High Mountain Musing

This is what we’ve been waiting for. Another storm, and with it our world becomes whiter.

White on white. We are filled with whiteness. As white turns whiter still.

We make our way through trees bending with weight, turning the trail into a soft tunnel of branches and white and silence. Dormant trees come to life with their graceful slow swaying dance of the winter load.

And in the middle of it all coming down, enwrapping us and our world in another layer soft and light like goose feathers, a powerful roar shakes us. In an otherwise cavernous calm, the shock of thunder. Unheard of. Unexpected.

One and then another, rolling in the low clouds just overhead, knocked around by the mountain tops, undulating about where we cannot see only feel the powerful rumbling chanting call of the sky, the primordial song.

We stop to listen, to feel the resonant growl tremble to our bones, finding ourselves out in the open, exposed, unprotected from nothing more than whiteness, endless here and now, consuming and devouring our world and our view until we are but a part of the great wide white, nothing but air and snow.

A white out. We cannot see the trail before us, beneath our feet, can barely perceive the trees at the edge of the park, now only suggestive shadows, a truth behind a veil.

And the air is warm. We wonder if the snow will turn to rain as I smell the dampness on the back of my dog and feel it soaking into my clothes where I usually can brush it off. It clings and there it remains as I snowshoe onward with white shoulders and arms. And an inch or so collects on my wool cap.

The only solace is the sound of the river
A quarter mile away in the black of the frozen night air
Or the sun on my closed eye lids as I rest against the hillside to catch my breath.
This is my God.
Blind faith carries a strong need
To share what one cannot see.
This is what I see.
This is my church, my temple, my mosque.
Listen and hear these sermons and chanting in the winter storm and spring river.
I cannot be converted but am filled with trust.
I find my answers in the wind.

Found
A poem by Gin Getz

If I am not lost, can I be found?
Find me
In the same place I always am
Forever changing

I find my own way
Because I have been here and wandered alone
Because I have been more comfortable with the company
Of the mountain than man
Because I have spent more time alone with her
In times and places than anyone has before or may again
Because I have no place else to be and so desperately wanted to be
Because too and perhaps most essential
I could sit quietly and listen to her
Ask nothing from her
Sink into her sides and be a piece of her

I could give myself in part to her
And in turn she gave me much more
Her whole self
Without reserve
Without even knowing she gave

So I learned from her, found her private places,
Knew what she felt like, smelled like, how she breathed
I breathed with her as I wandered
The labored breathe we shared as I found my way above tree line
To her exposed but untouched places
And explored draws I had not been up
Simply to see where they would lead
Following her courses like a drug surging through a vein
A reflection of a different world
One I had only seen but could not remain

Here is where I belong
Though not here
A mirror’s reflection of what I long for
I am still deep within the cave

Mountains
My Mother Earth
More of sister I stand beside

She is not only here
But allows me to wander
To find her somewhere else
I will know when I find her
And she will never notice I am there

I am ready
To leave these testosterone mountains* behind
And find my estrogen hills

*an expression and image I borrow from friend and freelance writer, Katy Koontz, who writes about her beloved Smoky Mountains.

I have a thing about bears. A love/hate relationship. I suppose it is inevitable living as far away as I’ve tended to do. For the most part, I figure I leave you alone; you leave me alone. “Me” includes my garden. And my critters. Of course that is not always the case.

Our second year on this mountain I kept a pig and goat. The goat was an unintentional pet. I have never minded butchering animals I have named, but I could not butcher the goat that went on walks (off leash and right in line) with me and my dogs. There I’d be, walking down the dirt road behind the ranch at the end of summer with three dogs and a goat behind me. Funniest thing was, no one noticed. No one ever stopped and said, “Is that a goat?” or something such as that. Nope. People really don’t know how to see clearly when they are so far out of their element, which folks often are up here. The pig, however, did not come for walks. He was for meat. I learned that the same effect altitude has on us (burning calories faster than one can consume, or so it seems), it has on pigs. This pig could not fatten up. He was at best, a lean porker.

All summer we tried to fatten him. We’d have the tourists in the cabins feed their food scraps to him. Thought that was a much better bet than leaving scraps in our trash area… which we were sure would attract a bear.

However, that is exactly what the pig did. Attract a bear. Mind you, it was a little bear and he was really not interested in eating the pig so much as eating the pig’s slop. But our intention here was to fatten a pig, not a bear, so his presence, although cute and hardly menacing, was counterproductive.

And it was no wild bear. It was tagged. The tell tale sign that this guy had already been picked up somewhere else for one can only assume a similar crime. Here in Colorado, bears get a second chance. Probably even a third. It’s part of our tourist revenue. They are cute. The tourists love them. In Colorado, the pioneer, homesteader, or family trying to live off their land and make a simple living hold less value than tourist attractions. Here, I have learned, the bear comes first. I was told (I kid you not) that if such a problem continues, I might have to get rid of my pig. On my ranch. Well, I would have liked to take on that battle, wouldn’t that be fun, and fight it I would have, as you can imagine. But the problem did not continue. The bear was removed, my pig still did not get fat, and we ended the season with very lean pork. And that goat followed me and my dogs on walks all winter. We finally gave him away in the spring to go harass some other unsuspecting family. (And you thought the bear was a problem?)

I still love my bears. Just not tagged ones that are dropped off near my pig pen. I leave you alone; you leave me alone. Which reminds me of another story about another bear… But I’ll save that for another day.

Outside the warm cocoon of a cabin
Where tender light soaks into log walls
And the woodstove is humming a gentle tune
I step

Affronted by the cold and blackness
My breath is halted for an instant
Overwhelmed by dark and silence
A great and powerful nothing

The void of suppressed sound and movement
Bearing down on me with a pressure that buzzes in my ears

Until my eyes slowly adjust
And the world widens
Horizons expand
Growing to infinite
As the stars begin to reveal their depth
And the silence from the muffled river a quarter mile away
That which I don’t hear
Because of the snow
The ice
The distance
Space which separates
And draws us together

A few steps away from the house
And the light from the windows
Glows pale golden rectangles on the snow
Warm and yellow and welcoming

There
Here
Inside
Outside
Is all for a moment
One

And I am glad to be out here looking in
In there where we are wrapped in cradling arms
Out here where I stand in her dormant womb
So small

A lullaby before settling into sleep

He asked me if I’ve ever been lost.  I’ve tried.  But I knew no one would find me.  So I found my own way home. 

Becoming lost is the luxury of relying on others.  One can only be lost if we are secretly counting on the option of someone else to rescue us. Some of us just temporarily lose our way.  And then find it, and make it home on our own.

Or maybe I’m just lucky.

The summer I arrived on this mountain, I was expected to know my way around a mountain I did not know, had never been on, and had no one to show me except where my horse and own desire would take me.

I suppose Bob was burned out on the trail ride thing by then. That’s what I was there for.

On one of the first days, just before noon when the sun had warmed the early May mountain sufficiently, Bob chose three ponies, saddled up, and showed Forrest and me a back route through trees and meadows about five miles long, twisting here and there through only a semblance of game trails, the rest an invisible line into the big unknown, our big back yard.  He called it a trail.  It was not.

Once. That’s how many times he showed me the route. After that I was on my own and expected to lead a string of dudes through a secret for which I only knew a few hints. He told me the horse would remember, and for the most part, he did.  I tested his skills plenty.  The first time was on that back “trail” a few weeks later. Through one open meadow where the trail faded to nothing, I chose not to listen to the horse but veered in a direction I thought looked right. The right way, however, was to the other right.

From the back of the trail line, where Forrest’s “job” was riding drag, which usually consisted of checking out saddles slipping and riders losing balance and dropping wallets, ball caps and sunglasses (what ARE you doing with your wallet out here anyway?), I heard his soft low voice say, “I think it’s the other way.”  Of course he was right. My horse confirmed.

Otherwise, Forrest didn’t speak much back there. For years.  He’d ride the trails, drag, sometimes covered in dust that the line of horses before him had kicked up, just sitting back there on his old mare looking around and munching away. He always seemed to be eating back there when I’d turn around to look.  Peanut M&Ms. And still he was the skinniest little fellow you ever did see. Some days he’d smile when we’d finally arrive back at the ranch, and his teeth were brown from trail dust.

Whatever the weather, the challenge of the trail, the challenge of the people he’d been watching in line before him. There he’d be, silent and cool beneath his hat, hunkered down and enduring the elements.  The cowboy way.  Keep your mouth shut and don’t whine.  No matter what.

And I tested this. I tested him.  Not intentionally, of course, but that’s how it ended up. 

Take the first time I took him on a pack trip.  He was seven. I was guiding a group of teen girls.  He was extra baggage that I would not, could not leave home without, but had trouble figuring out how to bring along.  So he rode along, a long and tiring day for anyone, let alone a little kid that wasn’t really allowed to say much because he knew his mama was too busy taking care of the other kids to pay much mind to him.

Take the time Bob had me guide a family adventure all day horse ride up and across the Divide on a trail I had not even been close to.  Bob asked me if I thought I could do it.  What was I going to say?  No?  I don’t think so.

But I’ll tell you what.  It’s big up there.  Big and wide and open and scary, if you let yourself get scared, which of course I could not do because I had guests I had to convince that I was not scared.  And that I knew my way.  I would get them through this, safe and sound, even in the hail. Yes, a hail storm hit us as we cleared tree line. As I recall, that was late July.

And as we were riding back down this side of the mountain, still in a place I had never been with a group of tourists sitting cold and miserable on their horses between me and my son, I saw him back there, slicker pulled up tight over his neck, eyes hidden behind the rim of his well worn cowboy hat.  He could have been crying for all I knew.  But I knew he wasn’t.  He was a tough little fellow.  He had a job to do, and wasn’t going to whine about a little hail in the high country.

Forrest was eight or nine.  Our route that day was mapped out on a napkin by Bob.  I still have that napkin.  A keepsake of sorts. One more thing I survived.  One more time I could have been lost but found my own way.  No thanks to that napkin.

I find myself staring at a leaf. Old and withered and brown. And for just a moment, it is truly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Dead as it is it shows me life. Life in this world of white. Hope.

I sit here on a hillside of exposed dirt, dried grasses, crushed wild rose stems, aspen leaves brown and frail. Perhaps the only place on the mountain with signs of life exposed. Dead and dormant, but a fragile promise. Not frozen or covered in white. I feel more alive by sitting here, smelling the distant odor of decay and thawed earth.

Here is where spring will come first, now so far away. Here is where I will come to find the first bit of green. A place of hope.

Now I sit here in silence and listen for the sound of my boys approaching to come find me. I hear nothing, and wait for the last of the sun to fall on me and the dried leaves I stare at with my head resting there on my knees.

There is no noise. No one will come.

It is my fault. I have chosen to be here. And even here I find it. Disappointment and isolation. An odd combination that makes one wonder what really does matter.

In a land more harsh than any other I have endured I try to find my place. I try to find solace. This is still a softer world than from where I came. Am I far enough away? What I run from, is it something within me?

Or am I here because I have nowhere else to be?

An Aspen leaf. That’s it. In one little place where there is no snow where today I sat and cried. With my head resting on my knees I saw this perfect beauty between my feet. The light just right. Perfect nature in our imperfect world.

I watch as the moon rises low in the sky to the southeast
Further down the mountain allowing me to see more
See it younger, fresher, newer
Tilted on edge as if tipping over on a wave

I watch as it clears the ridge
A small and simple curve of reflected light
Surrounded by a halo of pale silver glow
A perfect round that the full moon would be
She shows herself to me somewhat clearly now
A complete illumination of her secret side
The face she often coyly hides in her dark shadows
Reflecting only her features which stare coldly at the sun

In the white arc
Silhouettes of tall timber from three miles away playing shadow games in the limited light
And here back home
Safe and warm in my cabin with my dog by my side and my boys still asleep
The worries of yesterday are for but a moment forgotten
The fears of my son, our changing home, the world and nature around me

How can I care so deeply
With passion the color of wild rose petals in snow
Or the fragrance of summer rain on sun baked soil
And not risk being hurt
Which opening oneself up seems to allow
Like the invitation of an open door

Or am I better to remain closed
Cold and frozen
Uncaring
A rock face of the winter mountain
Forever facing north and hidden from the relief of the sun

Let my son grow
The world turn
The moon rise
Things fall apart and break
As I sit back and do nothing but watch?

The $50 egg. Makes for an expensive breakfast.

Perhaps an exaggeration. Perhaps the first three will only pencil out to a total of $75. The cost of keeping the chickens through their third winter. They have not laid an egg since sometime in October, I suppose. They aren’t young hens any more. But they sure are hearty. A quality which also keeps them out of the stew pot.

It’s more than an egg. Think of all this simple object represents.

Life. The potential of new life. A chick in the making? Doubtful. Our rooster is not what you might call “efficient.” Our eggs are rarely fertile.

A homegrown breakfast with fresh bread. Now we’re talking.

And something more. Bigger. Stronger. The suggestion of spring. The reminder that already our days are longer. The light stronger. The shadows a little shorter.

Our world is white. And so it shall remain well into April. Within the next three months, the valley below us will be planting, Texas will be blooming, the coasts will be watching the greens come through their loamy soil. And eventually, we’ll finally be watching the snow recede. We’ll watch the snow gage reading up and down as the growing intensity of the sun plays with the burden and blessing of the heavy spring snow storms.

On one hand, spring is not close. We have months yet of winter in the high country. Of snow, of sub zero temperatures. Of snowshoes and snowmobiles and shoveling and bright white meadows and foothills.

On the other hand, it approaches. So soft and subtle and slow it comes. We see it only if we look. Of course I do. And am rewarded with new found warmth of the lingering sun. I have been through this before. I know what to look for. I look, and find. A simple reward of a swelling Aspen bud or patch of newly exposed soil on a south facing slope.

As simple as an egg. Simple pleasures. Subtle reminders.

Nothing stays the same.

In morning the jays fly in their scattered formation
Down from the spruce grove to their sentinel tree
As they see me approach, same time, same place, every morning
Before the sun touches our land, their tree, shines in the window to wake the boys.

In evening the horses whinny and wait and follow me with their gaze
Twelve eyes tacking my every move
Waiting for the one that brings me close to them, to feeding time,
To the satisfaction their dependency upon me brings us both.

The moment of ritual, a forced or created or cultivated nature,
A measure of seasons, balance, and I begin to see, aging…
Time and time and time again
Like a wheel on pavement covering miles
With so many more left to go before arriving home.

(A place and space I wonder if we ever reach)

A pattern to our lives
The rhythm of day into night and back again
I slip into my rubber boots and zip up the parka
Without thought involved
Going through motions, mindless and calm,
The same I have done for how long and for what reasons.

Day in and day out
Over and over and over again
Time and seasons repeat in a predictable arrangement
And find myself balanced from the simple acts
Grounding in a otherwise ethereal life
Without such solid archetypes as our rituals provide.

The few givens to our day
Knowns to our lives
Comforts to our chaos.