simple living

Dreaming

/ Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Within a stone’s toss from our Little Cabin is the outhouse, a close and convenient distance from the front door of a cabin without indoor plumbing. On the east side of that outhouse, like a small wooden box perched on the bluff over the river with a view as spectacular as any you could dream up, is a bluebird house. Before we moved back down to this cabin for the season, renting out the house we built and called home once again to a series of grateful tourists, the bluebirds moved in. They were disturbed when that outhouse began receiving regular use, but determined to stay put.

The couple remained, the eggs have hatched, tiny squeaking chirps amuse us as we sit silently on the throne on the other side of the old weathered wood wall, and from our table in the cabin we watch the proud parents busy throughout the day catching bugs to feed their growing brood.

Determination.
The power of a dream.
And the emptiness to be without.

Even before he was born, it never occurred to me Forrest would not receive a full tuition scholarship. I know that sounds crazy. Much of what I do and believe does. But I’ve not only believed it, I’ve worked towards it for the past eighteen years. I saw no reason why it could not be. And took a lot of steps along the way to make it happen. And then so did Forrest. And ultimately, he made it happen. He’s learning to dream, and seeing how dreaming is the first step to creating.

Now I find myself uncertain of my dreams. They are distant and vague. The clear images which have guided me into these often crazy situations throughout my life currently are too murky to steer me clearly. I’ve been beaten down after the past eight years of plans torched in spite of my efforts. I’m not sure if I blame bad luck, bad relations, or bad choices. Probably a combination of all three. And still I have to realize that success or failure, both are mine.
Now I falter. My resolve is weakened. I question myself. It is one thing to be a dreamer, I remind Forrest, but I have and will always strive to be one who works towards and makes my dreams into reality.

A doer, he says, not just a talker.
Yes, I say. But I don’t want to just be empty words. I want to be actions. Living proof.

How do I get myself to dream again when right now it seems my days are consumed putting out fires as they arise? Moving out, moving in, moving far away, guests arriving, horse training, college paperwork, business, ditch work, completing the subdivision… Even the simple things like finding a place to take a shower after a day of hard work. I tackle the list in order of priority. Dreaming is not at the top of the list, and the list is in a cycle of growth. Wind stirs the fire.

The additional energy needed to build, and rebuild, has been minimal. I’m trying to catch up with the fires, jump the line and run free and clear.

But I’m done being burned and consumed. My priorities are no longer this business, my guests (yes, my calling in life of providing a clean and comfortable short term get-away for a bunch of every changing tourist is complete – I can check that one off my list). It’s time to close one book and begin a new one. Scary, exciting, wild and uncertain.

The wind picks up. It’s bringing rain clouds this time. A storm blows in. The embers sizzle and thin trails of smoke wisp up as the rain pours down.

In the midst of the storm over the Rio, I feel my dreams stirring like dormant seeds in a parched land. Soak, expand, and allow the dreams to swell. Something is taking shape.

Return

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments


We return.

Greeted by the soft light of the amber evening sun, long shadows, the smell of horses and clean air, and the close rush of the Rio, now a foot lower on the bank than it was five days earlier as we were preparing to depart.

Home. Simple and pure. A little one room log cabin, now flanked by a storage shed and a simple deck of scrap wood connecting the two. There, where I stand in the morning sun and wash my dishes in two well worn steel tubs of water heated on the old cook stove.

We settle in, lighting the Coleman lantern and that old stove and feel very happy to be home.  Home in all its simplicity. Home for now.

Away from the fancy Four Star hotel and restaurant fare served on real plates with cloth napkins with smiling faces who were used to strangers coming and going when I carried on with a sense of permanence, ever changing but understood by hotel staff.

Here, home, back where I can clear my mind with the sound of the river pulsing through the open door, the thin old panes of glass on closed windows. I stir the pot simmering on the stove, stuff in another chunk of wood, and stare out into the disappearing view. Close by, Gunnar runs in circles in his favorite patch of long, wet grass. His home. For a moment, he is wild, and I let him be.

We step out for our evening ritual of brushing teeth under the stars, a fine necessity when one is without indoor plumbing, and the smell of wood smoke lingers like a heavy incent, frankincense in the church at Christmas when I was a child.

My temple, I think now, as I stare up into the ever expanding array of stars, and the Milky Way sweeps liberally across and down to the south east in a cloud of open promises.

Graduation

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

Sand between my toes. Not what I have felt in years, living in a land of snow and wool socks, jagged rocks, boggy pasture and cowboy boots.

I have painted my toenails for first time in over twenty years, borrowing “city clothes” from my mother, sandals straight off her feet to be here. It is special.

Sand pours through my fingers, back onto the beach, limitless possibilities of patterns in the sand, forever changed by wind and water and my footprints which will last only until the tide returns.

I think of sand filtering through the confines of an hourglass, slowly shifting, piling, only to be turned again as we watch the next section fill. This is how we tell time.

Changing times.

Times of growth. Always growing. Nothing remains the same. Only now we take the time to acknowledge and celebrate.

Graduation. My son’s achievement of completing high school. In his class of one, he is here to share with others who have achieved similar. The balance of education and life.

It’s been up to him. Alone. I don’t teach him. He has learned to learn himself. His mind has not only grown with knowledge, but with the self-discipline and skills of directing, focusing, motivating and empowering himself. He has learned at eighteen what I seen some still don’t know.

And he understands the power and passion of work.

Where will his dreams lead him from here?

A new beginning.

As my greatest dream to date is being fulfilled.

Only to have more dreams, new dreams, variations on a theme, or beginning to sing a new song.

I love you, Forrest Nile Getz.

Connections

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Sometimes it seems it is all about connection.
Connections growing, holding on to established ones, clinging to the ones we had and fear are slipping away, and longing for ones we do not have.
Connection to each other, our family and friends, our dreams and goals and aspirations, the land.
It often comes back to the land, though our society seems less connected; a void left unfulfilled.
And suddenly we begin to care from where our food comes, or about the change of color of a once green hillside now red and brown from beetle kill, or recognize the subtle sound of a single trout upon an otherwise still evening pool after catching the last fly of the day.
A forgotten connection on the surface deeper than we will ever erase.

Planting Peas

/ Gin Getz / 10 Comments

Because life is too darned short to sit around and wait until you find the perfect place, the perfect weather, the perfect conditions.

Who defines “perfect” anyway?

Sometimes you just have to leap before the net appears.

And plant before the last frost free date. 

Because up here, there is no guarantee of a frost free date.

Who says you can’t?

As our friend Marv once told me, the word “can’t” isn’t spoken in this house.

So, I can plant peas.  Even in the snow…

And today, lettuce, chard, carrots, radish, beets and bok choi.

And maybe the net will appear, and I’ll have a basket full of bounty from these humble raised beds.

Or maybe I can just say I had fun trying.  Because really, just being out there, working the soil, yes, even in the heavy falling spring snow, sure feels pretty close to perfect to me.