prose

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.

A little world

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Snow falls. Fat wet flakes. Big and chunky, each the size of cornflakes on a ground as white as milk.

A secret between the mountain and me. There is no one else around. She sends me off with this intimate moment. A soundless farewell. Words, song, fanfare, lights and crowds would not suit me, do not suit her. We need not speak, only stand together, I at her soft and white and unrefined alter.

This silence of heavy snow. It is mine. As a ballerina on a muted stage with no one there to see. We dance together uninhibited. We sing of silence in darkness.

I stand on the porch, the overhanging roof protecting me; the warm glow from the kitchen door left wide open spills a perfect rectangle on the snow. The dog returns with big white spots across his head and back.

My little world. Unrealistic I have been told. But who defines real when I feel taste touch and smell what one might call serene, but see no deeper than the smooth surface? Snow, thick and heavy like a warm blanket tucking me in to a world I am about to leave. The satellite dish is covered. Communications are cut. I am isolated. Why are we told that is a terrible thing when I find myself so safe within these silent arms? I am content talking to the dog.

There is no sound, no smell, no movement of air, only the softly falling flakes in a quiet dance, a silent film in black and white, I stare out the window and wait now for the lightening of day to reveal more to me. And for a moment my mind is as tranquil and subdued as the world around me. My little world.

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.

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.