nature

Wild ways

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

If I were a wild river
Cutting at my own roots
Severing the past like grass to a sickle
Slicing cleanly through
Exposing a new path with each
Swipe of blade
Swell of water

Now no more than a
Down low moving
Ceaseless silent forward stream
Oozing seeping weeping sweeping
Close to freezing
The chant of monks in the woods

Warmer seasons bring singing waters
Rushing roaring ripping over rocks
Rejoicing in their wild ways
Scoring the bank with strong voice
Rhythm of pulse and force

I don’t hold back
A tempestuous scream
Dancing naked down the side of hill
Head thrown back and hair unbound
Bellowing like waves in the open sea
Aloft in my mind like memories
The pulse of power and passion
Releases me unruly and raging

Then a silent turn through the woods
Leveling out
A deer through the aspen
Disappearing in a flash
Quiet still silent serene
The pond of reflection
Nothing
For you to see
Only me
A face in the mirror I’m not familiar with
So much older paler tamer
I vaguely recognize her still
A second glance does not reveal
Anything beyond the surface of glass
The surface of the still forest pool

Rain begins with no more than ripple
And then an explosion of storm and swelling
Paint me with vivid strokes and colors
Cochineal crimson and raw umber
Emerald, amethyst, sapphire and tourmaline

Forget your civilized ways
For just a moment
Torn like pages from a book
Left to blow in the wind
Tangle in the untamed grass
And slowly decompose in the shade
Of the Blue Spruce
Whilst the Red Tail shares a lonely laugh above

But time demands
The path of the river revisited
Calm and contained again alas
Prim and proper
Clothed and clean
And see I can make that work too
Same waters
Different path

But this course of the river
Is not what calls me
Inspires me
Drives me
Wild

The time between

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

On a high pine bow at a bend in the river rests an osprey. Motionless. I see only the silhouette of the black and white bird. Perhaps awaiting his next meal from the gently moving waters below. Or perhaps for the raptor this is no more than a respite. The time between.

The waters remain unfrozen. A mild autumn. A silky flow of silver over smoothly polished stones. No more than pearls of ice form on low limbs overhanging the north side of the embankment. Small patches of hoar frost spread in secret spaces hidden from the sun along the shore. White as fresh snow, a reminder of what should be, what will be.

It is not easy to get here. A tangle of vines and fallen trees, grabbing my jeans, snapping branches, leaving welts of whip marks across my cheeks if I don’t duck in time. Keeping the river wild. Deer tracks. Signs where the coyote has crossed. No tell tale signs of rubber tread ahead of us; only our own following. Huge ponderosa stumps, roots and all, pile up like a log jam at a sharp bend. The water is choosing, creating a new route, cutting into the softer bank on the now receiving side of this flow.

They say winter is late to come here this year. I have nothing to compare it to. I seek references, association. There is a comfort in knowing. Putting the view before us in its proper place. A tidy jar on a shelf. Likewise, an unease in everything seeming so new.

We read about the many storms that have covered our old mountain, tucked her in tight for the season. That we understand. It fits into the links of the past we carry with us though we try to let go. If we were there, now would be our time for reveling in our solitude. Reconnecting with the trails and secret places that only we go. Reclaiming our big back yard.

I am aware of the selfishness of solitude. On one hand a breeding ground for deeper thinking. Undisturbed silence to allow our brains to bloom. My thoughts, my terms, my time. On the other hand is community and intelligent conversation. Are greater thoughts raised in the back and forth between interacting minds, or in the void of solitude? The challenge of defining and defending.

We are not there. We are here. A new mountain, new land, new back yard. And newness carries unease that only time can soften. The time between. Between the hardness of discovery and that softness of understanding.

Newness reminds us nothing is known for certain. We float precariously. Perhaps that is a more realistic point of view than feeling grounded, solid on assumptions.

I look down river again and the osprey is gone.

Leap!

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All the same

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Can I still see it new, feel it new, when time and again was it the same rain that fell light and cold on my face, and the same tall grasses that soaked my jeans and leather boots?

I reach for my camera then put it away. I have taken the same before. This is not a child forever changing and growing though I have amassed as many photos of the mountain as I did my child in his early years.

How do we know it is time to move on when the land calls us so strongly, the quiet muses tempting and taunting in the song of the late season trickle of the creek and twinkling light of the plump Aspen leaves. If you listen, you’ll know. She is not calling us. Perhaps, only perhaps, she tells us to leave. She too would rather dance alone.

A tingle like nearby lightening when riding over the Divide. Too close, and exposed. Without protection of the trees.

We could run back for shelter. Where it is safer, it is known.

Or hunker down in the saddle and move on.

Even when we don’t know where “on” may be.

Such a wide and wild world. I wouldn’t want it otherwise.

Subtle signs

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

The birds are boisterous in the early morning, silent mid
day in the heat, heat still lingering, a heavy burden remaining from the peak of summer.  The intensity of the seasons in the high
mountains.

Summer is ending.  Longer
shadows even at noon with the sun arcing lower in the southern sky.  Crisp outlines to every object in the
landscape before us.  Signs of
change.  Promise of change.  Subtle and certain.  There is great comfort in knowing what to
expect as the seasons unfold one onto the next.

I am here listening through thin walls of the tent and
realize how separate I am. Connections to nature we created. Threads in our own
minds.  But the longer I am here the more
I understand:  we shall never be a part.  We are but observers, trespassers in the
wild.

The sound of a hummingbird zipping by, way up here on the
Divide, seemingly a world away from where you might expect such a fragile
creature to choose to be, and I think of how displaced we are here when most have
only known these delicate birds hovering around red plastic feeders and it
somehow doesn’t cross our mind they might survive without us to feed them.  Do we forget at times how the world might
manage without us?  We choose to intervene.
And deem ourselves important as we stir
the sugar water.

Am I jaded to the wilds around me as I turn my back and
prepare to leave?  Or can I learn to take
with me in a secret place inside the vastness of the time we have shared
together unlike anyone else?  Such is a
relationship ending.

They tell me I may never find such a beautiful view, as if
that is what matters most, and I consider their ignorance wondering if they
would base the quality their marriage on the most beautiful bride.

What I want beside me when I wake each morning is deeper and
richer than a pretty view.

Leaving the ditch

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

An intimate involement.
To a ditch?  Yes! To the
land.  To the wilds.  My family, nature, hard work, solitude,
silence, space.  You see?  It all fits together.  It includes me.  I am a part of her.

Room to breathe and a reason to breathe deep.  Dirty jeans and sweaty shirts and blistered
hands and shoulders and a back so sore in the morning it’s hard to slip socks on.

And I can’t imagine leaving her forever.

I know her like no one else.
Her curves, shallow spots, rocky places, weaknesses and strengths.  Where her wildest flowers bloom, and where
she sheds the silent needles of her dying trees.  Morning rains and evening shadows, how they
spread across and change her. Just a ditch.

No different than a farmer who tends the land, I have seen
her flow with plenty, break loose where she should not, given her an extra push
when I thought I had no more in me, and leaned on my shovel and done nothing
more than watch.

As with all wilds, this is a relationship one sided.  I will tend to her.  She will let me.  She will not stop me.  But she will never care.  Somehow, the nurturing is enough.  I need no more.  I am satisfied to work, to give, to tend to
her and ask for nothing in return.

For look how much she has given me.

A wild strawberry under frosty leaves

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Heavy rains, a comforting wrap about the shoulders of the
mountain.  I walk the ditch tucked under
the wide brim of my hat and the soft canopy of trees with fewer needles than I
remember each year.

It has been a while since I could walk with her alone, in
silence and peace.  Who would guess the
disruption of a puppy would have such an impact?  He’s a different sort.  Still after a year, we don’t fit together
like Alan and I did.  I miss the silent
old dog always by my side companionship.
It will be hard earned, but it will come.

Or perhaps my feeling of separation from the mountain on
which I walk it is more than that.  Now
that I finally know we are leaving.  I
separate myself.  I don’t allow myself to
hold on.  It is not mine.  Then again, it never was.

Without a new land, a new plan, a new place to be connected
with, I am incomplete.

Have I ever been complete?

 

And now August.
Middle of the month already.  I
have trouble keeping track of, keeping up with time this time of year.  I wonder if it matters.  Subtle signs show me where and when.  A change of winds, of season, of
sunlight.  Mid day and the shadows are
already showing.  Longer, sharper,
crisper.

Morning and the first frost settles in and across the open
meadow of the Divide, replacing the weeks’ worth of fog and cloud I became so
accustomed to seeing upon waking, walking through the tall grasses soaking my
pants to above my knees as I lead the horses, two by two, from the comfort of
the highline tucked into the trees to their early morning feeding on the lush
mountain grasses.

The hillside is sprinkled with tiny gems hiding beneath frosty
leaves.  Wild strawberries.  I watch every step, often end up crawling on
hands and knees to harvest a handful.

Sweet treats.  How
easy to overlook when we’re too focused forward to look at the ground before
us.  Changing ground.  Changing lives.  Reaping the harvest while it blooms.  What a pity if I had missed this.

Evening rain

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Evening settles into a downpour.  Deep and grey and heavy.  Rain and hail, loud on the thin walls of the
tent.  We are in here, dry, protected by
no more than thin canvas.  More than
enough.

Lightening touches down above tree line across canyon.  Our horses are out there with their heads
down, ignoring the massive blasts of thunder that heave onto the walls of the Divide,
rumble and roll around the peaks like water shaken in a glass jar, round and
round it seems while we sit cradled in the center, in the shelter of the tent.  Yes, the tent I did not want to bring because
it somehow seemed decadent to have anything more than a tarp to crawl
under.  Me, who likes it simple.  Sleeping under a tree this month would have
left us wet and cold.  We’re here to
work.  A good night sleep is not a bad
idea.  I conceded.  I confess the boys were right again.

So here we are under a canvas roof with a small woodstove
hissing against the seeping sides of the stovepipe, water pouring off outside
walls filling buckets half full with sweet clean cold bounty free from the
generous sky.  Allowing me one less trip
to the creek with sloshing buckets in each hand.

I sit by the open tent door and look out at the horses through
the shroud of heavy misty rain.  They
remain seemingly unaffected.  This has
happened to them before.  Seems like
every night for the past few weeks.  And
when we lead them into the shelter of trees at night and offer them a simple
handful of treats and a gentle touch, I smell deeply the musk of dampness on
their steaming coats that appear already to be thickening with the first hints
of winter fur.

Thunder begins on the other side of the tent now, the other
side of the Divide. Rain lightens and sky attempts to brighten, a brief flight
of sunlight through a weak spot in thin clouds.
And then the sun will drop down beyond the Pyramid, the high point on
the mountain we know is there but cannot see.
Blind faith.  Like knowing we’ll
see the sun and be warmed and dried when morning comes.

Now our vision is limited to the valley and the foothills of
the mountain across from us, a familiar face hidden behind a veil of heavy
clouds, hardly demure, but strong and powerful.
Comforting in her solid feel. There, a mother and baby moose cross
between our horses and the trail that leads up and away into the clouded
shrouded horizon.  The little fellow
scampering with gangly legs only partially in control, playfully ahead of
mother, who nervously runs to keep up, ahead, protect, do what a good mother
should do.

They are unconcerned with our horses who out there now remind
me what a giant step closer to wild they are than me.

Me, safe and warm and sealed off from the elements by
nothing more than a tent.  Which too
often, is enough to separate.  And I feel
the growing rift when what I want is connection.  How we fool ourselves to believe we too are a
part.  For only a never lasting moment.

Simple words after a storm

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Oh for peace of place

I seek around me

And all the while

Forgetting to look within

 

Calm and quiet after stormy skies

Have spent their fiery passion

Leaving moist grass in the dramatic evening sky

And let me be still to listen

Ditch camp

/ Gin Getz / 8 Comments

A weekend returned and resting from ditch camp. Perhaps resting is not the right word. Moving cows (bringing the girls to a boy), cleaning cabins, clothes and selves, restocking and repacking. I’m slack on finding time to catch up with correspondence and writing. And when I finally do sit down to write, the words and stories overwhelm and I don’t know where to begin. There seems to be so much. Summers, rich and full. As they must be. Fast and furious and fleeting in the high country.

I must begin with the practical. An explanation of ditch camp for those of you who have no idea what I’m referring to. For those who know, please excuse the redundancy. I’ll share something new with you next time.

Ditch camp is about the three of us living in a little thin wall tent with a wood stove, a welcome upgrade from five years ago when we began camped out under a tarp. It is about being tired and sore and dirty at the end of the day, earning our rest, our silence, our sleep. It is about sitting wordlessly together with a simple meal of Hamburger Helper, listening. To each other. To the steam of the coffee on the fire. The sound of the creek. Birds. The horses contented exhales as they graze on the endless pasture of the Divide. The wind through the trees baring their soul as the needles fall and soften the ground below with a silvery brown blanket.

Ditch camp is about days spent with hand tools and horse power. A team of three. One family, close, together, comfortable in the wild world. And horses and dog and wildlife. Shovels and picks, drags and slips. Rebuilding low banks. Cleaning out debris and sediment washed in during the spring run. Repairing damage and improving flow. And my favorite part. Clearing and felling trees with the old crosscut saw, one pair taking turns as the third person stands guard with ax in hand, watching the waving of the top of the tree to tell us it is ready to fall. The forced and powerful rhythm of the back and forth metal on wood, torsos to and fro, vigorous breathing in and out, sawdust and shavings gathering in reward at the base of the tree as the cut gets deeper and deeper.

And on the most practical level, ditch camp is about maintaining a transcontinental ditch deep in the Weminuche Wilderness for a private company that owns the water rights. An old ditch built long ago bringing water from a creek that flows to the west of the Divide over a mile to the east. Pretty simple. They don’t know we see it as the romantic adventure it is, and remain grateful for the hard work we do.

As for the rest, and there is so much more to share with you, I must wait for another day.

Time to get back to work.