stumps; puddles amass in deep imprints left behind by horse hooves; the meadow is a marsh.

Pounding rain on metal roof deadens the roar of the river. Puddles gather on the deck, the driveway, the pasture.

The chickens seek refuge in the dog house while dogs do the same by the wood stove, soggy obstacles to overcome on the living room rug.

Inside rain gear hangs dripping by the back door; boots still damp when you slip your sock feet into them. Towels used on soggy dogs never seem to dry, while splatters from their shaking fur leaves white cupboards speckled brown.

The horses are pissy, flinging their heads, telling me to turn it off and I wish I could. Days like this I wish they could come lay by the woodstove, too. Instead, mid day they stand under the roof where they spent the night, wishing they were somewhere else. We never stop wishing. Because, you know, we never forget what it feels like to lay in soft lush grass while the sun enwraps us in its ethereal embrace

In the garden, roses finally quit trying to bloom. What a run they had this year, clear through to the last of the year. And yet as I walked through the rows earlier today, trying to be gentle in my bulky muck boots in search of some collards or kale for tonight’s stew, the humble, hearty calendula stood brightly defiant, refusing to succumb to battering rains, continuing to share her sunny smile. The yellow and orange seem out of place, adding to her gentle resistance.

For now, I sit at the table in front of the window that looks over the ghostly glow of the computer screen and scribbled open notebook, down toward the swollen river, through saturated moss and lichen growing like eerie bedclothes on every leaf-bare branch of gnarly oaks sprawling the distance between the river and me.

The stillness of the keyboard counters the constant motion of the river.

Some days my fingers do not dance. As if they wonder why, what’s the point, when what I want to do is give. But I look at the blue screen between the window and me, and wonder if it’s worthy.

Sharing the story of something in the past takes me there. Sometimes I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to be there. It was hard, scary, lonely. It was also big, bright, and beautiful; expansive in view and of soul. It brought me back to life. Maybe to the point of living more than I ever had before.

There was so much I didn’t share. There was so much I couldn’t share.

I am struggling to share that story now. The intensity, the wildness, the hugeness I experienced out there. The wild side I could not, would not share as I was riding (or walking or being shuttled) through it. Some things need time to ripen, to age, to roll around in the mouth to find their full, rich flavor. Or to sit on the shelf and collect dust for a while, which doesn’t hurt a thing.

My attention easily drifts out the window. I get dizzy watching the river rage.

Stop it. Get up. Away from the table where I sit for too long. Get on the ever damp rain gear and muck boots and get out. Out. Out there, in it.

Let the moist air plump and swell me and get the dogs dense coats soaked clear through to their skin again as we laugh at our folly and splash through puddles the size of ponds and marvel at the beauty of watching bountiful drops of water fall from overhanging branches and do their circle dance on the surface.

A moment later, the dogs stir up a heron from the salt pond, rising silent, arching upward as a graceful, majestic bow. Somehow primitive, ancient, blue-gray against tan-brown winter woods. I hold my breath and feel goose bumps rising beneath all these impermeable layers separating me from the elements.

In the blatant and natural simplicity surrounding me, I choose to watch herons rise and rain fall and puddles shimmer as a waving mirror. I choose to listen to ravens calling and the river roaring and rain beating down on the roof overhead. I choose these simple things over and above more complex things like news feeds and programs, with AI masking the mystery and magic that is really there, right in front of us, if only we take the time to look, to listen, to feel.

I would rather stand defiant like unpretentious calendula.

I would rather rise up, lighten up, and shine.

Even through this leaden sky that might otherwise try to hold me down.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Waiting for the moon to rise.

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment

Tonight I sit out on the deck wrapped in the well worn poncho as I have found myself held in this heavy wool so many times before this night. My feet are on the railing; my head tilts back. Behind the now leafless old oak that shades the deck in summer appears the waning moon. She glows silver across the night pasture where fog spreads thick as sea foam. I can hear the gentle shifting of the horses in the barn, and the ever present hum of the inky river just a stone’s throw below. The dogs are beside me. Silent and attentive, staring out into the black beyond, waiting. The bears have been keeping them busy with the warm weather and bright moon.

Overhead, through lace of slender branches of this sprawling tree, few stars glint like Christmas ornaments hanging in the sky.

The ever present sound of the river blends into the darkness and becomes a noise you forget you’re hearing.

There is only a simple silence.

Time and space to breathe.

We settle into the season of long shadows, long nights.

Like the bear. That’s what this season of slowing and settling calls for.

Here in the far north of California in the land of big trees, big rain, big swaths of blackberries and poison oak, the bear does not necessarily hibernate so much as simply slow down. From the recent barking of the dogs, I don’t know how much they’ve even done that. It’s been a mild season so far. Garden roses still bloom. Stores remain plentiful after a bountiful season of lush grass, mushrooms, madrone berries and acorns. It’s easy to see what they’ve been eating by the scat they plainly leave randomly along our quiet dirt road.

With two big dogs, I don’t get to see those bears much. Usually just a big blob of a bear butt running up a hill. Sometimes up a tree.

Still, I feel it, and I’m sure the bears do too. Now is not the season of plenty, but of holing up. Slowing down. And turning within.

The rooster does not crow until some time past six in the morning and the horses come in for the night around five. That makes for long evenings, time for baking, reading, writing, board games, enjoying long lingering dinners lit by candles and twinkle lights, snuggling on the sofa with a couple of cats, reading aloud together, soaking in hot baths… these are winter pleasures.

In spite of the mild weather we’ve been having, we heed the call of the natural exhale after spring/summer/harvest/fall running around full speed in what feels like endless daylight. For those of us who work outside as long as the sun shines, winter is the time to transform into an indoor cat, at least during those long nights. Winter is a reprieve. A blessing. I long for it by the end of summer every year. Time to breathe. To let out a long, full, deep exhale. Before the anxious inhale of spring begins anew.

Garden roses still abloom…
… in December.

Seasons, like emotions, these ever flowing, passing states, one folding into the next like whipped eggs whites or cream.

When what I want sometimes is to hold onto forever. Something solid. Never changing.

As futile as clinging to ocean waves.

Rather than accept and appreciate the inevitable.

Ebbs and flows, tides and moons, the occasional passing storm.

Tonight the tide is low. I feel melancholy.

I want a drink. Come on, you say. Go ahead. Just one.

Alas, for some of us, it doesn’t work that way. Maybe this time it would. This time I could. I’d be okay. Holding the firm stem in my fingers as I swirl the familiar luring fragrance emanating from the liquid red velvet lit from the glow of the kitchen lamp behind me. And then let it roll across my lips and linger on my tongue like nectar – silky, rich and smoky.  

No.

It’s nearly seven years since I went sober, yet some days (usually nights) I can imagine drinking so vividly as if it were just yesterday. Some days it feels like it’s not getting easier. Tonight is one of those nights.

I’ll get over it. There’s power in reminding myself I made it this far. I can keep on keeping on.

Use your grit, gal.

And grit, well, that much I got.

Things change.

Today, tomorrow, yesterday.

Every day is different. Even on those days when what I feel is so familiar. When what I feel is that “ground hog day” replaying over and over and over again.

Wake in the dark. Tuck the blankets back around Bob. Pet (and step over) the still sleeping pups. Get the fire going, the coffee on, roll out the yoga mat and get down on it, stretch, meditate, light a candle to write, then as gray daylight waxes across the meadow of chalky fog, head out to let the chickens out, feed the horses, walk the dogs.  Return…

Grounding in the familiar. This simple life. A life though maybe a little different than yours, so similar in so far as both of us probably turn in each night thinking we didn’t get half as much done as we planned to do.

There are books and poems to write, horses to teach and dogs to train, bread to bake, wood to split, roses to prune and a compost pile to turn, a barn wall to rebuild and basement walls to trim out, rocks to stack and dirt to move and the damn floor needs to be swept again.

I want more time. Or maybe more energy. But that to-do list never seems to go away, just flows from one set of priorities to the next. It’s that ebb and flow thing once again. And at the end of each day, we hope we made a little headway, though how often do we feel we’re drowning.

Today.

Grounded, not because of the place, the view before me, but because of the feeling within me.

And under me. Crow, my old faithful horse. Beside me, Bob and the dogs and the last of autumn’s sweet air that allows us to feel the sun on ungloved hands and my graying hair still free from the confinement of a winter cap.

Sometimes you find yourself…. Exactly where you belong. It’s not a place, but a feeling, something inside.

For me, it’s a wild place, sounded by wind through leafless trees and the cadence of hard hooves on soft dirt.

It’s finding myself on the back of my dear horse where I’ve found myself for thousands of miles before this one.

And time stops, or no longer matters.

And I’m just there, the bones of my pelvis padded by Crow’s warm winter coat.

The sound of my breath, his breath, the rhythm of his footfall.

It’s watching my horse’s mane shift and sway as he walks, like ripples in the river into which my open hand reaches, sinks in, and already knows the softness it will touch as my fingers intertwine with his black mane.  So familiar, the feel of bare hands in soft hair, deep into the comfort of the back of his neck. The familiar fragrance of freshly cut fir trees and wild mint as the horses cross the creek, mingling with their sweet musky sweat in the oddly mild air where my legs are wrapped around a familiar warm back, without a saddle between us to sever the connection.

It’s turning to see Bob in his own world beside me, comfortable and content on the back of the new horse, Jesse. He’s perched in a place where he’s been holding space since long before I was born, and I smile. He may not see it. I’m riding in front. But he knows it. He always knows it. If he wants me to just let go, to relax, to forget about all the should-woulda-couldas, to just be, and to smile, get the gal on her horse.

This feels like home. On the back of the horse. With my husband and dogs close by and the soft sun and leafless trees and the smell of those leaves, now grounded, brown and brittle, through which the horses walk. Today there’s no need to train or work or get somewhere or get something done, just be with the horses, the land, one another. Where we belong.

It is a return to center.

Coming back home, within.

Until next time,

With love,

Always love,

Gin

Stripped. Bare.

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Lit from a window with dark and drama as if a Vermeer farm house woman painted on old canvas, weathered and worn with time. Where is my pitcher, my cup, a book held just so, or an open letter draped in my perfectly poised hand?

Instead, I loom mighty over a laptop, screen cold blue and buzzing, surreal, unimaginable back in baroque days. Both the computer and me.

The window is open. Damp air thick, smelling of wood smoke wafting from another clean up fire Bob is burning. And the sound of roosters competing in a crowing match, one on the river side, one by the garden. Diligent guards, knowing the hawks are close by. Allowing their ladies to peck and scratch through the fresh layer of damp decay.

And always, over and through it all, here has an ever present thrum of river. The sound a ubiquitous murmur, something that’s always there though so familiar you don’t always hear. Similar to that of traffic I was once used to in other days and feeling far away lands. This is what I hear, here and now.

A gray day. Ancient oaks with spindly outstretched arms like old woman’s fingers, gnarled and swollen from too many years gripping the shovel, the hoe, the broom, the wooden spoon; stand silent over ground matted with leaves still a robust brown covering ever green grass and rich black earth.

The writing desk, before which I’m perched, and upon which my lap top resides, this week brings me out beyond this familiar view to strange places on the open road where I once was. It’s that vibrant green and lush of late spring. The sound is of horses walking in unison, clip clop on some unnamed logging road or alongside a foreboding highway where cars and trucks zip by without meeting eyes or noticing the oddity of a woman riding along miles and miles of barbed wire fences, locked gates and “no trespassing” signs, still somewhere in the north of California.

A Long Quiet Ride, coming back to life in words. It’s not always easy to share. Of course it was harder to do. How does one share what happened out there? How do I bring you with me?

Conserving my words as I sit and stare out the window above my desk.

Wanting them to flow forth for the work at hand.

The book that’s stirring, simmering and working its way out of me now.

Yet poems are what mess around in my mind.

And what can a gal do but play with them, with a mischievous smile and twinkling, rolling gray eyes?

Evening now, leaning back with bent knees.

The familiar feel of warm worn leather holding the bones of my back.

I’m on one side of the sofa.

You are on the other.

Your feet are bare, broad, firm and warm.

While mine look half your size, wrapped in striped wool socks, holes in the toes worn through from wet leather boots left by the door beneath a dripping slicker.

Feet entangled, intertwined. An easy touch. Mindless and comforting as toes play with one another, finding familiar places to be.

While rain pounds down outside onto saturated deck shiny with water coating each old wood board, shimmering alive with pounding rain. And inside the old wood cook stove crackles and casts an amber glow into the half lit room smelling of the last of this seasons roses, rubbed down dogs drying by the fire, and chicken soup simmering on the stove.

We’re quiet.

You are softly spoken.

Teaching me to conserve my words.

A challenge for this rambling mind.

Lost in thought as silent phrases spill across pages of the notebook pressed against my thighs.

As I look up to meet your eyes, looking into, through you and back into me.

Entangled.

With words.

Sitting alone with my muse.

This weekend was rich with poems, poets and a coffee buzz. It’s hard not to succumb to the words that dance in my mind and twirl along my tongue as I read them aloud.

But now is time for story-telling.

So back to work I go.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

The season of the setting sun.

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

This morning heralds the change of season.

Autumnal Equinox.

The season of change. And somehow, of soul. Of letting go. Releasing. And oh yes, of softening. Into the mountain as she shares an ornate display before stripping bare and standing forth unadorned.

A time of exposure, openness, inviting us gently to reveal our true colors, no longer harsh beneath summer’s buoyant light, nor subtle, still and washed over in white as in winter’s frozen air.

The season is one of slowing down, at least it naturally is.  It’s the slow, deep exhale of the earth revealed in longer shadows, shorter days, golden light, and cooler nights.

There is some mysterious call for solitude in autumn air, asking us to wander off alone, if only for a moment. We’re called to turn within, to release summers big and bright, full and loud, left behind like a snake stepping out of her worn out skin, preparing perhaps for regrowth, the natural incline of hibernation that deep winter allows.

Alas, I wonder if I’ll have such a moment today. Feels like there is no time to be still and contemplate the deeper and greater meanings of this change this year. Yet these are the things that make life a little bit fuller, richer and more meaningful. Taking time to take in time. To see, taste, smell and fee the world around you, not only in ways that you touch it, but in how it touches you, or better yet, just is, regardless of you and your presence. It’s that thing bigger than you or me or today or tomorrow or our wants and worries and woes.

And so I will take the time, before the rains, or maybe while it comes down, to stop where the tall grass is brown, untouched and abundant with seeds ready to be kicked out as I walk by. I will stop for a moment and lay down upon the earth, with the pup sitting still beside me, listening to the sound of the creek, and distant wind through tired leaves, and let the rain fall on my weathered face, and I will breathe, and I will smile, and for just a moment in time, I will do nothing more than be.

As for building:

We’re close.

I know. I’ve said that before.

Pushing to complete a crazy challenge.

Almost there. Not to a place, but to a goal.

I’ll let you know when we make it.

And then what? On to the next?

Oh, I’ve got plans; you can be sure.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Together.

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

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.

So is my love for you.

Until next time,

With love, always love,                                                                                                   

Gin