Together.

September 6, 2025 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Building got the better of me this past week; no time to write, with a huge push to get the roof built.

Seems like all work and no play… yet tomorrow we’re taking off… something special to celebrate…the roof is built (metal comes this next week) and our anniversary is today.

For now, I’m just sharing this, because this is what matters most: LOVE. For those who have stuck it out together through hard knocks and tough times, and found yourself belonging in the shared place and space of long term love – something I never thought I’d be lucky enough to experience – I hope you’ll relate to this:

funny that all it takes

is opening eyes

to see

that you are there

beside me

right where we belong

Twenty-two years ago today, we married. We committed to become the family we chose. And in those years, we learned what unconditional love, duty and devotion, kindness and forgiveness feels like. In those years, we learned and grew, we flourished and failed, we longed and lusted and feared and found footing to stand strong, and we moved and built more than I’d like to admit.

It’s been a wild ride. The only stability was our love. Of each other. Our son. And the high wild lands where we choose to live. No matter how hard things got, how lost we felt, how tired we became, at the end of each day (or sometimes it took until the morning after) we knew we were no longer alone. And we knew someone else was counting on us, relying on us, needing us. So you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to work beside one another right where you belong.

Now we are here. In person and place and time.

Slowly we have settled in, learning the lay of the land, the feel of dried grass beneath bare feet or mud caked on our boots. Listening to the wind, tasting the water, letting the first sun of morning fall across our rawhide faces, allowing our fingers to find their place in the others hand when we walk. Finding our place, here. Finding the balance of lust and longing, energy and exhaustion, dirt and discomfort, strain and stress as we kept on keeping on building the dream – our family home and mountain homestead. Something we both wanted, together.

So it went, and so it still goes. Building together. A safe place to bring dreams to life.

Sitting at a different kitchen table, gazing out at a different view, things are different here. The mountain, the river, the elevation and air. Even the bears and birds and colors of the season as it begins to fade and summer browns and sky grays and we start to look up at distant peaks to see if snow has fallen yet.

Our relationship is different now. A little less spark but more warmth from the coals and that is what cooks the stew. And like the stew that has been simmering and been stirred and added to with care and taste and time, together we are each richer within than either of us imagined had we not chosen one another.

Maybe I am different, too. Not in spite of what we went through. But because of it. I am more. I am fuller. I am deeper and wiser. In part because of you. In part because of time. Aging is beautiful thing. At least, most days I think it is.

The wisdom of aging is perhaps best found in the skill of knowing what baggage to leave behind.

You cannot outrun the past. The past is the path that led you to where you are today.

In moving, you leave where you were behind. In a way, you leave who you were behind as well. You become the blank slate. The clay upon the potters’ wheel. You are both the clay and the hands that shape it.

In remaining, however, you face the challenge of your past lingering all around you like last years leaves that still need to be raked, and overgrown underbrush that catches and tangles as you try to walk through the woods. But you know your way through and sometimes there is comfort in knowing what to expect, what it will feel like, how bad it can be.

And how good.

Together we have done both.

Now is the time for re-writing. Not based upon where you are, but who you are.

The answers are not found out there. They are found in here. Within.

Perhaps where I should have looked all along.

But even inside, the landscape has changed. I wasn’t then who I am now.

It takes making the journey to understand the path.

It takes travelling the path to become the traveler.

Marriage is like that. At least it can be.

A mysterious path beckoning you to come hither.

A safe place in which you both can soften.

A healthy place in which you both can continue to be nourished, nurtured and thrive.

As the simmering stew, or the garden bed, deeper and richer and fuller with time.

So is my love for you.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

Slow dancing with the creative muse.

July 22, 2025 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

The sky put on a display all day and seduced me back into love for life and this land after a day where she had knocked me out (quite literally) again. It was magic, reviving me, hour after hour, as my stomach settled and my feet found grounding once again. All the photos I share with you today are completely unaltered. God and/or this beautiful world graced me with this show.

As the painter cares not to color a canvas solely for the pleasure of her own eyes, so the writer is called to share words that you might enjoy; be it for entertainment, education, empowerment, and/or to find yourself somehow relating or releasing or escaping within the images the words spawn.

Yet what happens if the words I am called to share are not what I feel you will find pleasing? What if they are dark, as I confess, mine tend to tangle with? Do I harbor and hide them, or have the courage to boldly express and hope that you will not run away? Perhaps you might even shyly step closer, finding yourself still somehow in a similar state from time to time, knowing you are not the only one.

I’m not a sunshine, daisies and bunnies kinda gal. I’m more stormy skies and tempestuous wind and then a subtle glow in gray clouds to the east at dusk. Sometimes that makes for a pretty picture or enticing poem or captivating tale to share. But sometimes I’m afraid it might just scare you away.

And what about social media? Can it be a safe playground to play with words and hone my craft and reach out in the process? It is concerning as I find myself baring my soul as an outlet for both heart and art. This has always been something I have struggled with. I am an introverted introvert, and find my solace in silence and wild places. So what the hell am I doing trying to, if not master than at least muster, the craft of connecting online?

Is the intention to appease the ego or the muse? The ego is a trickster at times, fooling us to feel what we’re doing is “good” and “right” and maybe even for others, when I wonder if it is not more for her insatiable need for stroking. So does she fool me into feeling uncertain, unsettled, and a little absurd.

But the muse – oh my turbulent muse, she has a hold on me that I care not let loose of. I have always said I can’t not write. At times I wonder why. For the sake of the scratching pen, the alluring sound of words, or for the mood it imposes upon self and others when I manage to get those words write?

For when she dances within me, seduces me in her intoxicating embrace, she calls upon my courage to share. Boldly I open the curtains, as if ripping open a pearl snap shirt exposing a healthy breast, and let her fierce radiance flare outward without bounds. For she is stifled like a rained upon fire when I keep her under wraps, as a flower yearning to bloom bright from somewhere under confinement.

Oh, and as for progress… if you’re still with me…

After all those months of felling trees, clearing slash, dragging logs, milling lumber, stacking, loading and hauling across the West… to see the wood we loving harvested finally being put to use… It’s a thing of pride and joy, for sure.

And for those of you back in California. This is how deep you have to dig a water line in the mountains at 10,000 feet. Six to seven feet deep.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

The intimate connection between person and place.

June 30, 2025 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

(viewing this land from the top of Boot Mountain)

Another morning sitting at the table in this tiny trailer to write while my husband leans back in bed less than ten feet away holding his coffee cup in his hands as if in silent prayer, and the dog lays with gentle deep breathing at my feet beneath the little table that serves as kitchen and office, work space and desk, and the first of today’s sun pours in from over the hills to the east, spreading across the table like spilled milk.

So much I want to share with you this morning. My hands are unable to move as fast as my mind, and my mind cannot keep up with the hugeness that is my heart right now. I want to share with you about the dozen mama elk descending from dark timber on our lower pasture whilst we sit by the campfire witnessing the nursery band of their babies held safe to the side by the sentinels while the mothers graze. I want to share with you the haunting sound of a family of coyotes at last light, singing to one another, but stirring us in the process, simply by bearing witness to their wailing, while our pup even sat still in reverie close by, amazed at the mystery of his distant cousins. I want to share with you the intoxication of being high, really high, top of the mountain high, above treeline and dizzy with elevation high in thin air with rubbery legs and a tired euphoric pride from having hiked from our camp to the high peak of these mountain, standing their together, my man and me, in absolute awe of the land we are becoming.

I guess what I want to share is simply the intimate connection between person and place; exposing the sensitive openness of the soul into nature and wilds. This is what I can give you today. This is what I offer to share with you with humble outstretched arms and a very vulnerable heart.

Already we start to see forever. That’s what we do and who we are.

We try to keep ourselves reined in. We’re just committing to today. We’ll see how things go from there.

Only we can’t help ourselves. It’s what we do. Connection with land grows, tight and strong and intense as we toil. So from the get go, we’re planning and plotting where the garden will go, the big hay barn, the calving shed… the three bay garage for our son…

Slow down.

We felt the reality of age in the last couple months – the back and forth of unwanted time on the road, the physical limitations of our bodies, the unpredictable yet governing weather, the desire to enjoy the magic of whatever mountains we live in and the insatiable need to grow roots.

Can we grow old here? Can we grow old there?

We are not snowbirds. We don’t want two places, two lands, two lives. We are grounded. We work the land. Give more than we take. We become a part of the land, as the land works its way into our veins from open wounds, beneath our fingernails, into our pores, into our bones. The land finds its way into our callouses and sweat, and our blood seeps into the waterways and into the roots of the hungry trees.

I am monogamous with the land as I am with my lover, like my beloved ravens. I have mated for life, but I am not certain where we are meant to build our final nest.

The search for the sense of belonging is not found in the view but in the intimate connection between person and place that comes and grows with time, care, tending the land, committing to the community, good times and bad, hard times and easy, stories and dreams and dramas.

I don’t want advice. If I wanted a life like you, I’d have it. I want a life like me. That’s the wisest thing I can encourage you to do too – find your own way, listen to the song of your heart and have the courage to dance to that tune.

We’ll listen for the wisdom of the land and of our hearts. We’ll see what this summer brings.

Already I know I am not going to want to leave this land come fall. I want to commit. Wherever I am. But here, there is something that stirs me, tempts me, digs into my bones. I will want to see her wither and brown, then grey and white, brittle and frail and frozen. I will want to witness the silence of winter when morning birds head to lower ground and the creeks freeze over and the branches are stripped bare of quaking leaves. I will want to stand out upon her frozen grounds and listen to the distant call of the coyote and the raven, the few hearty enough to remain, and say yes, I am with you, I too not only endure, but find the beauty and awe and wonder and grace in the wide, wild, white open slate that winter will bring.

But for now I want to just be here. Experiencing the wilds. The wilds that hold us, open us with frozen mornings and biting winds, and define us with the challenge of our heart to not only endure, but to burst free.

Until next time,

With love, always love,

Gin

After Equinox.

April 25, 2016July 6, 2024 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

The agitation of the wind creates unrest among naked branches. Beneath an unsettled sky, the monotone of a thawing land broken only by the continual call of the river reverberating against still frozen cliffs, while mud caked boots poke through remaining snow drifts and blistered hands touch sunburned noses and the brown back of the neck – bits of exposed flesh found uncovered from a down jacket that remains adorned though now unzipped.

Another winter sheds her white skin. The peeling of the snake reveals that which is real, raw, delicate in its renewal. The season begins showing herself subtly in sepia tones. Like an old worn photo looked at time and again, we hold to the past in a futile gesture but the present is always new. Look around. See it. Feel it. Hear it. Celebrate it. Join in and dance with it.

Spring is late to unfurl here in the high country and her early song is soft, hard to hear, often hidden beneath late season snow storms and the howl of the changeable winds. In a land where winter claims half a year, the other three seasons come and go quickly in the shared space of the other half. Savored, appreciated; nothing is taken for granted.

Tenderly she reveals the simplicity of the wilds. We see her new breath in the everchanging motion of the unsettled sky, the unrest in the wind, the thawing of the earth, the swelling of the river, the return of wildlife, the luxury of longer days, shorter shadows, an open road, and the tenacity of simple nameless yellow flowers emerging through the snow.

And the silent assumption that within the swiftness of the season stirs the lure and excitement of change… Into what, she whispers? And the wind shares a response I do not yet understand.

Interwoven in the web of life awakens questions more than answers if we listen solely with reason. How else can we hear? With our hearts, not our minds. With our senses, like the wilds that surround us, knowing not because they read it, heard it, were told to believe. Or are we so different we forgot how to feel? Let go of that, she tells us. Her answers are in the soft shades of brown and grey of the newly opened hillsides.

Do we just let it go? What we had last season? The assurance of the assumed. Today, I tell myself here for half the year, it will be cold and white. What will tomorrow bring? Plans? Expectations? Hopes and dreams? What would we be without them? Shed them and be free, she tells me. But I too feel naked without. Such is the time of awakening, allowing the season to bloom means starting with a seemingly barren hillside.

The land calls. I speak to her. With her. She answers with a whisper veiled in translation I try hard to decipher. Words, ideas, passions still remain. From within this tangled tapestry can we see the bigger picture? Can we see the fine lines into which we are tightly woven or the space in between? Perhaps in the early morning when dew catches silken threads and pale pink air is still but for the rousing of the robins unintentionally sharing their sweet song from beneath the leafless trees, and stirring of distant geese down by the expanding open waters of the full to bursting reservoir.

It’s mostly space, I am reminded again. But we choose to see the little bits of matter within the big wide expanse.

Morning’s stillness shares silence of the mountain in a slow gentle outbreath before the awakening of the day, the season, the beginning of change. This is a time of both reflection found in glassy ponds of melting winter, and planning for something we don’t fully understand. Oh but the leaves will unfurl and the grass will green and the summer homes will be lit and the road will be abuzz. And so it goes, no matter what I do and you say.

On love and healing.

May 2, 2014 / Gin Getz / 31 Comments

On love and healing and crazy connections from opposite hemispheres with similar souls.

Written by the Two Virginias

Healing is different things to different persons, as matters we seek healing from are different for us all.

Life’s lessons learned in healing from hard times. The power of reaching out. Helping others through care and compassion. Oddly enough, we find wonderful capacity of healing when we turn our attentions from own troubles, be they physical, mental or a combination thereof, towards someone else. In helping others, we do in turn help ourselves. But finding the authenticity in our motives is essential. When our caring becomes complete – fully for the pure good of the other person – magical things happen. Depression may be lifted. And we may walk again.

In the past, we both have found the power of healing from horses and creativity.

The healing power of horses is deeply powerful yet beautifully simple. Perhaps it is our compassion for these mighty and gentle creatures, the nurturing we give to them, the essence they impart with us when we do no more than stand beside them and burrow our noses into their warm musky sides, or sit proudly upon their backs and move in wondrous ways. We are stronger, more complete, more humble, more full.

As for creativity, Ginny is a painter, Gin a writer. The expression of any art is an inner release. Paint and the written word can be forms of bleeding forth, purging ourselves, enriching others. From Ginny’s passionate gesture drawings of horses before her to her painting of a radiant spine after hers was broken, to Gin’s writing of the drama and trauma of family feuds and the loss of foals on the family ranch in her recent memoir, The Color of the Wild, an intimate look at life in an untamed land. (2014 NorLights Press). In our art, we both have learned too that healing it is not just in the creation, but in the sharing. Art is meant to be seen, books made to be read.

A combination of the two stories and two women is passionately shared in the upcoming memoir/biography, Dancing in the Wind, a Tale of Two Virginias. “Two wild women, one debilitating disease, and the adventure of writing in the Patagonia winds. This book is based upon the life of a remarkable woman, Virginia Tice Neary Carrithers, and our time together in the wilds of Patagonia. A tangled web of a tale as seductive as the Argentine mountains in which the story takes place. Intended to be biography of a wonderful, wacky woman who has lived with Multiple Sclerosis for nearly forty years, this tale turns into unique take on telling a story, told by a writer who becomes a part of the world in which she set out to write.”

It is this process of healing and sharing that brought us together and now is bringing the book to fruition.

A third essential element of healing is found in the pure giving of oneself for the benefit of another. This is probably the most powerful of all. And probably the most difficult to learn and practice.

Ginny (Virginia Neary Tice Carrithers)

Currently, I am working on healing myself from the effects of Multiple Sclerosis which I have been living with for nearly forty years. At times, like now, I am wheel chair bound but don’t give up on being up and dancing again. Soon!

In the process of working on the healing of my body, I continue to try to heal others through reaching out, listening, offering inspiration. For many years, I worked to organize and inspire fundraisers and awareness events for the National MS Society, then focusing on my family and my art. Now I continue to do what I can to reach others and help them through the healing process in part through my website CreativityHeals.org. The greatest gift I can give now is my story. Hopefully you will find inspiration in that (as well as some entertainment!).

Gin (Virginia Tone Getz)

My troubles have seemed slight in comparison. For years we struggled with dividing lands and trying to find a place to call home. Now I have claimed a mountain in Colorado as home (though have a part of me waiting in Patagonia) and my struggles go far beyond the personal as I watch the wilds outside my window first turn from green to brown with the mass infestation of the Spruce Beetle, and now suffer the devastation of tremendous fires and floods.

Distracted by the destruction of the natural world around, I found myself in a great depression. It’s pretty amazing how debilitating our own minds can be. And then how brilliant. As the illness was created in my own mind, so there would I find the path for healing. At some point, I realized it was time to “get over it.” I returned to working on the manuscript of The Tale of Two Virginias. Part way through, I came to this section of being on the rocks above the wild river with the blinding sun and twisting winds and after months of searching, finding myself finally on the rock that was Ginny’s intimate place of prayer. I felt her presence there at the time and the resulting feeling was… well, I describe it in great detail in the book. Powerful. That’s it in a nutshell. So here I was back in Colorado and just reading that brought me back there, along that river, and in the presence of Ginny. And suddenly, I felt the warmth of the sun and the passion of the wind and the exhilaration of Ginny’s beautiful energy. And I began to heal. Starting with returning to the power of giving what I can of myself, my writing, to help others.

The fourth essential element for healing, and the greatest of all, we must remember, is love. Love for each other, the land, animals, and our personal spiritual beliefs.

I think Ginny had been trying to tell me this all along.

On a personal note.

April 28, 2014 / Gin Getz / 11 Comments

Yes, it’s spring. Exposed dirt. Not to say it’s thawed out. Broken pipes aren’t easy to get to and digging a fresh outhouse pit through a frost line that goes down five feet…

Anyway, that’s what kept me busy and out of trouble when the sun was shining. And now it’s not, and snow falls again.

And today, that which was exposed is covered again in white.

Right. Spring. What should you expect here in the high wild mountains of Colorado?

Enjoy it while you can. Before you know it, they’ll be a little less wild as the summer season unfolds and all the folks that come here to get away start to accumulate along with the miller moths, horse flies and hummingbirds pumped with sugarwater, and I am reminded that maybe the elements will always be easier for me to live with than people.

Arbor day. You plan on planting a few dozen trees because that is what you do. Plant trees.

Going against nature, I am reminded, in this time of dead and dying, and we pick up a shovel anyway and dig a hole and carefully place in a new sapling. You have to try. How could you not if you love the land? Look around and you’ll see the rein of the spruce tree has passed and the aspen have seen better days. Let’s try Cottonwood, I say. They say it’s too high and harsh up here, but it doesn’t take rocket science only a quick look around to get it. Things have already changed. And I’ll bet you it aint over.

So go ahead. Give life. Give it a try. Better than sitting around crying, complaining or pointing fingers. There’s already enough of that.

So plant a tree. Plant a dozen. A few dozen while you’re out there. Maybe they won’t make it. Maybe a few will. But at least you’re out there trying. I was thinking of this as I’m looking across river at a hillside of dead and dying. Sure it will always be beautiful. But there’s more to it than beauty. I’m forever reminded of the shallowness of a pretty face when what I want is a deep connection. With my trees, there is a problem. Do I want to be so superficial and sit there with a stupid smile and say, “Well, gee… at least it’s still pretty.” Turn my back and leave it at that. Or do I want to address the problem, look it in the eye and still love it? Face the facts? Of course, that means finding out what the facts are first. Not always easy, but easier if we try.

A tease of open ground. Slow to come, but spring of the land and soul inevitably arrive.

Now with the world white again, outside work is put on hold. Inside I catch up on correspondence.

The lost art of letter writing. If you write letters are you a writer? In this day and age when even talking on the telephone takes too much time and people just drop a text or twitter a line, I would say yes, indeed. Some of those with whom I correspond clearly are writers (though perhaps unknown and unpublished), thus their correspondence is beautiful to read. Those who shared and with whom I shared – you’ll know who you are, and I hope you know how you’ve inspired me. From the balance of my daily early morning ramblings with a friend a generation and a thousand miles but in both respects feel closer, as in right there, with me, sharing another cup of coffee… to people who I’ve never met and who have come to feel they know me through my writing and I have learned to know them through our letters … to my “extended” family in Argentina… sisters of sorts for me – older and younger – one so grounded in her solid stance of silence and hard work and familiar dirt beneath her nails, to the other with a spirit in the air, a bit ethereal and ever stirring like the wind and just as suddenly she’ll breeze into your life and pick you up and take you on a magic carpet ride. So you hold onto your hat though really, you never even leave the sofa where you’re sitting to write.

And it is in this back and forth of revealing bits and pieces of our lives through words, giving, taking, sharing what we can and maybe a little more than we think we have but then we realize we have so much more – in this we find an unlimited pool of grace and gratitude and compassion within ourselves often left untapped. And through such correspondence do we learn to at the very least brush our hand to the surface and see the reflection is not just me but we. And if we are brave enough, we dive in. (Or even slip in by mistake, but there we are, swimming in the silver pool and realizing the waters hold us up.)

Much of what I share with you is inspired by my conversations with them. I share in turn here at best in hopes of inspiring you, and at the least, as reminders for myself… For that’s what this blog means to me. Two things, really. A way to reach out, share, open my world inside and outside and give of myself what I can – and a piece in progress, an inspiration for myself of work, word and image. I hope this is okay.

On writing and the blues…

Once your first book is out, suddenly you’re an expert. Of course this is not true. I’m just as confused and curious as I always was, and probably always will be. I’ll never be that know-it-all and let-me-tell-you-how-it’s-done type of person. Though there are times I wish I had a little of that in me and believed in myself a little more.

Some things never change?

Anyway, what I read out there from authors who have “succeeded” (this too, of course being a relative term as we all define success differently) is expert advice and opinions. I won’t go there. But I will share a little personal insight, because that’s my way, what I write about any way. Only now too I can share with you a glimpse into the insight of one insecure author whose first book is doing pretty well and is still having a helluva time getting the next ones out. (When does it get easier? DOES it get easier?)

They told me this might happen. Like post partum depression, they said, but without the hormones as an excuse (though we women, you know, can always blame it on the hormones…).

They warned me I might feel deflated, vulnerable and over exposed.

They warned me that when the first book comes out, you start to see who really cares. Readers can be more supportive than family and friends who often are too terribly busy, and busier when you ask. And how beautiful when those dearest to you can prove to be so caring, like my husband who never was a reader before but manages to read most every word I put out there now. Then there are those that suddenly don’t know you anymore, and certainly don’t have time any more. Funny how many just don’t have time. Just the reminder I need when I’m tired and think taking a day off would be the thing, then remember those who are waiting on my response and that matters more to me. And somehow giving more, being the person I want to be, treating others how I wish to be treated, ends up being the best treatment I’ve found for the blues.

They warned me that all those folks that only call you when they need something, and if they don’t need something, well, you’ll hear nothing at all – you won’t hear from them for a while. It might be a little lonely, but as a writer, you need the alone time.

They warned me that things do change. Oh I know, I said, things always change. I just didn’t realize it would be this much.

The good news is that most people are primarily supportive of each others’ strengths (and weaknesses when need be), celebrate one anothers victories and pick each other up when we’ve failed.

We will all do both, won’t we?

In the works… about books.

The summer book tour for The Color of the Wild will begin with a special event at Denver’s Tattered Cover historic LoDo location on June 12, 2014 at 7 pm as part of the Rocky Mountain Land Series.

Hoping to have book two close to ready for you to read by then, book three in the grind of editing, and that novel roaring to life.

In the meanwhile, I need to continue my marking efforts and asking you for help. Okay, here it goes. Please read it, buy it, share it, spread the word and talk about it: The Color of the Wild.

For those who received review copies, another friendly reminder that review copies are shared for reviews. If you haven’t shared a review yet, it’s never too late. GoodReads is good, social media is great, Amazon is super helpful. Write me and ask if you have questions on how. I’m happy to help.

Oh, and on the 2^nd and 3^rd of May, there will be an author interview of yours truly posted on Indie House Books.

Now, time to get back to what I do best. Better than marketing. Writing. Have a good week, all.

Indepen-dance

April 11, 2013April 30, 2013 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Got my horse. Got my dog. Don’t need no cowboy. Or gaucho. I can catch my own damn fish, thank you very much.

Bob leaves me for a week. Horseback, working on a pack trip. Ouch. Isn’t that what we do, together? He temporarily forgets we are a team. I don’t. He figures I’ll be fine. Of course I will. But how independent do you want me to be? I think about wishing to soften with age, not get tougher. I don’t want a heart like rawhide to match my weathered skin.

Before leaving he says he’s going to “take care of me.” He forgets, and runs out of time. He throws four beers in a bag on the table and tells me to give them to Alcides and see if he’ll catch me some fish.

Guess what. I drank the beers and caught my own fish.

I have taken off my wedding band and yet I still feel it there after ten years. I’m mad. Chances are I’ll forgive him. He’s a good guy. But I’m a woman. And every once in a while, I need to be reminded that I’m a good one, too. He’s not big on saying such things. I tell him it is time he learned. I’ll let you know how he does.

~ ~ ~

So I’m thinking. About life. Mine. Ginny’s. Women. Women willing to live life. Really live. Not half way, part way, or sort of. It’s yes or no. It’s life with gusto. It’s having, well, if you’ll excuse the crude expression, just a little bit of balls. Not too much of course. Remember, I don’t want to be tough. I still want to be tender. At just the right times. I want to feel. And I want to be willing to feel. To get out there and do, not just stay home and wish. Take risks. You know what I always say. Leap and the net appears. Usually. Because sometimes it doesn’t. But landing on the ground isn’t all bad either.

No whining aloud. Stop complaining. If you want change, change. It’s up to you. Do it. Or don’t, but don’t come crying to me if you haven’t even tried.

What do you have, and what can you do with it? Look at Ginny. She wants her life, and thus this book, to be an inspiration to others. She has already been an inspiration to me. Little things like living with MS barely slow her down. Maybe her body, but trust me, not that mind.

I’m not going to judge you. It doesn’t matter where you’re at. This is what matters: What did you do to get here? And where are you going from here? Everyone has their story. This is mine. And I’m working on Ginny’s. What, my friend, is yours?

~ ~ ~

My thoughts are drifting to e-mails I need to check, arrangements that need to be made for our return trip. Two more weeks. Damn. I’m not ready to leave. You knew I would not be. But I’m not leaving yet.

Now is the challenge to remain Here and Now. Now is when my mind starts moving ahead of my body. My body is here. I must contain my mind. Remain present. Keep my thoughts where my body is. Live it. Feel it. Smell, taste, touch it. Dive in, roll around, and rub it on. Otherwise, I risk wasting the next two weeks, waiting for the future to happen, rather than enjoying this incredible place and time. And what a time it is.

~ ~ ~

By day, the mountains turn to gold. Flaxen hillsides, flaming trees, yellow leaves caught in the wind. “Lluvia de oro” as leaves fall like raindrops of gold. Morning frost burnishes the broad grasses that grow by the little creek, as we jump from slick stone to slick stone, crossing to lead our horses in from pasture. Crisp light casts long, sharp shadows mid-day. The river a steel ribbon wrapped about this land on days when the sky hangs low and heavy. On those days, the grease bush smells like burning sage when we brush against with wet jeans and the bright red hips of wild rose stand out shockingly as Christmas ornaments on a Christmas tree. Layers of wool and down and the fireplace a welcome relief as we sit before a big blaze at night and talk about our day, today, everyday. Not tomorrow. We’ll discuss that after we wake in the morning, build another fire, have our matέ, and wait for the sun to hit this house.

~ ~ ~

We leave at lowering light, shadows stretching wide to absorb the valley withering pale, as sand would do in the wake of a swelling wave. I am mesmerized by the motion. Swirling sands around the horses heels, diffused light, filtered through dust so thick at times you cannot see the silhouette of the horse’s feet. Constant motion of grey foot, brown sand, golden light, blending into a moving cloud, alive and changing, silent by the wind. Look up or I will miss it. For at some point, the clouds give their last encore of scarlet promise, reflecting back the same first light of morning. Then they fade, shades of grey and the earth and sky blend into black.

Last night another ride home in the dark. One more time. Riding back from Buta Mallin. Bob leads Rolo the mule. Our horses stride side by side, faster now that they are nearly home. In the middle of a roughed out road we are unable to see, only the change of light where the mountain ends and sky begins told by the subtle variation of blackness and stunning sprinkle of stars. We are talking, softly as there is little sound while the horses step out on this sandy portion of long ride home. And there is nothing, no one, no other sound otherwise around us.

Blackness enveloping, still and clear, the stars reflecting on the river below us. The final switchback, giving in completely, the closest I hope to be to blind, as my mare suddenly turns left and begins the final decent and I am surprised to be this far already. I am absorbed in the darkness. I am complete and meaningless, a part yet unimportant all at the same time, at the moment, this very moment, when all I hear is the rush of the river below and the slap of the horses’ steel shoes on the rocky ground. There is nothing else to hear. There is only to feel.

Our last visit with Ginny. For this trip. It is not “goodbye” but rather “see you later.” You know that’s how I am.

And yes, of course I forgave Bob and slipped that ring back onto my finger where it belongs. That’s how I am too.

Celebrating Life

April 1, 2013April 11, 2013 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Here is another great post from Gin! As with the last few posts, this is Karen (shall I call myself, “The Phantom of the Blog”? ) posting from the states (Texas for that matter). For those of you who may be new to Gin’s blog, for the time being she is in the rurals of Patagonia and has extremely limited internet access so she emails me words and photos when she is able and I put them on this blog. This is an incredible post from Gin so grab a cup of coffee or tea or whatever you like and sit back and enjoy!

The day begins as we leave this house that currently feels like home along the Rio Trocoman. Just for one night. To see Ginny at her chacra in El Huecu. I have missed her and it seems as if it’s been a while since I had a hug from the other Virginia and a healthy dose of her stories, laughter and contagious passion for life. Coincidentally, it is Bob’s birthday. Not that I have anything planned, nor anything purchased. It’s been months since I went to a store. Though I wrote him a poem on a handmade card by candle light this morning. I think at times my words are my greatest gifts.

We take off in the still early morning before the sun rises high enough on the mountain to the north east to warm our little lush pocket along the river. We are horseback, heading out for the six hour dusty ride across the arid foothills of the Andes to see Ginny. She is worth it. Our horses are laden with our double sleeping bag, some tortas fritas to share with Sky, and a few gifts for Ginny, including a long branch I cut from a Lombardi poplar tree in the pasture just outside her studio, now strapped on to the back of Bob’s horse, the leaves now turning a vivid, glowing yellow and ready to sprinkle down like the golden kisses Ginny once told me would come in the fall.

We stop for a break mid day at Buta Mallin to visit with Sky. We arrive in perfect time to help dig out her septic system which has been clogged up after twenty years or so of use, and collecting socks. Go figure. We are amazed as Sky finds what appears to be a perfect match. Apparently old polyester does not decompose. I am grateful for the fragrant mint she grows in her herb garden just beside where we are working.

We arrive at Ginny’s as the sun is lowering, welcomed by warm and familiar faces. And the luscious smell of goat meat roasting over the fire. Jorge is preparing an asado for Bob’s birthday. The full moon rises and we are out there feasting by the fire with good friends, new and newer, somehow dear, one and all when joining together to share in a simple celebration out in the warm early autumn air.

The feast is topped by a masterpiece cake perfectly prepared by Ester. Crema de leche and dolce de leche and decidedly delicious. Our silly rendition of the American birthday song and a candle for Bob to make a wish for the upcoming year, and I can only imagine the love inside of him as he stands there somewhat uncomfortable being the focus of attention, which is not a place Bob chooses to be.

~ ~ ~

For Bob

Eight at night and the rain continues. I’m back home by the Rio Trocoman. The rain has not stopped today. Nor has the fire died. I have been here writing since returning from this morning’s horseback trip to our “kiss and ride” where I left you to begin your week long adventure where you will be working for TA at the Ranquilco on high country pack trip. Modestly, as is your way, sharing more of your gifts from your fifty years of pack trips.

I have worried about you all day, wondering if you might come home, the trip delayed, the thought of leaving on a drier day more appealing and more practical. Maybe it is to you. How many times have you had to saddle and leave in the rain and remain wet for the duration of your pack trip? And here you go again. Though somehow I hold the hope that it is drier here and tomorrow the sun will shine and although you will be out a little higher on the mountain in your half of our double sleeping bag, I will be home sharing our bed with Gunnar in my half. May my love reach you as you curl up at night under a tarp and try to keep warm without me.

I sit here warm and dry and wrapped in wool by the big fire, with the dog on a blanket at my feet. Soup boils and I am sipping tea and the only other light is a candle in the antique silver holder next to me and I wish you were here and feel foolishly incomplete without you. And somehow wrong for being so comfortable! How lucky I am to have someone I miss already and you’ve not even been gone a day.

For Ginny

It is not possible to look ahead and see how and when and from where we’ll say goodbye this time, for the thought seems unreal, impossible, and unpleasant, though I know that day approaches. At this point, I keep my focus on two things. First, of course on the book. It is taking on a life of its own and consuming me this week. I am happy to let it and give myself to the muse and find myself unable to hold back the flow of words, only struggle to keep my fingers moving fast enough to capture the surge of thoughts, roaring like spring waters. It is happening, Ginny. Your book! And I believe it is going to be very good. The second thing is how to come back. Longer. Maybe to live. I feel we are not done, but only beginning.

Really, the thought of saying goodbye to you, to Sky, to this little Spirit horse, to these trees, to the wind and water that have become me…. I will think no more of such things for now.

For Forrest

And now today is your birthday, Bud. Happy Birthday to you, my son, my friend, my team mate and partner and at times my guide, my creative equal and often inspiration and now physical superior (there, I finally admit you are stronger than me!). Twenty.

And I remember you being born. I suppose most mothers do. The things that change our life forever. For the better. The things that matter most. The one thing I always wanted. You! And oddly enough, this mothering thing is even better than I thought it could be, which I thought was pretty good. And that’s because of you. Who you are. The gifts you bring to the table of this growing relationship. They are as plentiful and full as your open mind.

I guess somewhere along the way the line connecting mother and son is rebuilt on friendship and a growing adult relationship. Not that I’ll ever stop caring. I care about those I love most, whether I’m your mother or not. I’ll worry, I’ll advise, I’ll think, plot and plan, I’ll lose sleep and gain grey hair and still wish I could do more. I’m just that sort.

Of course there is so much more I want to say, to share. Boy do we both have a lot of stories to catch up on together. I’ll guess we’ll have to wait. For now I’m down here in Argentina. You’re up there in Canada. Both lives and worlds are pretty amazing. And next thing you know, you’ll be meeting up with Bob, on another crazy adventure which involves snowmobiles and fine Scotch (though not the two at the same time, please) and I’ll be back with my horses, my cats, a new batch of chickens and crossing that bridge we built together, awaiting your return. There’s no metaphor there. That’s the real thing. Though think of all that bridge can mean. Teamwork, crossing the uncrossable, finding a place of our own, making peace, open souls, exploring and being brave. And a lot of hard work. Another dream come true. I have lots more of them to work on. And I can’t wait to hear and maybe urge you on to come up with a mountain of dreams yourself.

Let them soar in the wind with your growing spirit. Or perhaps it is a spirit awakening.

I love you, Bud. Happy birthday to you!

Que rico!

March 15, 2013 / Gin Getz / 5 Comments

More stories than I can share. Some for the book, a few for you, many no more than to feed my soul. Which here and now is full and rich and on fire. Alive with rushing wind and water.

This morning I am horseback with Bob to our “kiss and ride,” a mile up river along our side of the bank. He crosses and heads to work at the Ranquilco, helping with their current hydro power project. Gunnar and I and my little mare run home to get the bread rising. Many a morning, we make it back in half the time it took us to get there. This morning it takes longer. Teaching the neighbor’s dog, Charlie, the routine. His short little legs must move four times as fast as Gunnar’s to get him half as far. We can wait.

Now I sit out between the house and the river, soaking in the first sun I felt in days. The river sings softly behind me. My mare in the shade to one side of me, the two dogs snapping at meat bees on the other.

Now I can be still, quiet, focus. Sit down to write. That’s where I am now. Taking a break from The Book work. Coming up for air. And such air there is. Much more than at the altitude from where I came. Much more of everything here. Or everything I’ve been looking for. Which is more of less, at times.

Starting with the horses. Here not as a hobby but as an essential. Transportation. The only way in. Learning the local tack, new straps and knots, saddle blankets piled high like the princess and the pea. Bridles and reins of silky soft and skinny tanned leather we spoil ourselves with and are quick to buy anew with the slightest signs of wear and tear, here replaced with rawhide. A lamb carried to camp horse back, slaughtered and hung in the shade tree, and cooked over an open fire to feed the hungry crew. Salad passed around in one big bowl with one fork and one napkin to wipe up the sweet sauce that drips from the carrots and onions down a greasy chin. Beer in big bottles passed person to person, as wine from the bota and mate from the gourd.

I learned to cook in France and for years we all figured I’d continue a career as a chef. I chose cooking for my family instead. Now I have a whole new techniques to learn. Like rules to abide to. Someone told me “Gaucho’s are picky about what they eat.” I think of the other places I have lived and travelled. The French countryside. The Greek Islands. Homesteading with the California bounty. New York chic and New Mexico green and red. Are they more demanding here? No, just more limiting, not wanting new, change, innovation, a different way. And oddly enough, I can accept that. Not that I want to close my mind and not try new, for this simpler way is new for me. But I can understand and even appreciate the simple cooking. Goat, stew, squash, potatoes. Peel the potatoes but not the beets. Whatever. When in Rome. If you don’t like the soup, get your hands out of the pot. I would like to keep mine in. The more I stir, the more I love the aroma.

I hear people longing for things they miss. I don’t know what. More ease. More comfort. More accessibility, communications, distractions, conveniences. Probably more variety. I’m here thinking it’s a great challenge. How long can I make a little last, and how easy to know what is for dinner. Likewise, I remember taking tourists on pack trips. Five days out, that’s it, and they’d be itching for a Coke, a bath, a bed. Sure they would miss the sound of wind and water, but they weren’t ready to live with it.

I know I’m not living like a gaucho. I’m still living it up. Fancy windows, European antiques, and even with one room blocked off, still more space than we can spread out into, sweep up and keep warm. This house in which we’re staying is truly the lap of luxury, lacking little but things I’d rather live without anyway, like phone service, electric lights and a gas stove. Maybe a few simple additions I might be wanting for, if I was to stay here forever. Like a spatula would be nice. But Bob fashioned me one with a disposable metal lid and a stick from a nearby tree. It’s not the first time we’ve resorted to such innovations. For those who have been with me a while, you might recall the time at camp the boys had to whittle me my utensils before I could flip an egg. I swear breakfast tasted better that way.

And yet what I thought was simple back in the States seems still like so much more than here. Excess. Waste. Too much. I’m trying to learn. Keeping an open mind, even if the minds I try to understand at first appear so closed. Perhaps it is this closing off, accepting what you have, and learning to not look beyond which allows for contentment. Tradition holds greater power here still than change. I both respect and admire that, and know it is nothing I was born with, being raised in a culture of change. But can I learn to live in it? Can I change – in this case, change my ways of constantly evolving and wanting to see, have, know and do more, and learn to accept this here and now that has so captivated me?

I will never be of this land, and may never quite fit in. Do I anywhere? And who really “is” the land but someone who is maybe nothing else and clings to a title instead of a sense of self?

But maybe I can live here. Be accepted for who I am, here and now. Where I was and what I did don’t matter. I don’t want to lose myself, and try to be what I am not. Yet somehow I think maybe I can find more of me here. Finding more with less.

Do you really need to see so far beyond the mountains in which you live? Will you be content if you already have? How will we know if we do not try. Farewell and good riddance to the isle of sugared cereals and more options of wines that you’ll try in a lifetime. Isn’t red and white enough? Here, there are but a few spices. Oregano, cumin, chili and sweet pepper. Here, there is no refrigeration. Meat slaughtered weekly and hung in a screen box under the pear tree. Take only what you can eat before the flies lay their eggs and the meat spoils.

This takes longer now. The air is cooler. Even now mid day in the full sun. A tingle of autumn in the first of yellowing grass and fading hillsides and teasers of golden leaves on the regal Lombardi poplar trees defining the edges of the occasional homesteads, perfect rows, little green lines in the otherwise arid mountains.

You can feel the first of the change of season. The river may never be warm enough for me to bath in again this year. In the earlier mornings, I’m wearing my wool hat and still my fingers are slow to dance on the keyboard when they are this cold. My thoughts turn to the wood we split and stacked earlier in the week. I’m holding out. I worry about getting soft. Think how cold it would be if I were back “home.” Still snowed in.

Now I’m sitting here warming up with the dogs and a mate and today’s big blue and thinking of yesterday’s heavy layered grey. Hopes of rain and sound of wind through the willows and river rushing over the rapids. Bundled under a borrowed shawl of Ginny’s, almost like having her hands wrapped around me. Encouraging me. Write, sister, write… Let’s get this story out there. So much to share!

I suppose if there were but one story to share with you today, you’d ask to hear the one about the branding in the high country. Though I am certain I have already taken up too much of your time. So once again, I’ll let the photos tell the story instead of my words.

And now I return to writing, what I came here for. Only to find the words, and so much more.

The beginning

January 7, 2013January 7, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

like leaving a lover

on one hand

and with the other

holding onto my hat

as we dive down into the wind

Since Solstice

Sometime just past noon, the cabin is drained, power shut down, everything put away well enough. Food scraps and the remains of the cookie jar set out for the Steller’s jays, magpies and pair of ravens that will have to make do without us for a while. Another pack rats caught in the trap under the house tossed out into the snow. Christmas lights taken down and put in away in the attic. Four boxes of food for a friend in town clean out the fridge. And everything we’ll need for nearly four months away, piled and packed into the toboggan sled hooked behind the snowmobile.

Funny to be so bundled up in down jackets, long johns and thick winter boots. We’re heading towards mid summer. Such is travelling to the other side of the world. People do it all the time. I never have.

I’m not going to say deep farewells this year. I’ll be back soon enough. Long enough. I’m in no rush. Leaving behind the worse snow we remember. Bad snow. For us that means: not much. Better that we’re not sticking around wishing for something we do not have. Elk tracks down on the reservoir flats make it look like a feed lot without fences. They coyote are loving life. Feasting on snowshoe hare that are also abundant this year. Their advantage lost in low snow.

Just past two weeks after Solstice and you see the difference. Already I feel the sun stronger on exposed flesh. My hands without gloves for the first time this year. Nose and cheeks, weathered and creased skin at the corners of eyes and lips and it feels so good. It feels. I remember last winter in northern Washington where the sun held no power of touch during the deep of winter, filtered by mauve light under the soft inversion.

Last night I stepped out to walk with the dog under the brilliant and unlimited depth of our night sky to say farewell. I will not see the same constellations for nearly four months. And although I’ll be a in “remote” location, I can only guess it won’t be this many miles away from another light, another human being. But it is our altitude that brings sparkle and luminescence to otherwise emphatic black. It is this altitude that brings us closer to touching the skies.

And tonight I watch the sky on fire in the coldest place in the Lower 48 as we drive through Alamosa and the San Luis Valley.

Now in a hotel. With TV, pizza and wings and the dog on the bed between us.

on one hand

how quiet

without the call

of the coyote

on the other

TV and traffic and the buzz

of central heating

oh yes, the adventure begins

Do I call this Day One of this adventure when I feel our life is always an adventure and even this one, I’ve been working on for months? How about Day One of this chapter?

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