simple living

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.