The Solace of Open Spaces (with an introduction by Amy Liptrot)

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On the same day that a Kiowa friend invites her to attend an ancient Sun Dance, she reads in the news that astronomers have discovered an infant solar system forming around another star. With an eye to the centrality-calibrating poetry of the cosmic perspective, she reflects: She describes how she became immersed in the work and lifestyle of a herder and a ranch hand and tells of how she experienced the joys and sorrows that accompany working with living things; how the animals she grew to love went through the natural cycle of life and death and the emotions that this evoked in her. She explains the sublimity of the vast landscapes she traversed and the weight of the responsibility that comes with caring for animals in these magnificent and treacherous spaces.

Elsewhere, Monica ( Kelsey Asbille) and Kayce ( Luke Grimes) seem more at peace now that she’s moved closer to the reservation. Monica admits she feels better in her soul and Kayce responds with a light kiss. I punched cows with a young man named Martin, who is the great-grandson of John Tisdale. His inheritance is not the open land that Tisdale knew and prematurely lost but a rage against restraint.Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are. We are often like rivers: careless and forceful, timid and dangerous, lucid and muddied, eddying, gleaming, still.” Some essays are autobiographical. These mirror the circumstances shaping her life at the time. We hear of the suffering and death of a beloved partner. Both were still young at the time. She stumbles through this early experience. In 1976, Ehrlich traveled from her native California to Wyoming to start shooting the footage for the documentary. Shortly before Ehrlich set off to meet with the sheepherders in Lovell, she learned that her lover, David, was dying. Despite David's worsening condition, Ehrlich went ahead with the film project. David lasted throughout the project but died shortly thereafter.

Night falls and everyone’s fixated on watching Shad Mayfield, Colby’s cousin, compete on TV while relaxing in the bunkhouse. Ryan and Colby debate their roping skills, with each exaggerating their talents. Along with a great deal of information and insight on the lives of ranchers, herders, cowboys and their beliefs and work ethic, Ehrlich also shares many tales of her relationships with these people. Many are humorous and show how people of a certain region have their own way of doing everything just slightly differently than everybody else from the language to the way they regard one another. In Wyoming, everyone knows everyone and there is a strict Western code to be followed. Ranchers are courteous and kind, hardworking, tough and yet gentle. The demanding and difficult weather and terrain make a unique type of society where people are often isolated for many months of the year. One woman in the book hadn't left the ranch in 11 years. That type of isolation causes a lot of strange behavior, from the violent to the apparently crazy. No matter what a person's attitude, however, he or she is accepted. Ranchers are midwives, hunters, nurturers, providers, and conservationists all at once. What we’ve interpreted as toughness—weathered skin, calloused hands, a squint in the eye and a growl in the voice—only masks the tenderness inside.” The detour, of course, became the actual path; the digressions in my writing, the narrative… As with all major detours, all lessons of impermanence, what might have been a straight shot is full of bumps and bends.

Fencing ultimately enforced boundaries, but barbed wire abrogated space. It was stretched across the beautiful valleys, into the mountains, over desert badlands, through buffalo grass. The "anything is possible" fever — the lure of any new place — was constricted. The integrity of the land as a geographical body, and the freedom to ride anywhere on it, were lost. Born in 1946 in Santa Barbara, California, [2] she studied at Bennington College and UCLA film school. She began to write full-time in 1978 while living on a Wyoming ranch after the death of a loved one. Ehrlich debuted in 1985 with The Solace of Open Spaces, a collection of essays on rural life in Wyoming. Her first novel was also set in Wyoming, entitled Heart Mountain (1988), about a community being invaded by an internment camp for Japanese Americans. Her work is frequently anthologised, including The Nature Reader. She has also received many grants. In 1991, she collaborated with British choreographer Siobhan Davies, writing and recording a poem cycle for a ballet that opened in the Southbank Centre in London. [4] [5] [6] Selected bibliography [ edit ]

In characterizing the ranchers in this way, Ehrlich combats the stereotypes that are associated with ranchers and reveals them to be just as complex and dynamic as any other people. I recently discovered Gretel Ehrlich, not that she isn’t well known by others. The discovery merely reflects my ignorance...and yet, I get great joy from finding new food—someone whose words I immediately want to absorb. I found the book in a used book store. The title alone intrigued me—one who thinks that soul nurturing places, solitude and silence are the final luxuries. And her essays are about Wyoming, my neighbor state and our least populated one—to me, a feature, not a bug. Also, two of my favorite authors, Annie Dillard and Edward Abbey, who I’ve re-read multiple times, gave her high praise. I expect to read more of Ehrlich. A beautiful book with a great deal of thought put into words. The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Erlich is a collection of a dozen loosely connected chapters about the author’s experiences living and working amid Wyoming’s vast open spaces. The book was written in 1985 and still feels current.Ehrlich captures both the otherworldly beauty and cruelty of the natural forces - the harsh wind, bitter cold, and swiftly changing seasons - in the remote reaches of the American West. She brings depth, tenderness, and humor to her portraits of the peculiar souls who also call it home: hermits and ranchers, rodeo cowboys and schoolteachers, dreamers and realists. Together, these essays form an evocative and vibrant tribute to the life Ehrlich chose and the geography she loves. In the Great Plains, the vistas look like music, like Kyries of grass, but Wyoming seems to be the doing

After five years, Ehrlich leaves Wyoming to travel and pursue new projects. However, she keeps returning, and when she marries, she and her husband set up home in Shell, Wyoming. They run their own ranch, and Ehrlich helps out on her neighbors’ ranches whenever necessary. Walking to the ranch house from the shed, we saw the Northern Lights. They looked like talcum powder fallen from a woman’s face. Rouge and blue eyeshadow streaked the spires of white light which exploded, then pulsated, shaking the colors down — like lives — until they faded from sight. Thomas and Mo will continue to work with Tate, and Thomas is hopeful that before long the boy will change into understanding he’s a warrior. I had suffered a tragedy and made a drastic geographical and cultural move fairly baggageless… It had occurred to me that comfort was only a disguise for discomfort; reference points, a disguise for what will always change.La caratteristica principale del paesaggio è quella che un imprenditore edile eufemisticamente descriverebbe come «robaccia indigena fin sotto la porta di casa», ossia un misto di assetati arbusti di pianta del sale, serpenti, lepri dalla coda nera, mosche dei cervi, polvere rossa ,ciuffi di fiori selvatici, greti di fiume e totale assenza di alberi. Se sulle Grandi Pianure il panorama è una sinfonia, un inno suonato dall’erba, il Wyoming sembra piuttosto scaturito dal delirio di un architetto: un gran ruzzolare e acciottolare di pietra infusa di colori tenui, esangui, un gigante di roccia che un rumore improvviso abba strappato un sonno profondo e gettato in piena luce.» Lloyd’s had enough but, unfortunately, Rip’s not ready to let up. Lloyd says Walker had it coming and Rip confirms no one on the ranch wants Walker dead more than he does. However, John wants Walker to stay put so that’s what’s going to happen. Rip reminds him to always put the ranch first. Ehrlich captures both the otherworldly beauty and cruelty of the natural forces—the harsh wind, bitter cold, and swiftly changing seasons—in the remote reaches of the American West. She brings depth, tenderness, and humor to her portraits of the peculiar souls who also call it home: hermits and ranchers, rodeo cowboys and schoolteachers, dreamers and realists. Together, these essays form an evocative and vibrant tribute to the life Ehrlich chose and the geography she loves. This book falls into a genre of literature of which I am very fond --- personal observations and understandings of place. However, this book left me cold. I can't decide which aspect annoyed me more --- the fact that the book was clearly written by a tourist who chose to stay and now believes herself to be an expert, that the book has so little of both the author and the place in it, or the false claims of being a look at the "real" west and then providing only slight additions to the romanticized, Hollywood version of the west. Or maybe it was that the title led me to believe that the book would be filled with observations about healing and comfort found in open spaces of the American west, but aside from the fact that the author chose to live in the west after a personal tragedy, there is little in these essays that suggest that the open spaces provided the solace.