Yesterday.

February 17, 2014 / Gin Getz / 9 Comments

Yesterday.

The river begins to open.

The release of the season starts.

Our frozen white highway over which we dragged nearly ninety logs bares elusive glimpses into the dark face of the Rio.

She laughs loudly now beneath our feet.

Her waters rise, ice thins, snow loses its strength. And we stand upon her remaining hard surface and what else can we do but hope she’ll hold?

We light the last of the slash piles upon the ice and listen. Open water beneath the flame. Floating fire.

Our tools are gathered, brought back to this side of the river. If the warm weather continues with daytime temperatures climbing steady into the 40s and 50s every afternoon as they have been, the Rio will no longer be passable. At least, not on her surface and I’m not big on swimming up here.

The timing is just right. Our work across river is done.

We’ve harvested what we need to build our home and shop. Should we need more for the barn, well, it’s safe to say there will be a new round of dead trees to harvest next year.

So now, the work on this side begins.

This is progress. We are pleased. Still there is a little bit of sadness too, for we have loved our time together by the river, silent as she had been, knowing she is there with us in the long blue shadows and heavy hoar frost and steaming breath and laughter and bloody noses and fat lips which were our only injuries and many a hot dog roasted over our slash piles over what in summer would be the middle of the river and our intimate involvement with our dying trees.

An update on the birth of the book.

Thanks to so many for so much. For your support, encouragement and kindness.

For those who have been waiting, it is my understanding that the Kindle version will be available on Amazon later today.

For all those that did write and leave reviews, I can not thank you enough.

To so many, I send such sincere thanks, love and gratitude.

So, yeah… everything is going great… you’d think I’d be just floating on cloud nine with the wonderful reception and reviews that the launch of the book brought us.

But I’m not.

They warn you to expect bad review. It’s going to happen. Not everyone is going to like what you write. Some folks in particular will really not like it because they don’t like you, or they don’t like the fact that you did it and they did not or whatever goes through someone’s mind to justify saying mean things.

But what about no response at all? Brings back memories of all those years sending out my manuscript. I was lucky to get the rejection letter.

So yes, to hear from those who enjoy my writing… that means a lot.

You know what they say is true: If you dare to put yourself out there, you better be prepared to be burned. Even if what burns is hearing nothing at all.

That’s the downside. And it’s down. It’s the pits, and it hurts. Some folks manage to bounce it all off their hard shell. Not me. It gets me. I’m softer than I care to admit.

Don’t be so sensitive, some say. Be stronger. Care less.

If I followed that advice, my writing would not be what it is, would it?

And for better or worse, I would not be either.

Those who have been through this before, the big first book deal, compare the process to giving birth, with a longer gestation, (in my case, would you believe, five years in the making?) and a little less physical pain. That’s not too far off, having been through childbirth too. Hey, Mom and Dad, you were there when I did that. Remember all my screaming and cussing? Guess what – I did the same over these past five years and then some “birthing” my first book. My one hope is that each subsequent book will be a little easier. Dang, I hope so.

Some even say if you knew back then how hard it would be, I bet you wouldn’t have done it.

But for those of us who do write, I think we can’t not write. I am incomplete with out. Be it my gift or the part of my private self I can share.

It’s not just words. It’s a part of me.

And at these times of introspection, we’re forced to ask ourselves this questions:

Who do I write for?

Family?

No.

My brothers both forgot. The lack of support (even acknowledgement) from most of my husband’s family on this accomplishment should not have surprised me but still did.

Thank goodness for good friends and new readers. And a few wonderful surprises along the way, including some close family and distant friends.

Who do I write for?

Not for myself, for although that is the advice of some successful writers, it is not what I care to do.

I guess I write for you. For the few still here with me reading whilst the rest have run off to other things, pressing issues, important matters, and something shiny and new.

Today!

February 14, 2014 / Gin Getz / 21 Comments

Today is the big day.

The book, The Color of the Wild, is released and available.

It can be found on Amazon.com in paperback and through the Publisher. The e-book and Kindle version will be available shortly following. The book will also be available soon through Barnes & Nobles and Smashwords as well.

I would also like to ask for your help.

Please start by reading the book! I sincerely hope you will enjoy.

If you do, please share the news with your family and friends. Spread the word, through your e-mail lists, acquaintances, co-workers, social networks, book clubs, reading groups, the local paper or someone you know from a glossy magazine, old friends, friends of friends, the woman next door… You get the idea.

If you can, please leave reviews, especially with Amazon and Goodreads. This is how the word spreads beyond my little circle. And that’s what writing is for. To share. (So even if you don’t like it and leave a bad review, it still helps me, believe it or not. Though of course, I’m hoping you’ll like it!)

The success of this first book is up to people like you and efforts like this. I thank you all for your support.

Since starting High Mountain Muse at the end of 2008 and then moving onto this site a few years ago, I was surprised to learn one of the best parts of writing is sharing and reaching out. I have had the honor of getting to know some wonderful people. Some of you I know and have known for years though we have never met. You’ve become a part of our family, are on a first name basis around here. Like Amy in BC, Maggie in New Hampshire, Don in Vegas, Ann from Greenville. Some of you I have had the pleasure to meet because of writing, like Al from Garland, and Julian from across the ocean who we’ll have the pleasure of meeting here soon. And some of you I only got to know better, like Karen in Keller and Pia in Poland.

I don’t know why I’m sharing this now, except somehow I know it matters. Because at the end of the day, that’s what writing is all about. I read recently a renowned author state, “You must write for yourself and be-damned with the rest.” Well, maybe I’ll never be renowned, but I write for my readers. I write for you.

Maybe I’m caught up playing the heart strings today. Why not? It’s Valentine’s Day!

Thank you once again for your support and your help, your understanding and your encouragement.

An extra special thanks to the publishers of this book – Sammie & Dee and Nadene of Norlights Press. You guys are awesome!

With the warmest of wishes,

And best wishes for a Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

Gin

Just another day.

February 11, 2014February 11, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Logging continues. Now it’s the three of us and the dog. Sure he helps. Supervising. He lies in the deep snow of the river bed, head up, alert, and every time you look over at him, he’s looking over at you. When that gets old, he’s off barking something we never see. It must be working, all that howling, because nothing got us yet.

It’s forty degrees and snowing and we’re standing on top of the Rio Grande roasting hot dogs on long willow branches over the burning pile of slash. You can hear the river louder now, a little angry and thus a little frightening. A few places you see the black void broken through the solid white. The great unknown. You wonder how deep it is, how thick the ice upon which you stand.

More snow. Heavy, wet snow. Coming in waves. Too warm even to stick to my snowshoes.

And in the middle of it all, the red-wing blackbird arrives. A week early. Always seems like they choose stormy weather to herald their arrival, and I feel justified in leaving out seeds each morning on the picnic table outside our kitchen window so, selfishly, I can see them. There is comfort in attracting what little life remains on the mountain around us.

If the silent land

Would learn to scream

Then would we finally

Listen?

Balancing.

February 8, 2014February 8, 2014 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

I never wanted the same old thing. I was not ready for this winter to turn out like all the others. It did not.

After a dozen years and ten winters here, there are expectations. I fear such thing. Comfort can allow complacency. I would rather remain stirring in the winds.

The enticement and exhilaration of change.

It can be additive. We crave the new, that which is just out of reach, as does the horse pressing on the barbed wire to get hold of the grass on the other side.

Or so I thought. Yet I have comfort in this familiar view, the same steaming coffee cup in my hands, the same warm body to wrap my legs around at night, the sound of my dog’s heavy sigh close by as he rolls over contentedly in the early morning when I rouse. The sound of my son’s steady breathing as he sleeps in the other room with the open door and I tip toe about the cabin building the fire, getting the percolator on the stove, sitting down to write with a cat curled on either side of me.

I don’t want to cling to the familiar, but desire a balance between that which I can hold onto, with that which will not stop from shifting through my fingers.

Without this balance, would we not be floating with our feet firmly planted in the clouds, or in fear of lifting off from the ground and trying to fly?

History in the making, we are all seeing it in our changing world. It is frightening but fascinating. I don’t want to miss it. I don’t know if there is a thing I can do but help open a few eyes and remind people of the simple beauty of the wilds. These dying woods are more than just a resource. They are a part of our collective soul.

A little bit about the book…

Getting ready for the big day. Ups and downs. Talk about expectations!

Maybe it won’t be anything special. But of course it will, because every day is, no matter what they say, and that one is Valentine’s Day.

I was just a writer. I had time to write. Once you’re published, you become an author, and suddenly, your time is taken up marketing and you don’t have near the time you used to have to write. What’s with that?

When all I want to do is share my words, what I see, a story. I don’t want to be selling you something. Like myself. I ask you this, how do we share our words without selling out? Make the most without making a mess?

That said, I’m grateful for so many who have shared so much helpful information on just how we to go about promoting our books – if not to sell ourselves, than back to the main focus – sharing our words. This site, Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn, tops my list at the moment. Worth checking out if you’re looking for some good marketing suggestions and how-tos.

Finally, a quick question/request. Are any of you active members of Goodreads? I’ve just signed up and am trying to learn the ropes. I’m also looking to see if any of you might willing and able to read and post a review on Goodreads to get the conversation going there. Please let me know if you can help out or have some ideas and suggestions.

Field of snow.

February 3, 2014February 3, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Haven’t paid much mind to a sports game in about twenty years. I think after last night, it may be another twenty before I do so again. Here in Colorado, I thought it would be the thing to do. I’m sticking with snowshoes and horses. Me, my dog, the wind and wilds. No teams, no scores, no bets and big bummers.

I just don’t get it. We call it a sport but sit on the sofa to watch. And at the end, one team wins, one team loses. Like politics and religion. I’ll stay away from them all.

I send a text message to the boys in Denver. Tell them they’re better off watching the Weather Channel. Plenty of good news there. Another storm on the way. And another. And another. That’s how we like it.

Why I live here. Reason #873. A random number. As long as it is high, for the reasons are many.

Seventeen below yesterday morning. Thirty-seven above by the afternoon. Not a cloud in the blue bird blue sky. This morning, another storm rolls in, enwraps. Such comfort in this covering.

Winter is ours. The sour summer squalls, and I don’t mean the weather, we’ll outlast, out live and best of all, outshine.

I’m in no rush for it to warm up, melt out. Open ground and exposed earth are a long ways away. The grass I grow in the front window for the dog and cats gets mowed weekly with hand scissors and is presented to the horses as a treat. We’ll be just fine.

For now, cover them with ice, silence them with snow, as we breathe alone in this still white vast peace.

This is my world.

Simplicity in a shiver. Standing out there with your head tipped back as the snow falls on your lashes and lips and melts on your cheeks and the steam of your breath stings your nose and the dog has the right idea as he flops down and rolls.

How easy it is to forget when summer is so fleeting, the fires the drought the flood. These changing times and changing guard. Now the mountain regains control. I can’t help but laugh as I watch them flutter away crumpled and useless as last years leaves.

And us? We are left with the open page, pure white and fresh and free as the field of snow before me.

A Request for Reviews!

January 30, 2014February 3, 2014 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Looking for a few good reviewers!

If you want a sneak peak at The Color of the Wild, if you have time to seriously sit down and read over the next two weeks, and if you are willing and able to post a review on the sale’s page for the book on “Opening Day” or shortly thereafter (the launch date is scheduled for the 14th of February)… please e-mail me (gingetz@gmail.com). I’m looking for a few (actually, twenty-five of you) good readers.

This is a great opportunity for me to get some feedback (important stuff for my first book, and you, dear reader, are the perfect person to help!). And you get a free download of the book before it is available to the public.

If you are interested and would consider this, please e-mail me. I’d really appreciate your help – and hope you’ll enjoy. Think about it. Drop me a note if you have questions. I’ll be here.

And so, yes, you read that right. The launch date is set. The 14^th of February. Valentine’s Day! Isn’t that a nice choice! (Thank you Sammie, Dee & Nadene…)

Only two more weeks, and something I’ve been working on for years is really, finally happening. Wow.

My first book, The Color of the Wild will be released.

Like a wild beast let out of cage? At least, that’s what I’m kind of hoping. But maybe nothing happens on that day except you can buy the book on Amazon (please do!) and I can say I’m a published author. Nothing more? Well, the beer we bottled today will be ready to taste, and I’ll be busy baking heart shaped goodies for my sweetie. Yes, I am a sap.

But the book… for me, it’s incredibly wonderful and exciting, the beginning of something new, the reward of so many years working towards this, a future unfolding in the pages of one little book…

So, if this is all so great and wonderful, why the heck am I so scared?

Seriously. I’m worked up, nervous, on edge. I’m running around trying to be Wonder Woman and get everything done, ready, in place, set up, perfectly. Do all I can, learn all I can thanks to the help of other author’s blogs and web sites and forums. And at the end of the day I feel I’m spitting in the wind.

Me? A published author? What if my efforts are futile and no one reads it? What if it’s a bomb? What if the reviews (if I’m even lucky enough to get them) are all terrible? What if my writing really stinks? It’s like a day of reckoning, I guess.

Any other authors out there willing and able to share a few first-time-publishing-blues stories? Please share. I’d love to hear. I sure could use a little encouragement right about now.

Oh, and besides working on the marketing, which I knew nothing about before Friday, and now I’m suddenly a self-professed pro, we’ve got a new piece of heavy equipment into the ranch, we’re finishing up logging before the river opens in this heat, getting the house plans designed, bottling that new batch of beer… and my son is on his way home. Yes, here’s the most special news of all: Forrest is done with his job at the South Pole for this season, and is coming home!

Progress.

January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 / Gin Getz / 13 Comments

Might look like no more than a pile of logs to you. Looks like my new home to me. I see walls, window frames, floor boards, shelves, a kitchen table.

And on that hillside across river where these trees came from, all I see now are small green trees. No more big brown ones.

I know it won’t last. Those ones will go too. But in the meanwhile, it looks so… alive. I had forgotten what a living forest looks like.

Quick updates, and back to work. Got the weekend off from being Lady Logger. Instead, diving in, finding myself caught up in my words, at times struggling to stay afloat, as the next manuscript emerges like an all consuming wave. So much for moderation.

Stop. Breathe. Sit back in the sun and pop open a cold one. (Actually, I’m not much of a beer drinker, but it sure sounds good, sometimes. Especially since it’s our first batch of home brew.This coming week we’ll be bottling our next batch. I call this one Logger Lager.)

Last I heard from the publisher, the first book is off to the printer for proof copies! Yippee!!!!

And now, I leave you with this.

I finally found it. (Rather, Bob found it first.)

Beauty in the beetle kill.

A natural work of art hiding on the inside of every log. Just peel the bark and there it is, waiting to be revealed…

Expose.

January 24, 2014 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Forget the fancy fluff that poetry can bring

when all I meant to do

was show you that which lies before me

at my feet uncovered by the melting snow

in the silence of the early morning still dark blue

red raven comes and settles upon my mind

I remain hidden

behind the looking glass

Talk to me I tell you

and you turn to me and stare

into your own eyes

An intimate view.

January 20, 2014January 21, 2014 / Gin Getz / 11 Comments

An intimate view.

Stand here with me on the mountain, exposed to the elements.

Look closely.

A mid winter thaw.

Can you see it? Feel it?

Little secrets softly revealed.

hike 7

A snowshoe breaking trail along the river in among the dying trees. Well, I guess anywhere you go here, you’ve got dying trees now. The New Normal? I look to find the lighter side of… death. Where? How? (See, I’m asking new questions. It’s not just Why?)

Before & after (or still in between)

Some of you are probably way ahead of me and have seen this one before. (Where have I been?)

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” A great quote by Aldo Leopold from “A Sand County Almanac.”

I found my community, the neighbors I was seeking, the friends with whom I would belong, among the Blue Spruce. And now I watch them leave me.

For the aspen behave like summer people, shedding their vibrant foliage as the tourist close their shutters and leave for the season. Aspen are a shorter lived tree, averaging perhaps 60 or 70 years (without drought and warming trend). Yet the spruce are harder to start, slower to grow, and once they get going, live one, two, three hundred years or more. Usually. Now I watch the young ones die.

To hell with this damning death! I’m turning my view to something full of life!

For those who read the article in Ranch & Reata and might just be wondering… This is Bayjura today.

Some thoughts on horses. For those who have chosen a life with horses. And for those who wish they would, and maybe someday will.

Insight to the heart of a horse(wo)man.

A horse(wo)man is a different breed.

On one hand, she can move with a simple suggestion, a subtle signal, an animal weighing ten times more than she does. On the other hand, she’ll climb back in the saddle after being bucked off onto hard ground. Once. By the second time, she might be too mad. (A good time to keep your distance or walk away.)

She acts not through force yet the horse finds comfort in her direction, not because she is sticky sweet, but because she is strong enough.

In her consistency, she creates trust; the horse becomes confident in her solid strength, and at the very same time, she becomes stronger because of the horse at her side or beneath her.

She has a sense of responsibility, beyond but not above daily care, continuing through all interactions and communications. She works with a steady course and direction, for the horse chooses chaos no more than the handler. It is an unnatural state for horse and horse(wo)man.

She strives to be the person her horse wants her to be. The gentle leader. She leads with softness, clarity, point and purpose. Calm, consistent, clear communication. Fairness. Firmness. A balance of confidence and compassion. She is learning when to push onward; and when enough is enough.

Reminders for myself as well as those of you who are going through the mid-winter no-can-ride blues.

Don’t let anyone stop you if it’s your dream, but don’t expect it handed to you on any silver platter. It is more than likely going to show up in the form of a manure rake.

Enjoy. It is a wonderful life.

Within.

January 16, 2014 / Gin Getz / 3 Comments

For a moment, I look within. Not too long. It can be scary in there.

Not out side, at the trees, the mountain.

For a change, I don’t look around. My eyes are closed. My heart is open instead.

I’m sitting in a perfect circle of exposed dirt at the base of one of my favorite big old spruce trees just a little ways up the Ute Creek trail in the Weminuche Wilderness. My back is pressed against the rough bark and my snowshoes stick up before me boldly on the ends of my outstretched legs. Gunnar is beside me of course, sitting, on the look out. I’m safe.

Forrest’s Throne, we call this tree. Another one with a name. For the many times we stopped here, stared out over the Rio Grande Reservoir in all her seasons, and he rested at the base enwrapped in the bulk of aged roots.

I am sitting there now, thinking deeply about what Amy shared in response to my last post. Wisdom, insight. More welcome when it comes from a friend, a dear friend of the family as she has become, though none of us have met her yet. Perhaps the words she shared would not have rung so true if I was not battling this concern within my mind already. A confirmation. Drilling it in.

On anger.

Answers come.

Less with mind than with heart.

Anger moves, motivates, and must be left behind.

A hot coal under my seat.

I jump up. Put out the flame. Set back and breathe again.

Balance the flame of passion, of anger, of how to draw the line.

Whatever happens, please don’t let me fizzle out and turn lukewarm.

And don’t let me burn too bright I scorch, burn myself, turn you away.

Seek.

Try.

I will make mistakes.

As I will make love, and may make you mad.

Not intentionally, of course.

It’s just part of living life the fullest way I can.

At times, my heart acts stronger than my mind.

How does one find balance?

Anger.

It opens my eyes, but closes my heart.

My eyes are open.

Now, it is time to leave it behind.

Will you see a gentler me?

I’ll try.

Though as a friend visiting the other day said, there’s something about those Jersey girls.

Can I use my “spunk” (his word, not mine) in positive ways?

Yes, I can.

Just watch what I can do.

Anger.

As a form of passion.

Passion can be our greatest motivator and raison d’être.

Or it can eat us alive.

Let it move me forward. But not leave you behind.

This is the message that came to me, Amy, in my walking meditation:

Get on the right path and watch doors fly open.

How do I get from here to there?

Step on board.

It’s that simple.

Move on.

Forward.

Positive.

Partner with the enemy. (Your wise words, Amy, and those of Nelson Mandela.)

Just write and write well.

Show the intimate side of this situation. That’s what I can do.

Yes, leave the “why” behind. I am not a victim.

Turn towards the “what” and the “how” and the “where” and “when.” Share what I see. Be a part of the solution.

Maybe that’s why I’m here.

Stick with my path, share my gift, and perhaps you can use it, perhaps you will hear, perhaps it will help. And maybe it won’t. But at the end of the day, I’ll sleep better for believing at least I had the guts and grit (and spunk) to try.

To try. To stand for what I believe in.

Without burning bridges.

Anger may be what got me started.

I’ve started. Now I can let it go. Of the anger, not the path, not the movement. Anger will no longer bring me forward, only hold me back. Leave those I care about behind. That’s not what I really want, is it?

Let it go and replace it with… sharing my gift. Writing about the intimate view I have, I see, I touch and smell and taste and feel. I am here for a reason. Anger helped me remain here; anger helped me fight to be here. I swear, if it were not for anger, I would be long gone by now. It gave me strength when I needed it. Now I own it. I am here. And it is time to leave that anger behind and move forward.

I don’t need to fight for it; Maybe I just need to listen to it now.

Let me tell you what I hear.

Listen.

I’ll tell you what I hear. I don’t need to say more.

Where? Where will I go? How will I get there?

Start.

Write.

Share what I see. Share what I feel.

Look deeply, write passionately. Bleed, as Hemmingway said and we writers will do. Bleed, I do like the trees with their sap. Bleed to share the life, the beauty, the reality of the world I live in, we both care for. Passionately.

Our weather comes from southern Cal. The rest of Colorado may be watching the Pacific Northwest and the Great Basin, but here in the southern San Juans, we watch what hits Baja and get excited when they get rain this time of year. That means we’ll get snow.

So, the continued California drought concerns us. We’ve been in what some say is a twenty year drought. Call it what you will.

Every year we hope. Every day we watch the weather and look for another Big One. And as is typical for this region, more often than not, it isn’t there. It isn’t coming. Though don’t get me wrong. It’s hard to complain about blue skies and sun.

Back to my snow shoe. Trying to balance that anger, that passion; working with you, not against you and still shaking things up without turning my back or having you turn your back to me.

I return home after feeling I found the answers only to see the news. Fires on the north side of L.A.

So the positive? The answers? The direction that I long for, I lust for?

I’m still working on it… back to square one… something to do with trust in the Earth, and belief in her eternal beauty.

Call me what you will: angry, passionate, or a Jersey girl. But I do have that.

Belief in eternal beauty of our Earth.

Gin Getz

On the intimate connection between person and place. Sharing words and images of wilds within and around.

photography

Yesterday.

Today!

Just another day.

Balancing.

Field of snow.

A Request for Reviews!

Progress.

Expose.

An intimate view.

Within.

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