Releasing.

April 3, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Spring winds like ocean waves roar

so far we are from the open sea

releasing brown waters of wild creeks

bringing Sedona sands in sepia skies

And leaving pink snow behind

A silent red tail over the treetops camouflaged in fat flakes of falling snow.

Had I not been looking, I would not know he was there. Back upon our mountain. I am waiting to hear his screech, the haunting cry that carries far against still frozen cliffs held back from the sun.

Snow drips from the red roof like rain.

Increasing exposure of naked earth. Transformation from a white and grey world to one that is shades of brown. Then all is covered again.

We are here while the bear hibernates still and elk remain in lower ground.

Stirred up in spring winds depositing pieces from some faraway land long exposed to the elements.

And the questions of what will be, will happen and what will tomorrow bring

Are answered with maybe, possibly, who knows, and we’ll see…

And what I hear in the wind is this:

What do I have to lose?

And all I can think to reply

Is a winter’s coat.

Birthday week winds down. All my boys, well most of them, celebrated in seven days. Gunnar, Bob, Crow, Tresjur and finally Forrest. Time to get back to work.

We had it all planned. Finally, fencing. My favorite spring chore, would you believe? Not a popular preference as seen from most fences around these parts found in various stages of disrepair. But I love it. How could I not? Out there with my boys, the mountain, sun and soft spring dirt.

Only it’s not dry. It’s still frozen. Barely warm enough to hold a fence stretcher and pliers. And another storm blows in. So this week I don’t think we’ll be working on fences just yet.

Working class. Leisure being a choice we earn, not a life we are given. Do we define ourselves according to our work, what we do, our “job” and how many hours we work? These are things I’m reconsidering from a set of rules I once was taught. I don’t know the answers, though see they are starting to change.

This is no poor-me syndrome. Don’t you see how lucky we are? You and me both, my friend. We have so much. Maybe too much.

Life is at first a gift, and then it is ours. We work for it. And thus we can create it to be whatever we dream.

A dear friend among the leisure class writes of his life based on “ease, health, happiness, and comfort.”

Now health and happiness hold great value, but ease and comfort? Why?

Our bounty is earned, our rewards respected, and the possibilities are endless. We are not bound by idle time and the need to be pleased and the fear of losing comfort.

A woman once shared a story of the brass ring she missed. I wonder – was there only one?

In my ability to quickly stir up rage within me (for better and for worse) I’d say scrap the tears, turn around and forge a new ring.

Don’t you see these opportunities presented with every challenge?

In theory. For I am certain I did not and do not always when I live through them, but it sure sounds good to say.

The last word(s):

Much gratitude to these website than mentioned The Color of the Wild this week. I so appreciate the support and encouragement! Thank you:

Indies Unlimited

Bestseller Bound

And… I’m very excited about this… I’ll be at the Tattered Cover in Denver in June as part of their Rocky Mountain Land Series. If you’re from or in the Denver area, please do stop in and join us. Time, date and location to be announced shortly.

Finally, I wanted to share this link with you. I posted it on Facebook but don’t believe I’ve put it here, and it’s worth sharing. It’s important. This should be required reading for anyone who cares about Colorado and our mountains:

2013 Report on the Health of Colorado’s Forests

Remains.

March 31, 2014 / Gin Getz / 5 Comments

Remains of last season.

Reminders of what could be.

And where I shall remain.

So it’s spring.

March 24, 2014 / Gin Getz / 8 Comments

On the first day of Spring, Forrest atop the mountain behind our ranch, looking down our valley and beyond.

So it’s spring. Yes, here too. In spite of the single digit mornings and a pasture of unbroken white.

I remember what the season should bring, could bring. Rich soil turned up in garden beds, fresh linens from the line on our bed. Sweet sap running in the trees. Foals romping outside my window. I don’t have that here and now. None of it. Only memories. So strong I can smell the earth and the sweet sap and the new born baby’s breath.

It’s different here. Still spring, the emerging of warm earth from her frozen slumber, but here and now with a new set of definitions. Like the sighting of the rufous sided towhee scratching at the seeds I toss out beneath our picnic table, and awaiting the song of the frogs. Thinning snow that turns to slush in the afternoons and light so intense on the spring glazed surface even cloudy days seem blinding.

We learn to adjust. Human beings are remarkably adaptable, no matter how stubborn we may seem. No place is perfect. Thing about this place, with all the trials and tribulations to get here and stay here: it’s ours. That means something to me. More so with each passing year, growing connection, memories embedded in the soil. A glance around and I can point to what fence we built, cabin remodeled, road or trail constructed, which mountain I climbed with which dog in what sort of weather. A board on the old bedroom door frame records Forrest’s growth in faded pencil marks, and generations of horses – mother, daughter, grandmother – await me at feeding time.

Out on a snowshoe alone with the dog. Gratitude. It’s easy to find it here. Ten things a day, a friend and I prompt each other when we find ourselves forgetting. Yes, I do forget. The space, the light, the beauty, thin air, a mountain that looks as fancy as a wedding cake, solitude, silence but for spring winds and the opening river and birds. Yes, spring brings such song in the early mornings before the wind picks up and late in the afternoon as the shadows are tossed long and indigo upon sugary snow.

Living. Dying. This season. Every season.

I remember the dread that came with the risk of the open road bringing conflict and chaos along with cars. Now I await the open road as the open pasture when we can begin building our place on our land that we have fought for and won.

Bob takes the Cat down there in the afternoon slush and cuts through the open white. The first step towards breaking ground. Frost just below surface. We are early still.

And I remember the fear that hung heavy in the spring storms back then with each birth. I would rather not remember. I turn my attention to the mob of chicks scampering about in the giant dog crate between the planters of newly spread lettuce seed and the grass for the cats and dog. Their happy chirps blending with the melody from the various birds feeding at the picnic table right outside the window.

And now I know

the loss of none

As if I could remember

a babe crying to be nursed

And the sound of children’s laughter

The gentle nicker of the mare to foal

The song of two blue birds

on the top of a spruce tree still green

Where they first arrive here

every year.

The sap won’t run this year.

At times emptiness is a relief.

Now I know what is beneath the slipping bark.

I take out the draw knife for the first time this season. Peeling a small log needed for a remodel project on a neighbor’s bathroom. With every pull of the knife, tiny white life revealed. Ten, twenty, maybe more. Slicing through life. Larva.

I know it’s crazy but still I feel sadness. I am taking life. Can I look at them as the enemy? Who is to blame? I daresay, not the beetles.

Will every log I peel for our house reveal the same?

I need a shower. Rid myself of their remains which has stuck onto my skin, in my hair, my jeans after working out in the wind.

Author’s Update.

With regards to The Color of the Wild, much thanks to all of you readers who posted reviews – what a wonderful help you have been – and for those writers who took the time to share reviews and interviews on their web sites and blogs, especially:

Amy of SoulDipper

Carrie of The Shady Tree

Ray from New Book Journal

Kat from Indies Unlimited

More big news this week is that I just got the word that a select number of Barnes and Nobles bookstores will be stocking The Color of the Wild on their shelves. Please take a look at your local store and let me know if you see it there!

As for what’s next… Patience (I tell myself). It’s in the works. Two so close to completion, but we’re not there yet. And I’m not ready to be there. No, it’s not fear. Crazy? Maybe.

This is where my attention should be – getting the next one finished up and ready to go – and yet I find myself shunning the process, intentionally. I’m not ready. Isn’t that strange? It is not lack of words, as you, dear reader, can see. It is something else. I need more time. I need to find a balance between pushing myself, and holding back. With distance comes understanding. It’s not reading the same thing over and over. It allows me to see it all anew. To pick up the manuscript with a fresh perspective and a bright, eager mind. Editing need not be a chore. It can be a pleasure – if you love what you wrote. And if you don’t , here’s your chance to fix it, and fall in love all over again.

I don’t know how it is for other writers, but for me, I am learning it has to do with trust in timing. Trust and timing. And knowing when to take a break. To step back before diving in head first… Then take a deep breath and go for it!

For now, I let it go. Brew like the beer. Though I’m starting to get thirsty.

Waiting for words to ripen.

It won’t be long before I open the pages up again, and maybe turn them into fine wine.

Revealing.

March 19, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Another big moon comes

and goes as

the season of life

and death that is

spring unfolds

somewhere, maybe

here, maybe

tomorrow today

as the cat lays in

the grass planted

last fall inside

the kitchen window

and waits.

And I wait impatiently for the horses to begin shedding their shaggy coats just so I can have reason to spend more time with them as they bustle about on dry dirt and vie for the attention of my curry comb and close breath.

A mourning dove shows up early, lured by warmer air only to find no more than small patches of open ground, not ideal for a ground feeder, and the seeds I throw out daily are of no interest.

Down at one of the few open places where the Rio Grande runs clear and black like licorice beneath her otherwise still white ribbon, a pair of Mallards swims from one end of the open place to another and fly off as the dog and I cross river, me on snow shoes, he on broad feet with long fur between his pads that have only rarely touched bare earth in so many months.

Spring approaches the high country like a chrysalis revealing.

After weeks of crunching more numbers that I have since… ever… and straining my eyes where by my reading glasses no longer seem strong enough, I’m done playing architect, done with our house plans. We await the opening of white pasture and the cutting into ground, and in how long, too long, not soon enough, we will be in there living, breathing, walking around,, parking muddy boots by the door, sitting at the kitchen table with burning candles and full plates, watering house plants, baking bread, making love, kicking back in my claw foot tub and writing while the sun comes up in my nook.

So much for the simplicity of a little log cabin. These drawings, ten pages from the bottom of the concrete footer to the top of my writing nook, seem so complex. Does it help or hinder to have plans drawn up by those who have built, not just those who have planned it on paper? I do not know, but I’m ready to put down my pencil and pick up my draw knife. I’m ready to build, to break ground and pour cement and peel and stack logs and with tired muscles and sore hands sit back at the Little Cabin and watch the new one come to life.

In darkness.

March 11, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Rotten snow and dirt on the road below the ranch. The forecast says it’s far from over. The white expanse of pasture before me confirms. Looks like winter, feels like spring. Chicks in a box by the wood stove in our cabin making spring sounds, and the first robin on the open hill above the Rio.

Single digits when I wake and watch the passing of a magenta sky. A pink face on an otherwise white mountain peak outside my cabin window. Chances are it will be fifty degrees warmer by mid afternoon.

The boys are still sleeping – so much for new time. Give them another day or two to adjust. Can’t get much done in the dark anyway. Time carries little meaning here.

With fat parka and heavy boots I head out to feed the horses. They count on my coming to feed by light in the sky. I see them lined up along the fence, ready. Calmer now in the end of winter warming air. They lie in the deep wet snow mid day and sleep with the soothing of the sun. They are ready for solid ground and shedding. They’re ready for attention and a good trim. They’re ready to work, as I am ready to ride, and still we both must wait.

I remember the frogs in March under the willow tree on Barn Hill where it only barely froze and very rarely could Forrest sled down fresh snow in the early mornings before the NorCal mildness would melt it off by noon. I could hear them at night when I stepped out to smoke. Living now at ten thousand feet (and I’d like to say wisdom comes with age, but there are enough young readers out there who will be quick to tell me otherwise) I haven’t smoked in years. (Yes, that’s a good sign when you no longer know how many years without thinking long and hard.) Now I make an effort to go out with the dog every night, crunch over the snow up the little hill behind the cabin and stand at the edge of the trees while the dog waits for me, watches over while I do what appears to be nothing at all. I look up at the stars and listen. So deep, still and silent here.

A land as infinite as the stars, it seems at night.

In darkness.

And as quickly as

it came

it left

and I am left

to wonder, why.

In my dreams I am

underwater trying

to breathe

waking wide eyed

short of breath

and gasping and

then just like that

it is gone.

And I dance under the starry night skies once again.

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?

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.

Solstice Harvest.

December 21, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Solstice Harvest.

Bountiful.
Not the word one usually chooses for the darkest day.
Bountiful.
So it is today.

Solace as winter begins.
Feels like we’ve been here for quite some time already, snowed in as we have been since before Thanksgiving.

in the darkness
we learn to see
with fingers
ears and tongue
dancing
in the cave
awakening
while others sleep warm
in their thick brown fur
feeding off their own fat

Solstice Harvest.

A contradiction, you may say.
But look! It is!
There is lettuce, grown in abundance, picked fresh for the first time since planting a month or so ago from the big planter beneath the south facing window.

And then there are the trees. The very same ones I have seen out my kitchen window day in, day out, for years, dying, dead. Our trees. Taken by the beetle. Left to await what? The fires that are the only way we know to clear the waves of destruction this chaos has left behind?

Ah, but my trees shall have a better fate than burning.
You can take your ignorance, innocence and inability to act/react.
I will take my trees.

For now I don’t just see slipping bark and fallen needles, pin holes and dried up drip marks of golden sap.
Now I see timber, frames, walls, boards, beams and vigas.
Now, with each tree fallen and skid across the frozen Rio, I see my cabin.
And really, you know what that means.
Now I see new life.

Of mind and mountain.

December 8, 2013December 9, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

And then the roar
a deep guttural sound
rumbling the rocks of the frozen sides of

mountain above the river

slowly emerging
from beneath the snow
that falls in hopes of quieting

Mountain and mind
but neither will be subdued
And so I run

slow in deep snow
wild best unleashed
fiery wrath uncontained

By civilization and obligation

and so what more shall we do than let ourselves

Live
wild and naked and free
in the world we build

each for ourselves
our own heaven or hell
how loud do you beat your drum?

oh so quiet
in this little (cold) white world I live in
Now… give me a cloudy day

a sky full of passion, pain and promise
There is no depth in this dazzling blue
I stop

listen for the voice of the wilds

The trees, the wind, the river
under the early winter’s load of ice and snow
This is story I now must tell

Leaving egos and self importance and pity
Buried beneath the heavy load of ice and snow
Screaming to be heard

and the voices I will whisper
when the moon is dark
and I’m out there on a cloudless night

with no more than the trees
to shelter me
but maybe you’re there too.

Writing a new beginning.

November 29, 2013 / Gin Getz / 13 Comments

Of my words, of my self.

“The Color of the Wild.” What will be the first of many. None but Harold and Hillel and A.J. have read earlier versions. Now there is a new one, because if nothing else this past year, I have learned and grown as a writer. So my words must change.

Though there has been so much more. Life is neither static nor stagnant.

As my mighty Rio flows, so shall I.

Let me start by telling you this.

I’m still here.

That wasn’t my intention when I wrote this. I wanted to be gone. I don’t know what happened. Really, nothing. The economy crashed, the real estate market collapsed, our debt grew, and our best wishes of selling and making a million that would be our ticket out of here was held on a string for years and then finally just fell off. Faded away.

At some point, we figured, well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s not so bad after all.

We tried. We looked. All over Colorado. Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Northern California. And found nothing. Nothing that compared to this. Nothing as remote, as beautiful, and breathtaking. Every time we piled into the pickup, that same one Bob had when I met him, and drove for days on end looking, skimming through ads, getting directions from brokers that thought we were nuts, hiking out of the way and skirting through fences, off dirt roads and in deep snow, driving through town after little rural town with “Meth Kills” billboards and women not much older than me with thinning hair and missing teeth smiling and waving at us from the front porch of the local bar, the only open business in town. Bob and Forrest in the front seat, since Forrest is now taller than both of us. Me and a dog in the back. Now it’s Gunnar. My bold partner with whom I brave the wilds. Before him, there was old Alan. Alan Shepherd. His head on my lap, my head turned out the back window smeared with his nose prints, looking for something I never found.

And then we’d drive back to our mountain. And when we’d start to get close, you could feel it. The excitement. The thrill. The connection. Damn, it’s beautiful. It takes your breath away every time. It high, harsh, wild and free, and the most beautiful place on this earth. It’s our mountain, our home.

Now the in-law matters are behind us, the trees around us dead from beetles and burning from continued drought. I gelded my stallion but keep riding, training and getting new horses to work with. We’re still digging ditch. Forrest is working for the winter in the South Pole, and Bob and I are here. Happy. I didn’t know I’d say that when I wrote this. And you know me; maybe next year I’ll say something else.

This year brought us closer to the land, strengthened our connection, tested in terrible challenges starting with driest year the mountain has seen. Then there were fires, the big one, which burned a hundred thousand acres of wilds and came within miles of our front door. Then rains, and floods and early snows.

I think what happened was this. You define yourself when you defend your space.

Brothers in arms! Or sisters of the earth. I don’t know. I don’t know if it matters. All I know is I learned I’d fight for our land as I’d fight for my family. And I’m not known to be really easy going.

So, here we are.

Here.

Home.

Gin Getz

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

seasons

Releasing.

Remains.

So it’s spring.

Revealing.

In darkness.

Just another day.

Field of snow.

Solstice Harvest.

Of mind and mountain.

Writing a new beginning.

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