Just another day.

February 11, 2014February 11, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Logging continues. Now it’s the three of us and the dog. Sure he helps. Supervising. He lies in the deep snow of the river bed, head up, alert, and every time you look over at him, he’s looking over at you. When that gets old, he’s off barking something we never see. It must be working, all that howling, because nothing got us yet.

It’s forty degrees and snowing and we’re standing on top of the Rio Grande roasting hot dogs on long willow branches over the burning pile of slash. You can hear the river louder now, a little angry and thus a little frightening. A few places you see the black void broken through the solid white. The great unknown. You wonder how deep it is, how thick the ice upon which you stand.

More snow. Heavy, wet snow. Coming in waves. Too warm even to stick to my snowshoes.

And in the middle of it all, the red-wing blackbird arrives. A week early. Always seems like they choose stormy weather to herald their arrival, and I feel justified in leaving out seeds each morning on the picnic table outside our kitchen window so, selfishly, I can see them. There is comfort in attracting what little life remains on the mountain around us.

If the silent land

Would learn to scream

Then would we finally

Listen?

Balancing.

February 8, 2014February 8, 2014 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

I never wanted the same old thing. I was not ready for this winter to turn out like all the others. It did not.

After a dozen years and ten winters here, there are expectations. I fear such thing. Comfort can allow complacency. I would rather remain stirring in the winds.

The enticement and exhilaration of change.

It can be additive. We crave the new, that which is just out of reach, as does the horse pressing on the barbed wire to get hold of the grass on the other side.

Or so I thought. Yet I have comfort in this familiar view, the same steaming coffee cup in my hands, the same warm body to wrap my legs around at night, the sound of my dog’s heavy sigh close by as he rolls over contentedly in the early morning when I rouse. The sound of my son’s steady breathing as he sleeps in the other room with the open door and I tip toe about the cabin building the fire, getting the percolator on the stove, sitting down to write with a cat curled on either side of me.

I don’t want to cling to the familiar, but desire a balance between that which I can hold onto, with that which will not stop from shifting through my fingers.

Without this balance, would we not be floating with our feet firmly planted in the clouds, or in fear of lifting off from the ground and trying to fly?

History in the making, we are all seeing it in our changing world. It is frightening but fascinating. I don’t want to miss it. I don’t know if there is a thing I can do but help open a few eyes and remind people of the simple beauty of the wilds. These dying woods are more than just a resource. They are a part of our collective soul.

A little bit about the book…

Getting ready for the big day. Ups and downs. Talk about expectations!

Maybe it won’t be anything special. But of course it will, because every day is, no matter what they say, and that one is Valentine’s Day.

I was just a writer. I had time to write. Once you’re published, you become an author, and suddenly, your time is taken up marketing and you don’t have near the time you used to have to write. What’s with that?

When all I want to do is share my words, what I see, a story. I don’t want to be selling you something. Like myself. I ask you this, how do we share our words without selling out? Make the most without making a mess?

That said, I’m grateful for so many who have shared so much helpful information on just how we to go about promoting our books – if not to sell ourselves, than back to the main focus – sharing our words. This site, Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn, tops my list at the moment. Worth checking out if you’re looking for some good marketing suggestions and how-tos.

Finally, a quick question/request. Are any of you active members of Goodreads? I’ve just signed up and am trying to learn the ropes. I’m also looking to see if any of you might willing and able to read and post a review on Goodreads to get the conversation going there. Please let me know if you can help out or have some ideas and suggestions.

Field of snow.

February 3, 2014February 3, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Haven’t paid much mind to a sports game in about twenty years. I think after last night, it may be another twenty before I do so again. Here in Colorado, I thought it would be the thing to do. I’m sticking with snowshoes and horses. Me, my dog, the wind and wilds. No teams, no scores, no bets and big bummers.

I just don’t get it. We call it a sport but sit on the sofa to watch. And at the end, one team wins, one team loses. Like politics and religion. I’ll stay away from them all.

I send a text message to the boys in Denver. Tell them they’re better off watching the Weather Channel. Plenty of good news there. Another storm on the way. And another. And another. That’s how we like it.

Why I live here. Reason #873. A random number. As long as it is high, for the reasons are many.

Seventeen below yesterday morning. Thirty-seven above by the afternoon. Not a cloud in the blue bird blue sky. This morning, another storm rolls in, enwraps. Such comfort in this covering.

Winter is ours. The sour summer squalls, and I don’t mean the weather, we’ll outlast, out live and best of all, outshine.

I’m in no rush for it to warm up, melt out. Open ground and exposed earth are a long ways away. The grass I grow in the front window for the dog and cats gets mowed weekly with hand scissors and is presented to the horses as a treat. We’ll be just fine.

For now, cover them with ice, silence them with snow, as we breathe alone in this still white vast peace.

This is my world.

Simplicity in a shiver. Standing out there with your head tipped back as the snow falls on your lashes and lips and melts on your cheeks and the steam of your breath stings your nose and the dog has the right idea as he flops down and rolls.

How easy it is to forget when summer is so fleeting, the fires the drought the flood. These changing times and changing guard. Now the mountain regains control. I can’t help but laugh as I watch them flutter away crumpled and useless as last years leaves.

And us? We are left with the open page, pure white and fresh and free as the field of snow before me.

Thank you!!!!

January 31, 2014February 3, 2014 / Gin Getz / 9 Comments

A big warm hug and a huge hearty THANK YOU to the 25 brave and generous souls, the “volunteer victims” that agreed to read and review The Color of the Wild. Thank you so much, each and every one of you. I sincerely hope you enjoy, and I am truly honored to have your help.

After hearing from readers, writers, friends, friends of friends from such varied backgrounds, interests and all over the world, I am convinced of two things. First, there are some great people out there, and I am mighty lucky to know a few! Second, people do read. Books are not dead. Changing, maybe. But reading, and readers, are plentiful. Competition may be fierce, there might be a ka-zillion books in print, but there are also a ka-zillion enthusiastic readers. In whatever form one chooses, e-books or paper, people are still reading and love their books. I am glad to see this. Not just selfishly for me, but for our society. I can’t imagine missing out on the pleasure of reading. Long live the written word and the art of sharing a good story.

A Request for Reviews!

January 30, 2014February 3, 2014 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Looking for a few good reviewers!

If you want a sneak peak at The Color of the Wild, if you have time to seriously sit down and read over the next two weeks, and if you are willing and able to post a review on the sale’s page for the book on “Opening Day” or shortly thereafter (the launch date is scheduled for the 14th of February)… please e-mail me (gingetz@gmail.com). I’m looking for a few (actually, twenty-five of you) good readers.

This is a great opportunity for me to get some feedback (important stuff for my first book, and you, dear reader, are the perfect person to help!). And you get a free download of the book before it is available to the public.

If you are interested and would consider this, please e-mail me. I’d really appreciate your help – and hope you’ll enjoy. Think about it. Drop me a note if you have questions. I’ll be here.

And so, yes, you read that right. The launch date is set. The 14^th of February. Valentine’s Day! Isn’t that a nice choice! (Thank you Sammie, Dee & Nadene…)

Only two more weeks, and something I’ve been working on for years is really, finally happening. Wow.

My first book, The Color of the Wild will be released.

Like a wild beast let out of cage? At least, that’s what I’m kind of hoping. But maybe nothing happens on that day except you can buy the book on Amazon (please do!) and I can say I’m a published author. Nothing more? Well, the beer we bottled today will be ready to taste, and I’ll be busy baking heart shaped goodies for my sweetie. Yes, I am a sap.

But the book… for me, it’s incredibly wonderful and exciting, the beginning of something new, the reward of so many years working towards this, a future unfolding in the pages of one little book…

So, if this is all so great and wonderful, why the heck am I so scared?

Seriously. I’m worked up, nervous, on edge. I’m running around trying to be Wonder Woman and get everything done, ready, in place, set up, perfectly. Do all I can, learn all I can thanks to the help of other author’s blogs and web sites and forums. And at the end of the day I feel I’m spitting in the wind.

Me? A published author? What if my efforts are futile and no one reads it? What if it’s a bomb? What if the reviews (if I’m even lucky enough to get them) are all terrible? What if my writing really stinks? It’s like a day of reckoning, I guess.

Any other authors out there willing and able to share a few first-time-publishing-blues stories? Please share. I’d love to hear. I sure could use a little encouragement right about now.

Oh, and besides working on the marketing, which I knew nothing about before Friday, and now I’m suddenly a self-professed pro, we’ve got a new piece of heavy equipment into the ranch, we’re finishing up logging before the river opens in this heat, getting the house plans designed, bottling that new batch of beer… and my son is on his way home. Yes, here’s the most special news of all: Forrest is done with his job at the South Pole for this season, and is coming home!

Progress.

January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 / Gin Getz / 13 Comments

Might look like no more than a pile of logs to you. Looks like my new home to me. I see walls, window frames, floor boards, shelves, a kitchen table.

And on that hillside across river where these trees came from, all I see now are small green trees. No more big brown ones.

I know it won’t last. Those ones will go too. But in the meanwhile, it looks so… alive. I had forgotten what a living forest looks like.

Quick updates, and back to work. Got the weekend off from being Lady Logger. Instead, diving in, finding myself caught up in my words, at times struggling to stay afloat, as the next manuscript emerges like an all consuming wave. So much for moderation.

Stop. Breathe. Sit back in the sun and pop open a cold one. (Actually, I’m not much of a beer drinker, but it sure sounds good, sometimes. Especially since it’s our first batch of home brew.This coming week we’ll be bottling our next batch. I call this one Logger Lager.)

Last I heard from the publisher, the first book is off to the printer for proof copies! Yippee!!!!

And now, I leave you with this.

I finally found it. (Rather, Bob found it first.)

Beauty in the beetle kill.

A natural work of art hiding on the inside of every log. Just peel the bark and there it is, waiting to be revealed…

An intimate view.

January 20, 2014January 21, 2014 / Gin Getz / 11 Comments

An intimate view.

Stand here with me on the mountain, exposed to the elements.

Look closely.

A mid winter thaw.

Can you see it? Feel it?

Little secrets softly revealed.

hike 7

A snowshoe breaking trail along the river in among the dying trees. Well, I guess anywhere you go here, you’ve got dying trees now. The New Normal? I look to find the lighter side of… death. Where? How? (See, I’m asking new questions. It’s not just Why?)

Before & after (or still in between)

Some of you are probably way ahead of me and have seen this one before. (Where have I been?)

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” A great quote by Aldo Leopold from “A Sand County Almanac.”

I found my community, the neighbors I was seeking, the friends with whom I would belong, among the Blue Spruce. And now I watch them leave me.

For the aspen behave like summer people, shedding their vibrant foliage as the tourist close their shutters and leave for the season. Aspen are a shorter lived tree, averaging perhaps 60 or 70 years (without drought and warming trend). Yet the spruce are harder to start, slower to grow, and once they get going, live one, two, three hundred years or more. Usually. Now I watch the young ones die.

To hell with this damning death! I’m turning my view to something full of life!

For those who read the article in Ranch & Reata and might just be wondering… This is Bayjura today.

Some thoughts on horses. For those who have chosen a life with horses. And for those who wish they would, and maybe someday will.

Insight to the heart of a horse(wo)man.

A horse(wo)man is a different breed.

On one hand, she can move with a simple suggestion, a subtle signal, an animal weighing ten times more than she does. On the other hand, she’ll climb back in the saddle after being bucked off onto hard ground. Once. By the second time, she might be too mad. (A good time to keep your distance or walk away.)

She acts not through force yet the horse finds comfort in her direction, not because she is sticky sweet, but because she is strong enough.

In her consistency, she creates trust; the horse becomes confident in her solid strength, and at the very same time, she becomes stronger because of the horse at her side or beneath her.

She has a sense of responsibility, beyond but not above daily care, continuing through all interactions and communications. She works with a steady course and direction, for the horse chooses chaos no more than the handler. It is an unnatural state for horse and horse(wo)man.

She strives to be the person her horse wants her to be. The gentle leader. She leads with softness, clarity, point and purpose. Calm, consistent, clear communication. Fairness. Firmness. A balance of confidence and compassion. She is learning when to push onward; and when enough is enough.

Reminders for myself as well as those of you who are going through the mid-winter no-can-ride blues.

Don’t let anyone stop you if it’s your dream, but don’t expect it handed to you on any silver platter. It is more than likely going to show up in the form of a manure rake.

Enjoy. It is a wonderful life.

… and Out.

January 15, 2014January 16, 2014 / Gin Getz / 11 Comments

Another big one goes down.

Two more logs for a wall.

Finding the bright side does not make the dark go away.

So, you learn to see in the dark. And laugh. We definitely manage to laugh.

It lightens our tendency of taking it all too seriously. Taking ourselves too seriously. Yeah, lighten up.

From across river looking back at where we work, with the dead knocked down, burned up and dragged out, it begins to look fresh and young and alive. Green. The blue spruce are blue.

We are not fooled. This is Round One of our work. The smaller ones will be next. We see the signs. They already bleed.

At times I’d rather look at the surface and see only the remaining green. Not deeper through the branches at the slipping bark, pin holes, dripping sap, and first of the yellow needles down along the base, but I am here, and I do see.

Out of curiosity, I’ve started amassing before and after pictures. Here, before and during. Starvation Gulch. Twelve miles up the mountain. Maybe my favorite place in the world. The first picture, three years ago. The second, last year. What do you think this summer will reveal?

Maybe it will stop. Just like that. Maybe the devastation will end at the boundaries of the Weminuche or the Upper Rio Grande or… wherever the damage has now spread to.

Maybe it won’t continue. Maybe all the trees that still look alive will remain alive.

Maybe I’m wrong, there is no real problem, it’s all just me and my over active imagination and my sense of drama.

Maybe the trees will all survive and beat the beetles, the drought will end, the climate will cool, and we’ll all wake up next week and the hills will be alive with deep, dark timber once again and our children and their children will run through the big beautiful old trees and celebrate… life.

But I don’t think so.

We’re not going backwards.

Even if we don’t go any further. Look at what we lost.

Me, I’ll have a new house. Cheap.

Cleaning up our little pin prick of a piece of land in this big wide wild expanse is all we need to build with. What do we do about the other half million acres around us?

This affects us all. If you don’t see it, you’re denying it, or you just haven’t been down (or up) to these mountains in southern Colorado where it slaps you in the face.

I hear from readers who have survived the fires. Their scars are deep. They still cry.

I have dead trees. I am awaiting whatever is next. Will life return quicker in an area cleared and cleansed by fire?

Maybe that’s the big lesson in all this: Learning to believe in, if nothing else, the Great Mystery.

The big picture.

Little things like hundreds of thousands of acres of dying trees help you open your eyes, which in turn, may help you open your heart and mind.

There’s much more to it than my trees. This is just a little window. I guess I’m lucky to have this chance to see.

One night last week, I tried.

I tried to see the aurora borealis. Rumor had it, and science confirmed: they were going to make a showing this far south into Colorado.

So that night around midnight I bundled up in a fat coat and mittens and chunky boots and wool hat, and headed out with the barking dog. Bob was in town; the nearest human being was probably eighteen miles down a closed road and I’m out there running around looking like the Michelin Man in the middle of the night with my camera and it’s okay to let the dog bark all he wants for a change. Who the hell is gonna hear?

Have at it, I say. And he does.

I’m safe. In fact, I rarely see any wildlife any more, day or night.

I’ve got the wide angle lens on the camera, a tripod already attached, and the settings set for night photography. I’m gonna get me some amazing pictures of the aurora borealis.

But a snowstorm blew in and stayed in and here we are three days later and only this morning did it really blow out. No, I didn’t see the aurora borealis. I could barely see the moon.

Now I see, it wasn’t just me. Even if there were no clouds…. Would there have been no show? Depends on what you were looking for. No, I wouldn’t have seen the northern lights. But what of the light of the moon and stars across the deep winter sugar snow of the southern San Juans and the wonder of the winter sky?

Plenty of magic for me.

When was the last time Forrest saw a star? Forget the big events of the northern lights or even a shooting star. Just a star, up there, twinkling.

So, there we are.

The Great Mystery. The Big Picture.

I want to figure out why, not why me.

I am here. I can not turn my back and close my eyes and tell you it’s all okay and pretend it is natural.

The last count I saw said our loss of trees was over ten times greater than what Mother Nature has ever done in the Lower 48. And that’s before the latest figures, which are remarkably hard to find. Maybe it’s morbid, but I need to know. The death toll in my back yard. Southern Colorado. The Weminuche Wilderness. The high end edge of the Southwest and Four Corners. The beginning of the Rio Grande.

Finally, I’m getting warmer (not just me). Getting some answers. I’m not surprised what I’m finding.

Here’s the secret to bark beetles.

They only get the weak ones.

Weak trees.

Tell me, what does that say about the nearly half a million acres of Wilderness that spreads from my front door?

Rather than blame the beetles, let’s start thinking about what’s making these trees so weak.

I know, I know. I’ve spent too long on this. Let’s move on. Think of my poor husband. How many hours have I spent on the web searching in vain for current facts and figures?

Take a break, he tells me. Let’s go fell a big one. Take out your anger by burning the slash.

At least in the burned areas, recovery can begin. The past is gone and there is room for the future to take hold. A clean slate. If it does not wash away.

What will it take for the rest of the forest to recover? Rot is not really an option. We’re high and dry here. This is not a rain forest. This is the edge of the arid southwest.

There’s a log we sit on at camp. Rainy Day Camp, we call this place. At the Forks of the Utes, maybe three hours in by horseback if all goes well. Bob tells us the story of how this log was already dead and down when he and his buddy Doug were camped here on a rainy family pack trip when they were maybe ten. They hacked at that log as boys will do and finally cut it in half. That was forty-five years ago. The log is still very much there, and no, nothing is growing out of it yet.

Things don’t happen that fast here.

Can you say, “There is nothing we can do,” accept those words and walk away?

I walk away from the work site today. A growing pile of timber for my new home. For a moment I look back to the other side. It’s a green hillside. Green as I remember it, only without the big trees.

Before we finish felling the big ones, the next group of browning trees appears.

It’s the bigger picture. We’re trying to make the most of a bad situation.

That’s great, you say, but that’s not enough. Take my trees and build my house and pretend it is all okay and not look beyond my little bit of paradise to the big wide world beyond.

Felling our trees is not the answer, only a small solution to a bigger problem that most aren’t seeing, and those that see, deny or do nothing. I don’t know what to do either, so I fell my trees, plan my house, stomp my feet and raise my voice. What else can I do?

It’s not about my logs on my hill for my house. It’s not even about a half million acres of dying trees, in this part of the state alone. It’s about what caused that.

Is she beautiful now that she is a mountain of dying trees? Yes, she really is, she always will be. Will she be beautiful after she burns or rots or whatever will be her fate? Yes, I believe she will be. But can we not see beyond her surface beauty to her silent cry as tears flow like dried sap down the last of her old wise ones, and her pained wail is in the dry wind which strips her bare of needles on even her young trees?

Can we not be wise (or is it compassionate?) enough to wonder WHY and realize our answers so far are superficial, the questions deeper, the truth still out of reach, and we should be reaching if we care?

Needless to say, I’m not done. But that’s all for now. Enough food for thought, or what ever you want to call it. I might just call it fuel for the fire.

New!

January 1, 2014January 3, 2014 / Gin Getz / 10 Comments

New life. New dreams. New hope.

A new way of looking at the old.

Start by washing the windows.
Get a clear view of this new day.

OK, so maybe I’ve cleaned cabins for part of my living for far too long.

But I’ll never mind cleaning up the view, especially when the view is as spectacular as it is from these windows.

~

~

Farewell to old ways, wishes, holding onto the past, wishing it were all the same, what you had, what you were. Or waiting for someone to hand it to you. Sooner or later you figure out it’s up to you. Maybe you already have.

What are you today?

What will you be tomorrow?

That is what matters to me.

Maybe I’m just a window washer. Today.

(Ah, but I’m getting a clear picture.)

And somehow I think you know. I’m a hell of lot more.

~

~

2013 was an interesting year. What other word can describe it?

A year of shaking up.

Waking up.

Some of it, I am happy to leave behind.
But it’s not behind. It remains ahead. Haunting.

Part of what I had to do this week was look back through photos of the past two years to pick out a few for the new book. I’d catch myself at times laughing out loud at the crazy antics of my boys and me, like donning welding helmets in the front yard to witness the solar eclipse, or porcupine hunting in South Park p.j.’s.

Other times, I’d have to hold back the tears.

Somehow I forgot. Once upon a time, was it last year or the year before, our trees were green.

Then I skimmed through the pictures of June and July. Quick. Don’t look too closely at the plume, the smoke lingering over the reservoir, the flare ups, the charred earth. It really hurts. Still. Time to heal, you may say. How can I when it’s not over? You know that, don’t you?

Maybe I shouldn’t have looked. I didn’t realize I was not yet healed.

I wanted to thank so many of you for being there with us. In spirit, in soul. I kept waiting for this to all be behind and then I would find strength and peace and could stand tall and calm and share my gratitude. Only I’m not there yet, and still I want to thank you all. Thank you. That’s all.

~

~

New.

What do you choose to take with you into this next year; what do you choose to leave behind?

What will you keep? What will you let go of? What will leave or bring? We have choice. Obligation is choice. Where or to whom we were born was not. Some people got to get over that part and get on with life. Their life. The life they choose. Hold onto it if it works for you. If it doesn’t, get over it. Tell me once, and move on. I don’t want to hear it again.

Love it or leave it.

Unless you want to keep it. Then embrace it. Or at least accept it silently.

~

~

So, like I was saying, I’ve been spending a good deal of time over the past few days doing two seemingly unrelated things. Only they’ve come together in a most interesting circle.

First, going through pictures from the past two years for the upcoming book. Second, logging. Clearing dead trees from our land across river, dragging them across the frozen water, and stacking them for use this summer in building our new home.

The green trees in the pictures. The dead trees in my view.

We’re barely making a dent. A few a day and the more we cut, the more we see. Those that look still green have the tell-tale signs of dried dripping sap and slipping bark. Some, the needles are starting to fade to the yellowy hue. Others still look vibrant. We hold hope. Can’t cut them now. Wishful thinking.

I can’t clear my whole view of this death. It will happen. They will burn. What else can their fate be? I’m open to suggestions. Whatever their fate, I will be happy to have them gone, rather than holding onto to memories, dead standing.

~

~

Allow the hills to purge and clear and make way for new life.

What will the new life be, and how will it come about? Below us, it’s burned. Most of us assume that’s the fate of the rest of it. We shall see.

And in the meanwhile, what do we do? Sit and wait?

There has to be more.

I’m reading that up in Alaska where similar devastation hit years ago, the dead trees fell, rotted, and new ones are growing. (Now don’t be an ignorant optimist, and keep in mind that the beetles aren’t gone, so the likelihood of these new trees growing into the big old beautiful ones we remember is… nil.) Rot here? Doubtful. Not in the drought conditions that expand from California to the Four Corners to the Head of the Rio Grande (that’s us). A twenty year drought and counting here. Rot will take a long time at this rate.

Just some things to think about. I do because I’m here. I see. I wonder. I care. Chances are, most folks don’t and won’t. Or they’d rather not. It’s still beautiful. Yes, like staring at loved one in an open casket.

~
Look at what we have already destroyed.
Look at what we have already lost.
My children’s children won’t get back a forest of deep, dark rich blue green spruce.
Maybe it doesn’t matter to you.
Maybe your kids don’t care.
I do.
And it matters to me.

New years resolution.
Speak up.
For those who need my voice.
Some of you won’t listen.
It’s not always pretty.
But can I get you, if not to think, at least to see?

Maybe my camera is the more powerful tool. Better than my words. Who has time to read?

~

~

See?

These are the trees at the forks of Lost and West Lost Trail Creeks. Notice anything different?
Not so different around these parts, now is it?

Just a bunch of dead trees. A few green ones left. Look closer. You’ll see they are on their way out too.

So what do we do?
Get used to it, I heard some say.
Go ahead.
You sit back and take it.
Learn to live with it.
Embrace the changes!

Blindness. Denial. Acceptance.
That would be the easier path.
If only I could.

This is my home.
My life.
I’m here.
I can’t turn my back on that which is before me. All around me.
I have to try.
Something. I don’t know what.
Telling you is a start.

It’s in my face.
My tears are on this land. Here more than any other place I have tried to live. I live here.

Maybe that doesn’t matter to you.
It does to me.
I cry because I care.

I’m going to at least try.
I don’t know what else I can do.
I don’t know what anyone can do.

But nothing is not the answer.

I am sorry your children’s children will not see these mountains as I once did.

I wish my tears were part of the cure but I see they do nothing at all.

Maybe I should leave the mountain and find the source of this destruction and devastation. Where would I go for answers? The big cities and their consumerism and capitalism where I was raised? The oil fields of western Texas where so many of my friends are from? The Forest Service, Government, politicians… someone from whom I would want an answer but we know they would not provide?

I’m angry. I want to point fingers. I can’t. I want to know why, and then I want to know what is next. I just don’t know. Do you?

So I stay here. Wield my pen as sword though I see it does little good.

And I will share this with you. Whether you want to see it or not.

~

~

I looked in the mirror today and saw I was older. The wrinkles, sagging, grey hair. When did this happen, really? I didn’t see it coming.

I’ll take the grey. I don’t like it, but it seems somehow… natural.
My dying trees? Natural? Oh, really? On this scale?
I won’t take. Not sitting, at least.
I’m going to stand.
To fight.
Whom?
How?
I don’t yet know.
But please, at the end of the day, when I sneak a glance in that mirror above the bathroom sink I lean over while brushing my teeth and see that strange woman with leathered skin and paling hair, I want to know what she stands for.

Everyone should stand for something. What is the point and purpose of life… without point and purpose? Find yours, and fight for it if need be. Life is worth fighting for.

Think about this. (I do.) This is death. I can mourn, accept, heal. But I’m afraid there is more to it than these trees. Something killed the trees. Something bigger than a beetle. We can’t see it as clearly as a tiny black bug or a blue stained tree. Think about it. That’s a start.

That odd middle age woman before me that I don’t quite recognize?
She stands for the wilds.
And she’ll fight for it.
Look out.
As my son might tell you, she can fight.
Not much scares her.

Maybe people.
But she’ll learn to get over that.
She has a reason now.

~

~

Reflections.

So I’m looking back and you know what I see. Green trees. Here. Across river. Ute creek. Starvation Gulch. It’s weird. It really hurts. It seems so long ago and far away. It’s not.

When you live with it day in, day out, you see the little things. You share an intimate view. You know your trees, your wood, your forest, your undergrowth. You have sat with your back upon the dripping bark, your butt in the fallen needles, your feet on the dried moss, you remember the smell of fresh sap, green needles, a healthy tree, but that is not what you smell.

No one has seen this before. What’s next? Is this the end or the beginning?

You try to look without emotion, without trust in experts who continue to remain clueless. Just look.

You see the tops of the mountain dead before the bottom. These beetles work their way down. But they don’t stop part way. This winter we’re harvesting the dead trees from the river bottom.

I’m so glad to see them going. We cut them down. Burn the remains of their dried branches. Drag them across the frozen Rio. Being stewards of our own land. Getting rid of this crap. I’m sick of it. Maybe we won’t be left with much green and standing when we’re done. But our land will once again feel fresh, young, not dead or dying.

And looking forward. To tomorrow.

I share photos that make me cry because it shows hill after hill of dead standing trees, but the people I show to don’t get it, don’t see it, or don’t want to, and see only how pretty it is. Denial, optimism, call it what you will. What about reality?

It will always be pretty, they say.
But it is dead, I say.
You are seeing what you want to see.
I don’t want to see death.
When do we wake up from this nightmare and see it fresh and green again?

The fire woke some up. They finally got it. Only not really. They saw sadness in the lands that burned and happiness for the lands that survived.

Survived? I ask them. But… they are already dead.

The beetles killed the trees. The fires clean them up. What caused the beetles?

~

~

An open response to Kathleen Moore’s A CALL TO WRITERS.

Dear Ms. Moore,

You already have me.

You have been a mentor in your actions and words. There is nothing I need (or desire) to write about more than the change I see from outside my front door. Even inside, looking out.

For the mountain, I will write.

For the mountain, I will dream.

I dream of green trees. Thick air. Running wild, naked, a doe in heat. Smell the sap as I brush against soft blue branches, bouncing back with life.

I dream about belonging, fitting it, being accepted, being liked.

Instead, I’m here. Hiding out. And my cover is fading as the trees are dying.

In my dreams the trees are still blue.

Those who have walked or been on horse through the dying woods understand. Most don’t. They drive by. Touch the surface. Remain in denial. See what they want to see. Trees. No matter that they are already dead.

Life. Life of this beautiful planet Earth. I was going to say fragile, only I am starting to see, she’s even stronger than me. Let her trees die and she’ll come up with something else. I dunno. Bunch grass. I hear that’s what happened in parts of Alaska. Grasses six feet tall that snuffed out seedling trees that tried. Maybe.

She’ll be fine. Better off without us, no doubt. But we’re so tied up and tangled playing God that I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Yes, she’ll adapt. I see the pika doing the unexpected and moving to lower ground, the moose that are dying elsewhere and were oddly relocated to this unnatural environment of the Southern San Juans doing just fine. At the moment. I see rare wildflowers, Calypso orchids, moving to higher ground, and sharing their beauty with me now in my back yard.

She’ll adapt.
Will we?

Of course I know what I must write about. It’s not as easy as I thought. It hurts, you know? Me, the writer. I don’t know how (if) it will affect the reader. If I can’t reach the reader, I have failed. This is the risk I’m willing to take. I’m willing to try. I am no more than a quiet voice for a silent suffering.

The forest does not weep as she dies. She remains silent and stoic and maybe if you listen when the wind is whipping through the branches of the needless trees and you pause in the dappled sun and hold your breath for just a moment, for that is all we can do up this high, maybe you can hear her quiet wail.

On this Christmas Eve.

December 24, 2013 / Gin Getz / 12 Comments

On this Christmas Eve.

I wake this morning feeling out of sorts. It’s my first Christmas without Forrest. What’s the point of Christmas cookies without him here to eat them? (Bob would rather have pies.) My son never got a house of flashing lights, Santa, singing and Rudolf, but baking, and lots of it, I did for him.

We do our best to raise independence. Give them all we can, everything we can.

Put him down, they said,
Come on, get out, come with us, leave him, get a babysitter… he’ll be fine.
No, I said. Because I wanted to be there for him.

This is what matters most, I said. And it did. So now, what does?

The theory was to help build a solid foundation.
Upon which he would build his rocket and take off.

He’s taken off. How far away can you get? I think the South Pole is good.

Of course I am proud. And couldn’t be more pleased.
This is what we’ve been working for, what we really wanted, but still it hurts, you know? Not pain, so much as a void you don’t know how to fix and fill.

No, not sad, he reminds me (he, the wise one, of course…). Bittersweet, he’ll let me have. But not sad. “We’ve both got so much going on…” and yes, of course, he’s right. Good stuff. It’s not the time to be sad.

Well, heck, then, I say, it’s a day to get high. I’m heading to the high country. Nothing cures my blues like extreme white. Me on my snowshoes, my dog in my track. Breath deep of thin air. This is what heals me. Solitude, silence, wind, hard and harsh elements. The power of powder, intoxication of the elevation. Solace of the season.

No presents this Christmas for Bob and me. We have all we need. Instead, we’re gifting to charities. It gives us as the giver just as much pleasure, and maybe the receiver even more.

Glad to have Justin here to share the celebration, the logging, the lamb, the snowmobiles, the high country. (He might tell you otherwise after riding with Bob today.)

The tiredness of the darkest days, lullaby of deep winter, forced dormancy, how incomplete I would be without this tranquil time and muted days. Forever summer is not for me. I didn’t know how much I would miss winter until I left it. Like a lover. Left with a cold side to the bed.

And thanks to Bob, even on the coldest nights we spoon and wrap about each other and I no longer know where my limbs end and his begin and I think somewhere deep inside they really have become connected.

The enjoyment of the long, dark evenings, so much time together inside, finally catching up on reading, baking, writing to friends… thinking. Do you remember when?

Time for bed. For sweet dreams. For they shall be.
And to you all, my friends, I wish happy holidays. May they be dear, sweet and holy to you, whatever your practice, faith, believe or choice.