personal growth

Back in the groove

/ Gin Getz / 10 Comments

(continued from previous post:  Growing Back the Groove)

I wish there was a secret, and you might too, but we both know there is not.

It all comes down to this.

Do it.

Don’t be afraid to do it alone.

And even if you are afraid, do it anyway.

That, my friends, is how I grew back my groove.

And gained back my confidence.

And got back in the saddle again.

Though of course I wasn’t usually really out.  Just out of sorts.  Imagining myself flying out far too many times.  And now, finally, I feel grounded again.  A firm seat in the saddle. That’s where my butt belongs.

Because it’s not about not being afraid.  Because often I am.  It’s about doing it even when you are afraid.  Yes, just like John Wayne once said.

“Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.”

And remember this, too. Saddling is the easy part.  Riding is where it gets complicated.  So get on and ride, because if you don’t, you won’t, and you’ll end up right where you started.  Standing there on the ground wishing you could go somewhere.

Get on and go.

(Quote borrowed from fellow horsewoman, Jenn Edwards)

 

So what happened is this.  It started with a love/hate relationship.  And I ended up with the most challenging horse I ever rode. My little Arabian stallion, now gelding, Flying Crow.  For those that care about such things, his registered name is Fadjurz Ideal and I went all the way to the Jack Tone Ranch in California to find him.  What was I thinking?

Was it love at first sight?  Hardly.  He was as afraid of me as I was of him.  For years. Now I can say he’s learned to trust me.  And I’ve learned to trust myself.  For the most part.  I can stay on and get where I need to go.   Pretty well.  No guarantees there won’t be more bumps along the way.

It’s the journey that counts, they say.  I say, it’s the journey that wipes you out some days…

Seven years we’ve been together, Flying Crow and I.  Seven long hard years where if he were a man, we’d be divorced.  And if he were my son, well, I’d seriously consider boarding school.  I’ve wanted to sell him, but how could I?  He’d make a bad name for my training, and for Arabian horses.  He’s, he’s… how do I find ways to describe him, how difficult he’s been (and still is) yet show the crazy deep love I hold fast for him?

Tiring, exhausting, challenging, and the cause of innumerable crying bouts.  And then you look into his warm brown eyes, and all you can do is melt, get back on, and try again.  More patiently this time.  Ask, don’t demand.  Take a deep breath…  Settle in for the long ride.

What he misses in size he makes up in nerves. What takes me three times to show your average horse, took me thirty to teach this guy.  And then, chances are, he’ll still be scared and uncertain.  He’ll spin, spook, bolt and jolt… but eventually, he’ll trust me and go where I need him to go, with his lively little perky stride, which too, I might add, is exhausting after about fifteen minutes of working to keep your butt firmly planted in the bouncing seat. Try that for rides that last two, four, six hours or more.  It has been, he has been difficult.

He is my special child.  He has special needs.  A lot of them. Needs non-stop guidance.  Needs coaxing.  Needs firm direction presented in the softest way, or he’ll get upset and shut down.  And constant attention.  Every minute down the trail.

So he taught me to pay attention, always.  Be present.  Be riding all the time. Hold your seat.  Be ready.  Expect the unexpected.  And handle him lightly because if I over reacted, it wouldn’t be too hard to pull him over on top of me. He’s hyper sensitive.

That said, he’s also sensitive in the lightest of touch.  He misses nothing. (Even when you wish he would.)  And those skinny long legs know how to move.  With the proper guidance and direction, he moves through the trees, up and down slopes, runs across open fields with the grace of a lovely young buck. A beautiful thing to behold.

So for every ride that I make it home in one piece, I am grateful.  Relieved. Tired. And very proud.  I believe he is too.  I can tell by the way he stands there with me after he’s been unsaddled and I brush down his sweaty back, and he’s in no rush to leave me and go back to his herd, but finds a certain peace, finally, standing there in the shade of the tack barn with me.

And as for doing it alone… riding alone.  Well, I do it because I can (no more dudes to take care of), and I have to (horses are my thing, my boys have other interests).  Riding buddies?  Who the heck wants to ride with the crazy mountain mama and the even crazier little Arabian horse?

So, there you go.  No big revelations.  Just time in the saddle.  Sucking up and holding on.  Because that’s the only way I know how to really move on.

Yes, I know I will be hurt again.  I’ll fall off a few more horses, no doubt. That’s horses and that’s life.  There are ups and there are downs. But it’s worth it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I guess because I can’t, can I?  Just ask my father-in-law, who at 81 fell off a horse just the other day.  And a cliff, I might add, while training that horse.  I can only hope I’m doing the same thirty six years from now.

Right on.

Ride on.

I think I will.

For Kim, who’s got a lot of scary rides ahead of her, but is still able to keep that butt firmly planted and enjoy the ride.

An ugly picture in a beautiful world

/ Gin Getz / 25 Comments

I think when you come down to it, truth is, everyone wants to be loved.

Though at some time, with some people, we must face the facts that attempts for being loved, let alone being accepted, are futile.

Oh sure, I’d love to be like those that claim they do not care.  Seemingly untroubled by who calls them what, the stories that have been told, or the judgments made.  Maybe such people really do exist.  I am not one of them.

So it was with that hope in mind, that of simply being loved, and then reduced to liked, and then reduced to accepted… by my in-laws, that I write today.

Oh, not all of them.  In fact, only a few.  There are a lot of them around here in the summer.  Some have been fine.  Some have been great. But that very unpleasant, difficult few have made a big impression.  Not a pretty one, either.

Why?  Go figure.  We’ve learned we’ll never really know. I’ve heard all kinds of theories.  The typical, “She must be a hussy.”  Or thinking I was no more than the hired help.  Or that I married Bob for his money (no offense, sweetheart, but I can hear the chuckles).  Or fear.  Fear of me taking their little boy away.  Fear of losing control.  Fear of change.

For their world was perfect before I came.  Right.  Wrong.  Frighteningly so.  But I don’t know if anyone every spoke about it, you know, as in “admitted it” before I was here to open up the closet and let the skeletons spill out.  Hush-hush, brush it under the carpet, don’t tell a sole, and just pretend we get along.  Good lord, but you HATE each other!  Who are you fooling?

An ugly picture in a beautiful world.

When you put the pieces of the puzzle together, there before you is one ugly picture.  But it’s just one, spread out on my kitchen table, a twisted mix of facts and lies, and I know I have the ability to brush it off, toss it away, clean the slate and begin my day, my life, in a beautiful way. Even here.

Pieces of the puzzle.  It’s a long story.  I’ll probably only get to a part of it today.  Bear with me as this might not be the lovely lighter side of life you like to listen to.  But it’s real and raw and revealing.  And I suppose there is something to be said for that.  Like letting it all hang out so you can lighten your load and learn to laugh again.

And I’m gonna have the last laugh after all.  Because although legend has it when we were married my husband’s brother and mother vowed to chase me off in five years, I’ve spent the last four chuckling, just knowing my presence alone causes them misery.  And now, with our return, with our commitment to the land, it’s easy to see how  we’ll still be here, enjoying a new group of neighbors, long after they leave.  And yes, I confess, I do I take pleasure in that.

So where do I begin?

An ugly picture.

Most of the details I chose to forget.  There were many.  Ugly, ugly images.  Memories more like nightmares.  I learned to say this family is not mine.  No family is perfect, I know, but this was a bit much.

So why am I rehashing all this crap?  Because I can, the brother used to say.  He never gave us a better reason for treating us as he did. So maybe just this time, I’ll say the same.  Because I can.  And because part of healing is forgiving.  Letting go. And I’m still holding on.  I’m still hurt.  Having people hate you, hate everything you do or did or built or made, finding fault in you and your life and your dreams and your hard work hurts.  Period.  The scars are deep.  But they are healing.

This story will help clarify the picture for me, ugly as it may be.  Only then can I brush it aside… and laugh.

I might add that this post is not endorsed by my husband, and may be the first one which he will read and won’t say, “It’s nice.”  I guarantee.  This will make him cringe.  Why stir the waters, he will ask me?  I will tell him that the mud is thick and deep, and taints the clear waters that calmly lies on top.  It doesn’t go away on its own.  At some point we must drain the pond and begin anew. Let sleeping dogs lie, he’ll tell me.  But my dog sleeps restlessly, and wakes up barking.

Life isn’t always peaches and cream.   Maybe it’s because of the bitter apple and sour milk that fine wine seems so sweet.  It’s a package deal.  The good and bad.  An ugly picture in a beautiful world.  So, I’ll tell my story finally.  Forget the silence of the lambs.  It due time I climb to the top of the mountain and let loose my feral wail.

It isn’t going to make me any friends.  But truth is, it’s already cost me plenty.  That was their intention. Stories from my mother- and brother-in-law. I’m better off not knowing the half of them.

I would like to claim innocence but that would not be fair.  I could have/should have seen the signs, and probably did, but love is blind.  The sweet little old lady who had already had about twenty five years perfecting the act.   Oh, she could tell a story so well!  A historian, she called herself.  Though I cringe to think of how many stories were told for the sheer impact and effect on intrigued tourists.  I too was enamored by her once, and so looked forward to having her… love me.

Silly me.

Why she couldn’t run me off like she succeeded in doing for others before me, I do not know.  But for that I am grateful.  Though the battle to win and keep her son left deep scars within me.  They are worth it.  He is worth it.

An ugly picture.  You built your own hell.  Alas, it’s fading.  It’s lost its control.  The rein of critiques and criticism from the plastic throne is withering away.  The powers she appointed to replace her are not even worthy of mention.

There is more, so much more.  I need not remember it all.  I need to learn to let go.  For myself, my son, my husband.  For them, I push open the shutters and pull up the shade and let go of the past and let new light flood into the room.

As one friend writes, “The old me would have…”  But the new one won’t put up with crap.  OK, well, so maybe I never did.

So what is the solution?  Learning to let go.  Learning not to care.  Learning not to be affected by the words and actions and stories spread by others.  Well, one thing is for sure. I’ll never run for public office.  I’ll never be a politician.  For I never will care enough about what others think of me to act falsely or to put up with injustice and sit around silently. And still, I find I care too much.

So, where does that leave me?  I guess exactly where I am.

We have not spoken in years.  A big fence divides us, and I have learned no fence is big enough to hold back hatred.  I’ve stopped listening to them, to their stories, though I still hear them from time to time.  I think only a few still listen, though only a few ever did. They still spend their idle time here, coming and going in the summer.  Just more fair weather tourists who like to think about how many years they have been coming here, as if that enables one a greater hierarchical ranking.

And I will watch them leave, and breathe again.

And in the meanwhile, I will learn to accept that not everyone is going to love you. Some, in fact, will hate you.  Not because of who you are or what you’ve done, but because of themselves.  Let them keep their misery.  They build it well.  Some people choose to paint their own ugly pictures, then spend a lifetime looking at that, rather than the beautiful view before them.

I don’t want to be that person.  I want to see that beautiful view, be out in it, be a part of it, and should I lift my paintbrush to add to the picture before me, may I only craft it to be a more beautiful one.

If ever that were possible in such a picture perfect world.

Home again

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

We have returned from the weekend away, bringing Forrest home with us. A sense of fulfillment and completion for me, having my family together as a team. The beginning of a well earned summer break for him.  Some break. Building, fencing, digging ditch.  May sound hard to many, but you know we love it all.

He returns to a house that looks the same as it did when he moved out how long ago, when we all moved out, renting out our home and moving to the Little Cabin to increase our cash flow, trying to create a change that seemed so slow to come.  Since then, we moved to around five times, including 1400 miles to northern Washington.  And then back again.  What a lot of work!  And I wouldn’t have it any other way. (Though hiring a moving service seems like a tempting option.) Put super simply, it was all good.

Change. It came, in a big way, and beautifully, and reminds me we are in constant state of change, only sometimes we don’t see it, and other times we may deny it.

And yet, on the surface, it appears we are right where we started.  Same beautiful house, hand crafted, all our years of woodwork and refinement, rough and rustic though it still feels, just the way we like it.  Warm, welcoming. Few come into our home without noting how “comfortable” it is.  The pictures hanging on the wall just where they belong.  Sofas, pots, pans, everything in place as it once was.  Sounds of the woodstoves crackling, one to heat the house against morning temperatures in the teens, the other to cook our breakfast, Forrest’s favorite in a big cast iron skillet ready to be set in the oven. Steller’s Jays pecking at the same feeder even they too remember right where it used to be.

And the view from the window as it has been for half our days here:  white.  For just when we were settling into the balmy spring that felt like flatlands, enticing me to think I might manage growing a tomato or pepper, we are reminded.  These are high, harsh mountains.  And that little bit of snow might just be the reminder we need to show us where we belong.  Home.  Here and now.  We’ll see about tomorrow.

Much more to say, my head seems swirling.  I can’t wait to show Forrest the things that are just as he remembers, and have changed so much. Off to stoke the fires, stir the pot, and wake the boys.

Rambling on

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Ramblings… from a conversation with Julian of White Horse Pilgrim:

Have you ever found yourself drowning in your own thoughts? Your mind swirling and churning in crazy patterns making it almost impossible to stay afloat? Times like this I wish for calm waters, for simple psyche, level emotions, or at least the ability to focus and control my wits… I can’t say I have my mind mastered.

They are all good thoughts, almost all, just too many right now for me to make sense of. The move is almost overwhelming, just the logistics, as moves always are. We’re finishing a bathroom remodel, a horse trailer living quarters construction, cleaning up building material stored for years from all the projects here, giving the six rental cabins a good organization and shutting them down for the season, taking down storage sheds, tying up loose ends from the business we are closing and selling, hauling twelve horses and hay to our valley pasture and arranging to then haul them north… and packing, of course… in the beauty but somewhat inconvenience of a nice new coat of winter snow. All this with the goal of leaving Sunday.

We found a rural rental near a small but open minded community with a private stretch of river on one side and some wild mountains on the other. I’m always a bit surprised how many think “moving” means “giving it up.” As if I had enough of the country and am ready to move to town. Come on, friends… it’s me!

The move sounds refreshing on one hand, and shakes me up on the other – which isn’t always a bad thing, you know.

And it is just a stepping stone. I don’t know where we’ll go from there. This move just allows us to start. We were stuck here, in part due to finances, a big dept and not enough cash flow – unable to pack up and move out or buy another place. Finding the rural rental, complete with horse barn and heated shop and room to roam, was a stroke of luck, and I am really grateful. From there, we’ll have time to look around – find where we want to go next, what we want to do. And what will we do there? Worst case scenario, we can shovel snow and clean cabins. We’ve had plenty of experience with both.

I went through a similar move ten years ago. When I moved from the wild mountains of northern California, I heard time and again that I’d never find a place quite as beautiful. I didn’t at first. I had a terrible job with a horrid boss and found myself in the foothills where I always long to be in real mountains. But it brought my son and me here, and best of all, gave us Bob.

I don’t know what I am suppose to do with my life next, or where I am supposed to go. It’s a bit of a matter of trust. First, I must begin. Opportunities don’t arise when we’re sitting still. Start moving, and things start happening. This move gets the ball rolling. We’ll see where it takes us. I’m game to try, to trust, and to follow a new trail if it looks like it might be an interesting ride.

Now I will be 45 on Sunday, and still I have not figured what I should be or do “when I grow up.”

Part of it is planning, I know. But there is another part that is trusting – in what, I do not know – perhaps no more than circumstance and self. Trusting you will find what you are meant to do next, where to go, what to be.

Yes, exciting but scary, all at the same time.

That’s a good part of what’s been on my mind… really quite simple, you see, however then I begin to delve into deeper depths and consider life further, and things get really stirred up in that brain of mine.

Enough about me. I’m sorry – I allow myself to dive into the selfishness of this time of change and growth, but in reality I know there is much more of importance and little relevance to my thoughts.

Thank you, Julian, for listening, for sharing, and for allowing me the opportunity to try to clarify that which is still rather vague, but becoming more real. You are right: any time spent looking into one’s mind is not time wasted, but part of allowing us a richer life.

Peachy

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

He tells me to cheer up, and I say “nay.” Not now. All in due time. This is the time to be deep, to dive into the dark murky waters of the unknown. I’ll leave the shallow shore and sunny skies for those staying back in the same place they were yesterday. Today I’m moving. Changing.

Sure, change is a good thing, a time of great growth and excitement and expansion of inner mind and outer horizons. But it is hard. And it is frightening for it requires we walk to the edge of the plank and step off. That last step is the hardest. So long to the comfort of the ship. But there aren’t always sharks in the waters below. Sometimes, or so I have heard, there are dolphins down there, benevolent and tender and playful.

Change. I’m not going to pretend it’s all OK. It’s not. But I am going to look at it all, even the deep, dark stuff, because that’s part of the big picture too. Shadows lurk strongest on the sunniest of days.

Shall I say it is fine and remain happy and light as I am falling into the abyss? No! Only a fool or coward who touches no further than the surface could feel that way. I’m moving without a job, without long term plans or permanent home, without anything but a big fat debt in my wallet and a lot of burdensome worries on my shoulders, and with a bunch of horses, cats and one very enthusiastic dog. How light shall I pretend that to be?

I let myself fall and dive and sink and gasp for air not knowing when I shall reach the surface again. I choke and sputter and nightmares follow me throughout my day but I would not have it any other way. For after the depths we find light, pure and real, as we again emerge to the radiance of day.

Have you ever seen anything more magnificent than the sun on the surface of a rippling sea, seen from under the surface of frigid waters as you rise to break through in anticipation of one big beautiful breath of air?

How can we touch the highs of happiness without knowing what it’s like to sink deep into depression? Yes, we could strive for the middle ground. You can. I won’t. I’m going to feel it all. Some days soft and smooth; others harsh and gritty. Some days plain old painful. But more often than not, sweet and bordering on bliss, because that’s what I look for in life.

That’s life for me, rich and full. As a friend wrote yesterday: Some of us live life biting into the juicy sweet peach and letting the nectar drip down our chin… because we can.

I’m not one to leave the peach on the shelf, and do no more than observe its beauty and appreciate its fine aroma. No, no, no. I’m biting in.

Stepping out of the comfort zone

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

The blanket of snow I remember as a consolation for half my days of the past ten years I will no longer be allowed. Not here.

Awakening. The bubble has burst.

Stepping out of the comfort zone.

Development, just beyond where I found myself yesterday, the place and space of ease and solace. A shock of humility. I wake up and the world I thought I knew so well is gone, going, no longer what I thought it to be. Expanding views, minds, horizons, beliefs. Habits are broken. The chain tying us to past is torn loose.

I ask the woman in the mirror, “Who are you today?” There is no answer.

“What do you want of me?” Silence. A cold hard surface.

I don’t know the answers. I look for them inside. They are vague and misty and mysterious. A game I’m not sure I’d like to be playing, but there I am, in the middle of it, and the ball is thrown my way.

Still I smile. I am looking forward to not having “The Ranch” define us, bind us. But without it, the bottom falls out. I fall, seemingly endlessly. The rabbit in the dark hole.

Listen. Silence. In that void, I start to whistle. My own tune. It means nothing to no one but me. I can be myself again. Something I never was here somehow. The history, the attachments, my husband’s family, the stories told of me I still don’t know and don’t want to know. All of it. I just felt I fit into the picture. Contorted to the shape I was allowed.

Now I begin to draw my own picture, tell my own story. It starts now. With a simple breath. Deep and strong and dizzying with the dazzling stars of this high altitude I find myself staring up at as I walk the dog in the middle of the night. His wet cold nose nudging me awake becomes the blessing rather than the curse.

It’s all a matter of how we look at things. As long as we look. Even in the pitch black of mid night as the infinite stars above bedazzle my sleepy head.

After the early snow clears

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Forget Part Two.

I have pages and pages of drafts of stories to tell you, explanations of why ultimately I decided to keep the man and leave the land. But none of it really matters. Maybe it should. But not now. Now when I read it, it holds me back. To the past, to the place, to the same and safe and known and often times things I’d rather never were.

So I’m moving on. I’m leaving that behind. Yes, just like that. And yes, I’m scared. But scared won’t stop me.

Forever Home

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Part one.

Our intention was to be here forever. We were building what was to be our forever home.

When I married Bob, I thought I was also marrying the mountain. The two were close to one.

I have since learned there is a connection between man and land, but the two are not inseparable. It is a connection created only in the minds of those seeking something solid to hold. A meaning and importance, connection and definition.

But the land does not define us. We only use the land to describe ourselves, find meaning in a more universal sense, one that others can comprehend and characterize. A false and temporary explanation of self. The exterior as a mode of classifying the interior. As a shell that does no more than contain and protect that which lives within.

We are both learning to re-write these labels, and learn who and what we truly are, not based on the walls we built and the mountains we climb.

How do we, then, define ourselves? Somehow we feel lost without the label.

But I am not the mountain.

I am not my husband, not my son, not my dog or horses or job.

I am me.

Of course that’s too ambiguous.

How do I define me except in relation to all these things?

And how when these things are all changing?

Will I remain the same?

Do we ever?

For now I don’t know who or what I am.

And now I recal the words of Cyndee sharing the image of the horse running free, when all four feet are in flight, above the earth, ungrounded, unbound, exhilarated…

Learning to live

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

It’s not what I was expecting
Is it ever?
Or are we best learning to live without expectation, allowing each day to unfold as it may, and remain in the present? Can we really survive as such without memories of the past and plans for the future?
I think not.

It’s all about balance.
We are products of our past, and crops for our futures. Is that really so bad? And can’t we accept that and still enjoy the present? What kind of a fool feels today is all that matters?
What matters? The air, the mountain, the river cutting through hard rock? Elements, harsh and mild, wild and calm. My husband, my son, my dog and cats, horses, birds in the back yard, the hawk hunting in the willows out on pasture. The feel of wind chapping my cheeks and rain tapping my hat and snow falling soft on my sweaty face as I tip my head upward and taste the simple sweet essence of changing seasons.
All of it.

That’s what I want.
Not just today. Certainly not just yesterday. And not only tomorrow. The whole enchilada. Life. Rich and full, hot and cold, pleasure and pain, birth and death and every day I am allowed to live in between the two.

Touch me
Soft and wet and warm
The fullness of life like
Water rushing over pale flesh
At times too deep to breath
I find myself in the middle of
A river I cannot stand in
Flowing too fast for a foothold

Tearing away

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments


Do not shed tears. Hold them back. Contain them for now. And then I will let them burst unbound. Soon. Then they will be for joy. They will fall upon a new land, enrich and nourish parched soils, merge with a new river, and flow with a freedom I have not felt in years. An exultation. A release. A flood of emotions pouring forth with a saline surge held back for too long. As a child, uninhibited, lost in passion and release from a comfort she does not fully understand, only trusts that this is how it meant to be.

Is this what they call blind faith?

Perhaps I am learning to believe.

Last night the rain turned to silence and our world turned to white.

Such a familiar state. For nearly half my days living here have been in snow. I am more comfortable with the cold white world than I am with the few warm weeks that pass in the blur of summer.

I hear the old rooster crowing in strong defiance. He too is too familiar. He knows what winter brings. What he doesn’t know is this. He’ll be relieved of this burden soon and allowed to pass the last of his days two thousand feet lower in elevation in an aviary owned by a neighbor of a friend. Rooster retirement. I never said I was not a sucker.