But now winter remains, and it feels cold and dark and I’m somehow longing for mud, and flowing waters, and sun on the back of my neck.

The sun will rise. I will walk the land. I will step outside and smell the purity of air and stare up at the growing light on the sturdy mountain and see the brightness and beauty again.

Like seasons that blow the leaves from the trees and winds that cover the tracks, the problems of the past will not remain. Really, how shallow are my concerns? I will ascend above the skeletons in the dirt, and climb the magnificent mountains that beckon me.

This morning she was there, austere and aloof, low to the west. Though an intimacy grew as I stood with my coffee in hand, sweet and creamy, sipping by the sliding glass door, staring over the backs of the horses silhouettes, the peaks of the bald mountains, and asked for nothing. There, alone, the two of us, she faced me.

Was she closer? Did she appear bigger? I can’t say I saw a difference. What I can say is that I looked a little longer than I usually do. And you know, the longer you look, the more you see. , More. Deeper. Details. Lines and curves and subtle shadows I never notice before. And something more.

The importance of that little bit of rock reflecting the sun back down at us. And to think when I was a child, man had not yet touched her. She was still only a myth.

Our moon has since become closer, more manageable, understandable, real and tangent. Funny, though, how the mystery has not disappeared. Like fire, our innate intrigue does not dissipate with a grasping of the facts. It only goes a bit deeper, more personal.

My moon.

This morning I watched my moon, diffused behind the high clouds, set behind my mountain. Did your moon do the same?

My moods fluctuate with the wind and change just as quickly.

I am a kite caught in a whirlwind I cannot control. I seek stability but find none. Not within. Only around me in the solid rocks of the high mountain, the spruce trees that have endured how many seasons of storms, and the steady flow of the river.

I am not certain like the seasons. I am quick to cry. Slow to heal. I love fiercely. And see passionately. And give all I can to those I love most.

I feel too much.

I am here to seek a balance in a land more passionate and intense than me. I give myself to the mountain, my tears to the river, my rage to the wind, and for a moment, I feel nothing but the ensuing silence for which I have hungered.

Aspen buds forced on my kitchen window

The dormant season begins her end. Mountain awakes. I am reminded how wild our world is. Yesterday, the first squirrel. Then a skunk, left dead to a .22 in the chicken coop before the dog or playful colts could find it or we would find a dead chicken. This attracted a fox who climbed into the coop and chased off the chickens only to be tempted by the foul smelling carcass. And finally a pine martin. All this just yesterday.

I imagine it was the fox who took care of the stinky thing for us last night. This morning, the odor of ranch begins to clear.

On a walk this afternoon along a packed snowmobile trail. South hillsides trickle with the first melting, hidden under snow, exposed where rocks have opened to earth. An unfolding, unfurling of the season. A small secret we can find by sound. The drip drip drip we have not heard for months.

Around every tree bare dirt is rendered, relieved of its heavy load. And at the very top of one tree, a quick shiver of brilliant blue. A pair of bluebirds has returned.

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.

Forrest, at home working in the high country

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.

an aspen leaf from last season

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.

simple shadows in the snow

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?

first egg of the season

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.

Adventures design and construct us, are the defining form not of this place, but of what we make it to be, make ourselves to be, what we choose our lives to be. We build what we become through what we do.

Living here alone is an adventure.  What we do here, the three of us, at times adds to our richness, our relationship, our romance.  Living life loud, one person told me we did.  An odd but perhaps fitting description for a family as quiet as we are.

I considered this the other night as I held on tight to the pup, both of us balancing behind Bob as he navigated the snowmobile down the single track towards home.  No headlight. The old faithful snowmobile, the big station wagon of a sled, lost that long ago. We try to be home before dark. Rarely do we even come close.

There we were, three of us, bundled up heavy and tight against the single digit temperatures. One small shape in a very large mountain, moving slowly through miles and miles of snowy mountains, the only sign of human life ahead as we see the faint yellow glow of one light in the far distance, our cabin tucked into the side of the hill where we know Forrest is, alone, keeping the fire going, waiting.

Only the light of the moon, such a big moon, and a hand held flashlight to help stay on track in the trees. Not against the elements, I feel, but within them.  A part of the mountain.  Behind us was dragging a sled filled with four quarters of our young cow, slaughtered down at winter pasture where grass was still exposed, now being hauled back home to hang and process in our snowy haven.

Home, so far away from anyone else, seeming farther still under the pale cold light of the moon on the mountain. So small and safe and simple, the slight pinpoint light seen from two miles away, tucked in towards the blackness of the timber on the side of the mountain, among the shadows on the muted snow.

And above the sound of the snowmobile muffled by my balaclava and helmet, silence prevailed, something I could almost feel as I looked out to lightness of the high peaks that define our part of the mountains. Recognizable shapes now of an ashen glow at the top reaching to the black and sparkling sky, and down to dark silhouettes where the trees and shadows swathed about the base of the mountains, clear down to my home.

Funny to feel so safe, so far away.  With such capable hands of my husband, my son, even my dog to shape and share my life.  A completeness to a simple day, a simple life.  A day that begins and ends in quiet adventure.

It was almost romantic.

willow buds in winter

This year there is little ice.  The snow seems to spread directly on the river and creeks.  I question its ability to hold even me each time I cross but see the moose tracks before me and find comfort and wavering confidence.

This winter has an easier mood. A few days colder than any others just to keep the averages in line.  Otherwise, a little less snow, a little less wind, a little less chill.  Mild. Comfortable. Comforting.  My home feels like a content place.

Easier.  Winter is not half over here. We have much work to be done.  Our lives our bustling with the well anticipated and needed change.  Electricity in the air, charging us and our lives with excitement.  The exhilaration of change, now put into action.  We can enjoy our memories, but need not grasp for what is no longer there.  I do not cling to what I no longer am. Where and who and what am I now?

Now. A perfect moon low in the sky, its cool silver light reflecting off the white ground, reflecting off the heavy clouds, the echo of this watery light.  Each molecule of air seems to embrace the radiance. Our world glows.

Now the clouds are swathed in a silver and gold luminosity and the moon slowly settles behind the mountain.

In a matter of moments, I will notice each time I look up a little more clarity in the sky, a little less magic.  Day prepares to rise.

How many mornings have I seen the moon slip behind the mountain from the warmth of my home while in the dark crystalline world outside my window temperatures are so far below zero, far below anything elsewhere I have lived through?  So close, so thin are these walls and windows, so often I step out into it all.  My home is not a bunker in which I remain hiding, but a haven I return to, rest in, allow to be a part of the wintery world while smoke rolls from the stove pipe, down the valley, dissipating into nothingness.

How much wood have we burned to allow us the warmth to remain here?

How unnatural at times it seems when I remember the fresh green of garlic poking through rich black moist soil in perfect lines and patterns of deliberate life, and tilling beds in preparation for carefree sprinkling of carrot seeds, a simple random toss that produced sweetest rewards. These were other times, other mountains.

early morning late summer under the Rio Grande Pyramid and Window

I remember
Shadows unveiling
Like opening doors
Darkness slips away
Frost on the grass
Turns to dew
With the first touch of the sun
A line of brightness
Descending the mountain
Inching across the meadow

I am out there in the still frozen
unmoving cold morning
On the other side of the Divide
Even in summer we are pressed to feel warm

Now where is it all
Under how many feet of snow
When and where were the last feet
Touching the hidden earth

Here remains no connection
In a land too proud to allow

a rose on a rock in winter

Wind
A poem by Gin Getz

I watch them easily swayed
Tall grasses out on the flats of the Divide
Lush wet land between the peaks
For how many months left to live
Where snow settles and collects and contains
The load of the harsh world around it
Seed heads ripe and rich and full of a simple story
Secrets to blow in the wild winds
Seeking a place to settle and belong
How little of their control
Is not unlike how I may stray

How large this land that surrounds me now
Of which we will never be a part
More than the ashes scattered
Spread thin and bare like seeds in the wind
Struggling to grow in the short season
Above tree line how life exerts
Or a rock settled in the river bottom
Tumbling down to lower ground
In the brown waters of May
Violence of the mountain unleashed
In her wet and roaring fury
Here I am
But where will I remain

In a strong wind
With the storm of winter screaming
My voice is silenced
Lost
A child playing in the woods
Tall grasses swaying in a hidden meadow
Seeds left to scatter

The smell of earth in the air
Wind from the west
Where perchance snow has just melted
Leaving moist soil exposed

And beneath the soil
A solid rock
I dig down to find this hard place and space

A quiet voice
Wind through leafless trees
A landscape in shades of grey
I blend in
Smudged like a charcoal drawing
No lines to be defined
No voice heard above the wind

on the Rio Grande at Brewster Park

Down by the river I flow while the water stands solid beneath me. Here, we are supported. Still we stand on the white expanse and listen.  A murmur of life below. Is that Thalia I hear beneath the surface, tempting me to join her?

It has been years since I had a dog who can keep up with me. I am enjoying the more distant explores this year. But have I ever had one who can sit and listen, enjoy the moment and ask for nothing for now, only to soak it all in as this one does? What a wonderful companion I have.

I think of how many come here to fish in summer, standing in free flowing waters with their waiters and hip boots, tossing lines to dance on the water’s facade.  And how little “use” one has here for winter.  Peace and solitude hold only so much value.  We tend to choose more excitement, brighter lights, and louder noises.  (Perchance warmer places, too.) Stimulation provided for us, not created by mind and nature. Our senses left dormant where here they can breathe.

The banks and adjacent hillsides are littered with droppings and tracks of the moose that were scattered here yesterday, high tailing it for the trees, as a low flying helicopter broke the peace, hovering over the frozen river, scanning the hillsides, back and forth. From our kitchen window we watched a bull moose run through the deep snow on the north side and seek shelter in the trees, only to be chased back out again twenty minutes later as the helicopter changed its course.

We call it wildlife harassment.  I believe they call it “counting elk.”  Funny they wouldn’t think of the simpler method – asking those of us who live where the elk do for answers. Perhaps our answers are considered too simple.  I have found local views hold less value than facts and figures filed behind a big desk.  Living with the wild life, one sees and understands more than many a report will tell you.  But learning to look… I’ve been thinking of that often lately.  Our inability to see.  We see what we expect to be there. We find more comfort in the safety of seeing what we expect to see, not what is really there. It is a blindness we all must battle.  Seeing is not always easy.

Ah, but who am I to say?  I don’t see the elaborate reports.  I don’t look. A blindness for which I am at fault.  I only see the magnificence around me, and look at the finest of details.  I hope to miss nothing.  It all holds value.

We return home among longer shadows along the packed snowmobile track, the half moon rising in the ridiculously blue sky over the tops of the trees peppering the hillside.

Have you ever heard the shivering aspen with their intricate silver tips trembling naked in the frigid winter wind?