This is how my mind works.

July 7, 2014 / Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Caught in the middle in a land of extremes. The silence and solitude of winter now so far away. Today it’s about moving, shaking, building, banging, people, pleasing, chatting, listening, hearing a road racing with RVs and ATVs and almost forgetting the soft pale rumble I barely hear behind all this motion and commotion that is the Rio Grande. A certain and steady flow, drawing the line in a crystal clear sparkling swath between a high mountain summer season Mecca and a tranquil hillside of dead and dying trees which is where my heart is lost this time of year. Disconnected.

It’s the end of another day spent cleaning cabins, working on our new one, and sharing it all with the steady stream of visitors which summer brings. I’m going to go running. The dark clouds that have been building all afternoon suddenly seem more serious and a few fat full heavy drops tap loudly on the metal roof like anticipating fingers on a table top as I’m taking off my work boots and putting on my running shoes. No matter. I’m going to run. I’m going to sneak away from the goose, the tourists, the slowly growing cabin and the pending inevitability of figuring out what to cook for dinner over the old wood cook stove fueled by scraps of wood from the construction site, and appeasing appetites fueled from that construction work.

Out there in the rain, under a dark sky and through oddly eerie brown blue spruce stripped of needles, some having recently left their load still pale green in patches beneath their slipping bark and along the trail.

An owl calls. It is that dark.

The dog is in front, beside me, behind me, off in the woods to my left, my right, you never know except then suddenly there he is, as happy and wet and wild as I am and I’m feeling leaping over fallen trees that litter the trail, hair soaking and chest sweating and skinny legs nimbly peddling through wet brush.

I return to the baby cheeps of the goose on the top of the cliff above the river, looking down at me where I’m crossing – calling me home. He the wild thing, and me the domesticated. But for right now, it all feels upside down in the soaked state of summer rains in the high country.

Dear Readers: In case you have not yet had the time, please be sure to put these books on your Summer Reading List: The Color of the Wild and The Last of the Living Blue. And when you have finished reading them, and I shall sincerely hope enjoyed them, please take an extra few moment (really, that’s all it takes!) and post a review on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, GoodReads, social media… where ever you feel comfortable, for reviews do matter and really do help!

And Reviewers: Those of you who requested and received a review copy. I hope you have read or are reading… and truly hope you enjoy! When you can, please take a moment to post your review. A huge THANK YOU to those who already have.

Growing up.

The new house. Not me. Though sometimes it feels one in the same. Solid roots. Walls. The Real Deal. (My boys may cringe at that one.)

This week brought walls slowly rising. Milling our own rough cut lumber. Framing out the first windows. Looking out. Looking in. Knowing now what that view will be like… Not too bad. Slow birth of a home, coming to life.

Peeling logs. Each a work of art. New life to dead trees.

The culprit revealed as we chip off the bark and grind smooth the knots and corners.

Life among the beetles. A couple years ago, we didn’t know what one looked like. Now we crush them with our hand tools as we wrestle each log in place, flick them from each other’s shirts, shake them from our hair, brush them off the log surface before we draw the line to make the measure that will mark the cut for the next part of the wall to the ever growing home. Did you know they bite? Maybe after working on the mill and peeling logs and sweeping up sawdust, I smell enough like a tree that they give me a go. We watch their random flight paths in the low light of evening as we pack up our tools and call it a day.

What will be the fate of the last living blue?

This is how my mind works. In random bursts. In colors red and gold then stormy steel grey, light and dark, warm and cold, getting colder. Discipline of body, of ritual, of ways to work. But not in peace of mind. You can’t really call me steady, level, even.

I leave you with this to consider.

A Rumi a dear friend shared with me yesterday:

Run from what is comfortable

Forget safety

Live where you fear to live

I have tried prudent living long enough

From now on I’ll be mad.

Don’t forget the power of anger. Use it wisely. On one hand, it can eat you alive. On the other, it can feed you. Fuel the fire of inevitable change.

Nothing stays the same.

Good News.

June 27, 2014 / Gin Getz / 10 Comments

Wow! We’re live on Amazon!

The Last of the Living Blue is available NOW– in paperback and Kindle. Amazing – three days ahead of schedule!

Okay, Reviewers: Now you can post your reviews! Please, when you can… your help is so appreciated and truly needed.

And speaking of Reviewers:

Sammie has wonderfully offered to extend the opportunity: A free paperback copy of The Last of the Living Blue in exchange for posting a review. If you would like to take her up on this very generous offer, please write her at sammie@norlightspress.com, and be sure to give her your mailing address. Sammie is super – there are no strings attached – this is just a way of spreading the word, sharing, and generating more interest for a book we both believe in. Seriously, reviews do matter. Please take the time to share and post. Most importantly, I hope you read this new book, and I hope you love it.

I’m told you’re not supposed to get too attached to your work. Too late. I am. It is a part of me. It is my gift to you.

This one matters so much to me. This one is for the trees…

Thank you all for your kindness and support, for reading, sharing, listening, inspiring… I am just so happy right now! Thank you!!!

Giveaways!

June 26, 2014June 26, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Hi friends. Here are a couple of neat opportunities for getting a free copy of my next book, the soon to be released The Last of the Living Blue!

First, my publisher, Sammie of NorLights Press, is offering a release day promotion. For the first ten people who contact her directly, she will send a hard copy of the paperback book in exchange for posting a review.

Please write Sammie at sammie@norlightspress.com.

Second, GoodReads is running a Giveaway from now through the first of July. You can sign up by following this link, but remember, you have to be a member of GoodReads to enter.

Reviews are so essential for spreading the word, and we’re pretty certain this book is going to be a great one. So the more copies of the book we can get out there, and reviews coming in, the better for us all.

Less than a week away!

Have you read the first book yet?

(You can order it here on Amazon, or better yet, please support your local bookstores!)

Good luck, and happy reading!

PS. A quick note and afterthought on Reviews.

Reviews matter. They are important numbers our industry (books/publishing) base our success upon. They help other readers find books, choose books. But they need not be elaborate or fancy. Some are. That’s great. Some aren’t. And that’s great too. Not everyone wants to read a long one (or write a long one). Although those long one do help the curious book explorer understand their selection well, those short and to the point ones matter too. One of my favorites, from reviewer Lisa: “Damn good read.” That works for me!

After words.

May 28, 2014 / Gin Getz / 23 Comments

Yes, lots happening. It’s Spring. You know. Same for so many of you.

Among a lot of other good things, the final editing of The Last of the Living Blue is underway, and we’re now completing the Afterwards. This may be part of it. And even if we cut it, I would like to share this with you now.

I’m down at the building site where the snow from the latest storm just melted and the clay of the cut open earth sticks to my boots like concrete. The foundation is poured. When the ground dries and cement cures, we’ll be back at it. Next with the logs which have sat dormant for the remainder of winter awaiting their fate. Becoming home.

At my feet is a gosling. A fluffy yellow and grey critter that at only a few days old swims across the creeks I jump. He showed up in the middle of the work site when we were setting forms. With a steep cliff down to the river on three sides, and the gravel road and torn up ground on the forth, how did he end up here, on this high harsh bluff above the Rio with no sign of other geese close by? Forrest heads off to explore the ravines and finds no potential parents, siblings or nest.

You don’t want to interfere. You want to let the wilds be wild. But you can’t just turn your back, walk away, knowing what its fate would be. I think that’s why they make babies so cute. You’re going to do all you can to care for them. Against all logic and principles and belief in non-interference. How do you draw the line at compassion? You don’t. So you have a baby goose in your house and find yourself cutting dandelion greens and walking to feed the horses very, very slowly so the little guy can keep up.

A friend tells me it must be a sign. Neither of us know what he might symbolize but you get the feeling it must be something, for some reason, for you can’t help but wonder why here? Why now? After having him in our lives for several days and becoming rather attached to the little stinker, I’d say the message he brings us probably has something to do with patience, love, slowing down and nurturing. He sleeps between Forrest’s feet at meal time and when I don’t feel like walking so slowly, Bob’s got him on his lap when I head out to take care of chores. I swear your blood pressure drops when he chirps sleepily on your lap.

I don’t have time for this, I want to say. Grinding chicken food, picking greens, carrying him about and cleaning up after him. Make time, my friend says. I know. She’s right. So there he is now, tucked into my vest, cheeping softly while I write.

Another May comes, is almost gone. The foundation for our home is laid. Concrete in the earth. A sense of permanence, wanting, needing to belong. These are my roots. Solid, grey, thick footers. Something to hold me down, connect me further with the land. Something to remain long after I am gone, my son and his family, generations thereafter. Long after the scattered seeds of the blue spruce turn into a forest of new growth, and the new some day turns old.

This season has been one of strewn spring snows. The river roars rich and brown and the reservoir is higher than I have ever seen it. It feels healthy. The grass on pasture is already lush enough that the horses hesitate when I call them in for hay. We no longer talk in terms of drought and fire bans and fear of lightning. We think we’re off the hook. It’s over. Long gone. The treed hillsides even look green. Am I seeing things? Sometimes we see what we want to see.

The season begins. Traffic on the road (well, at least a few motors a day), summer homes dusted out, smoke from other chimneys, voices at the trailhead. Even the UPS trucks drives in (and once again, a welcome sight).

I feel lost and need to find myself again. It is hard after a winter of silence and solitude. I try. I want to try harder but then find myself worn thin because I’m so tired of trying and I am left wishing it would all come naturally and it never does.

There is an emptiness and detachment that comes over me as I lose the voice of the trees around this time every year when the air is filled with people things.

I think of the conversation I had with a colleague last week who tells me he finds equal beauty in man and nature, and is fascinated by the precarious balance and blending between the two. A relationship, a dance of life.

Why can’t I see the beauty in this interconnection? Why do I too often see the fault?

Finding balance in this land of extremes.

stellers jay

A walk through the trees to Sweetgrass Meadow and I’m looking for the truth. I’m looking for answers. Is it over?

I stop to rest, sitting on a fallen tree alongside the edge of a small clearing. If you look up to the top of the north facing slope, it’s a hillside of grey and brown blue spruce. Down at the edge of the clearing, many trees are still green.

Here, I am close. In them. With them. Among my beloved blue spruce. I sit silently, look closely.

Behind green needles, I see clear fresh sap dripping from slipping bark like so many tears.

Has it ended? This wrath of beetles that devastated our forest. Has it finished its destruction?

Is the drought over? Is the aquifer refilled? Fire danger a thing of the past? I know the million acres of dead trees won’t return to life, but what about the ones left living? And what about the beetles? After such a mild winter, I wonder.

I want to believe it’s over. The spruce trees around the ranch and at the edge of the opens meadows across river are still green. I have not yet seen a bark beetle. With all this moisture, this beautiful spring, surely everything will be okay, I tell myself.

If I am to have blind faith, I shall find it in the wind and wilds.

sunday morn 2

sunday morn 3

Paring of the soul.

May 5, 2014 / Gin Getz / 7 Comments

paring of the soul

in simple season

of waxing moon and warming flesh

mornings hardly frozen

and air loud with crow and Steller’s Jay

and the shrill whistle of Redwing blackbird

and down by the river

standing on the bluff

where our home one day will be

dreaming

of foundation and roots and solid walls

containing confining comforting

and so many years of stories to patina the blued wood

a solitary goose flies low

below us

above the river

he follows the course to who knows

where or why

or what he seeks only to move to

someplace else as the sun takes its turn

lower in the sky

and I wonder what impels him on

when all I do is look for a place to remain

Spring air crossing snow covered Divide whips cold across our pasture freshly open promising moist and green at least for a little while. Out there, bitten by the wind I swear I smell the sweetness of flowers. I am certain. From where does this fragrance come? I picture lands lush and rose bushes and lilacs and hollyhocks and marigold flourishing. Here I find pleasure in dandelions and wild iris and the delicate petals and defiant stalks of the wild rose, each short lived as every season but winter is. Little more can grow though who would I be if I didn’t try so every year I do. Last year the tomato plants I bought with fruit already set produced two fruit and the zucchini plants gifted us with eight tiny fingerlings of the most precious bounty I sliced and sautéed in butter and served alongside fresh bread and was wanting for nothing more that night. Such a treat we had not tasted in so long because they birthed before the frost that turned the big broad leaves to mush.

We prepare the Little Cabin for another season there beside the river. The one-room cabin dragged away from the guest cabins to a part of the mountain without history, herstories, tales or roots, ready for us to grow our own. Our lives pending another move. And from the humble front door of the little log cabin we’ll call home once again, we shall watch mud transform and sprout new life.

Our new home.

News for now…

Just out this weekend, A unique take on an interview and article I had the pleasure to write on the wonderful, charming, handsome, and very talented Texas bit & spur maker Daylan Nixon featured in the newest issue (4.1) of Ranch & Reata magazine.

The interview with Indie House Books posted this weekend was fun. You can still read that here.

A bunch of visitors this weekend, so nice to see those who took the time to visit – but no one willing to pose for a portrait. Thus, these. (I will learn not to give up on the people so easily next time…)

From a conversation on Womanhood…

Deep felt thanks to a friend who opened up with me a conversation on womanhood. No, I should write that with a capital: Womanhood. That’s better.

Who was born intimately understanding their feminine side and comfortable with what they found? The few I thought who did, what did they do with what they had and what more did they find? Those that took time to deny or be denied, dive into the depths and ask questions… they found very interesting answers…

Years ago in art school, I did a piece I called “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” A large flowery clay most feminine of female body parts decorated in gaudy rhinestones and set into a deep box like a casket with a glass lid. It won first place so at the award ceremony a picture went up in the auditorium on the big projector screen and I swear the whole room started to blush. Few are comfortable with the feminine side.

There are few leaders, women to follow, women willing and able to show us how. If there are many, I’m missing something, for I have found their presence and reaching out/responding rare. I’m obsessed with the concept of mentoring – I don’t feel qualified yet – I’m too young (funny thing to say at 47, some of you will may say), not experienced enough and just don’t feel ripe – I’m still looking for mentors for me. Stop looking. Start being. Most of us don’t have the role models we need. So we must become them. We need to re-group and find our paths, and hold each other’s hands in the process. Encourage, urge, push, and protect when need be. More than just listen. We need someone to talk to us and tell us WE CAN. We can dream, we can write, we can fall in love, we can live through a broken heart and rejection letter and all the crud life brings because in the wave of mud is just one place of crystal clear, and that’s all we need.

There are no right answers, only a wonderful adventure. Womanhood is not a destination, but a process. Enjoy the journey. Dive in, swim, splash, splutter from time to time, and let go and float on top staring up at the billowy clouds. It is exhilarating.

Let it happen, as we become the women we want to be. Emerging… Ever changing…. And so, so beautiful, as the heart of every women can be.

playing with a love poem

because I have spent so many years

in praise of the broken heart

and why would I not when that’s what I had

now that I can have

or cannot separate

a life that more than parallels my own

rather wraps around and breaks borders

in waves of twisting over lapping lines

like arms and legs entwined in bed

until one day we become no more

than rotting bodies in straight lines

side by side in the ground

This is not what I was looking for

I said sort of but no one listened only laughed

as I fell not head over heals

but solidly planted

and now some days it seems so simple

too simple, him, our conversations, being loved

the assumption that he’ll be there

that I can wake early in the morning before light

and ask him and know he would never say no

some things maybe I miss

pain and insecurities and blinding desires

and wondering if he’s The One

there are days I want to be without him

as if I’d be better on my own

think of the things I could do if I didn’t have to

care worry encourage push and pick up the pieces

love?

instead could take care of only me

if only I remember how

and maybe I don’t want to anymore

then I think how lost I would be

how incomplete I would find myself

if you take away half my air

and just as much of my foundation

would I still remember how to breathe?

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.

Suddenly Spring.

April 24, 2014April 24, 2014 / Gin Getz / 8 Comments

~
Suddenly it’s spring and you’re busy and no matter that the days are longer, there still aren’t enough hours in every day, or energy in the body to do all you want to, need to, should do…

Tired, a little sore, and somewhat sunburned, and yet it feels good. Just a little longer out there, one more thing, and do you really have to go in just yet? Paper work begins to pile.. Bare hands, wool cap stuffed in the pocket of your unzipped jacket. Only to pull that cap out five minutes later as the next snowstorm blows on through. Yeah, welcome to Colorado. Chapped lips, eyes parched from the wind, mud and snow banks, and geese in potholes on pasture. It’s Spring

Outdoors work is great, but sometimes I need to go beyond, to see and feel her in silence. Out there, alone together. Be a part of this progression of the season.

Walking with the dog for the first time on semi-solid ground out there in a passing storm miles from my house which is miles and miles from any other around here now. And suddenly the roar of what sounds like a jet engine across river. Rotten snow descends the mountain in a violent rush.
I’m glad I’m here, not there.
~

~
A raw wound
You’re left bleeding
by the side of
the road that leads out of town

To a place you’ve never been
and you remember
Anything’s better
than here

an open mouth of
Fish underwater Breathing
through muddy waters Gushing
down brown slopes

Did you think
it would be harder?
Did you know maybe you are

right where you belong

Moon rises later now. I walk the dog with flashlight in blackness as clouds cover even the tiny sparkles up above that usually light our way. With melted snow, even the ground is dark. Finding significance in the insignificance when I look up at the stars. Or is it the release of significance that brings us peace?

A pair of miller moths gently bang against my window as I sit at the table back in by the light. It’s mid April. Funny the things we are seeing.

In the early morning hours, moonlight floods the cabin. In the quiet and still, here on the sofa with the wood stove hissing and crackling behind me and the sky turning a dusty blue, I could sleep. I could close my eyes and let go and listen to the familiar sounds and be comfortable and warm and drift off. I know I should be writing…

Wake up! It’s spring. Plenty to do. Get up, get out, get to work…

The guys are still asleep. Life with family. My life is not just about me. It’s We. My decisions affect us all. And although I may not have the freedoms I once had, I have so much more. I’ll pass on what I had and am grateful for what I have. Yes, and still want so much more. Thank god it’s only “mid life” I’m in.
~

~
Continuing work on The Art of the Portrait. Because there is beauty within every one. Looking through a focused lens helps us filter what may be otherwise blurred by our own tangled minds.

These things are not found in the fast and easy nor with instant gratification. A metaphor for society.
~

~
I leave you with this. The Art of the Selfie?
Go ahead. Laugh. No one should take themselves too seriously. When really, what I’m working on is the Art of the Portrait. Since I don’t have a lot of willing victims around here, I have to run in front of my own camera from time to time. Okay, keep in mind a few things here. First, I’m almost fifty. Second, I don’t wear a stitch of make up or dye my hair. Third, I spend a lot of time outdoors… Yes, yes, I know. Excuses, excuses. But what we’re looking for the light, the composition, the essence if you will. Capturing a mood. Not a pretty face.
Is it self gratification or seeking understanding? A reflection within. A sense of who and where we are in the bigger picture. Only more often than not, we rush it and compromise results and are too quick to move on to what’s next. What is your place? What is mine? Ever changing. How do we define our place of in between? It is our nature to need to know.
At “almost fifty” I am not the wild young woman I once was. I don’t care to go back there. It was fun, I survived, now I’m done. Yet still so far the wise old crone so quick to offer advice or silent in her seemingly eternal wisdom.

Who’s next?
~

What’s coming.

April 7, 2014 / Gin Getz / 7 Comments

A request for readers and reviewers! Of special interest to writers and avid readers of non-fiction. This request is on behalf of my publisher and friend, Sammie Justesen. Wouldn’t you know? She’s also a writer…

A select group of pre-readers willing and able to share reviews is a great help for the writer and the publisher, as well as for other readers considering this book in the future. Ever notice how much time you take to read reviews and how much it helps you? Your help on this one would be most appreciated by others.

I was honored to have the opportunity to read a pre-published copy, and this is what I had to say about it:

“Sammie may have set out to write about dialogue – and that she does – yet her conversation with the reader goes far beyond. Dialogue Mastery for Writers is about writing, for writers, written by an author, editor and publisher.

I was hesitant to read another ‘how to’ book on writing. This is not that. Nor is it strictly about dialogue. As a memoir and nature writer, I was attracted to Dialogue Mastery for inspiration in developing further depth in my work through the use of dialogue. What I left with after reading Sammie’s book is a brain swimming with ideas she has generously shared based on her years of experience in all aspects of ‘the industry.’ She shows us, not just tells us, with style, humor and an easy, comfortable voice. Her examples bring the points to life. Sammie indeed practices what she preaches, and shares with us as reader and writer a fun to read and handy compilation based on experience and insight.”

This is a great opportunity for those of you who’d like a chance to read this book on writing, and begin a conversation with fellow writer , former agent, editor and experienced publisher, Sammie Justesen.

If you are interested, would like some more information, or just want to introduce yourself to this great woman, please write her an e-mail at: sammie@norlightspress.com . Thanks in advance for helping out!

A dozen winters we have watched fade from the mountain as spring slowly creeps up the thawing land. I can’t say it really feels like it’s here yet, but if you know what you’re looking for, you see it coming.

It’s coming.

Not a day goes by without the magnificence touching me. Some days, it is overwhelming. Stops you in your tracks and your breath is held, eyes wide, and you want to cry for the sheer splendor of it all. Other times, softly, lightly, a little bit magical and mysterious, as this morning when the I’m out there feeding the horses in the single digits after a dusting of fresh snow came last night and clouds are still clearing , and each branch of the aspen and surface of tired snow covering the ground is twinkling as if with a thousand stars around me as the sun inches over Finger Mesa and spreads long stripes of grey shadows nearly a quarter mile long across pure white from the tall trees that stand alone across river.

Not a day goes by without appreciation. And now, astonishment.

Interesting indeed the things we are seeing.

The swollen buds on a group of Aspen at the bottom of Elk Trail have burst open, pushing out the first of that fluff that looks like snow in June. Only it’s April. And there is still real snow on the ground.

On an open patch of dirt a little further up the trail, the first cluster of flag poke up through the exposed damp ground covered only now with last years rot.

We snowshoe to Snowmobile Point. That’s a lot of dead trees, I say to Bob as we stand there, leaning on our ski poles and staring. Crazy, he replies. There is nothing else to say.

You forget what a live one looks like and start to assume they all might be. For if you look close enough, even the green ones don’t look so good. I would guess that this mild winter has been good for the beetles. It will be fascinating what happens next. Something. Nothing stays the same.

Maybe it will look like Patagonia here some day. We agree that won’t be too bad. We like Patagonia.

Time with my horses is still limited. For a few days there was a little mud that gave me a lot of hope for working with them soon. That’s been since covered back up with snow.

At least I’m out there, day in, day out, every day, with them, for them. A part for me, a part of them. I don’t resort to automated horse handling, feed and water that the horse think just appears and I’m just some human somewhere in the distance that comes to get them when I need them. We’re in this, on the mountain, together. Waiting for the spring. Waiting for shedding coats and brushing and afternoons out there together on dry ground.

What do you do with them when you have to go somewhere? A friend asks. I don’t, I reply. I haven’t left the mountain in five months and that’s okay by me. And them. Only now we’re both ready for more. Not leaving. Just more up here.

They run up when I appear and kick up their heels and seem to tell me they’re angry at another snow storm and I don’t blame them. They are getting stir crazy. They need more now than snow and steady feeding. They want dry ground upon which to run and work to focus their energies and tire their minds, and sunshine and green grass on which to relax in the morning before hand.

Maybe it’s the longer days. They know spring is slowly approaching. And by the time it finally comes, will I be too busy building then to be with them?

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

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