Is there anything as exhilarating as waking up on the morning of a trip?

Consciousness in a trickle, then a flood. A flare of routine anxiety as the brain rushes to tally the necessities of the day—halted, suddenly, by happy realization. Ah ah ah, the mind sings, not today. Today, we go, thank god, Somewhere Else!

Getting ready for a trip, despite being hardly different from the day-to-day, is injected with a breathless energy. Contacts in, brush those teeth, skip the shower—today there will be sweat, dirt, and probably some blood—throw comfy clothes briskly on, toss tatty sweatshirt over-the-shoulder into the bag packed late last night, shoes on, electrics off, out the door, forgot my hat, out the door, bags in the trunk, key in the- forgot sunscreen, one last check, grab my sunglasses, throw out the trash, lock the doo- actually, new trash bag, wash that glass, last check, out the door! Back in the door, where’d I leave the keys, where’d I leave my phone…five minutes later, lock the door, start the car, we’re off!

But not going far.

It’s about a five minute drive to Tacos Villa Corona in Atwater Village; delicious, hot, barebones breakfast burritos of a gratefully reasonable size. Soft, near-mashed griddled potatoes, crispy bacon, onions, cilantro, and cheese (melted if you can wait a few minutes before digging in, a tall order), wrapped in foil and served in about two minutes flat if it’s slow, as it is at 7:30am on a Wednesday. The milky, cinnamon-spiced horchata latte from Black Elephant two doors down soothes the eye-watering heat of the Villa Corona house salsa—soothes it to tolerability, at least. I pop the trunk and take my time, because, for the first morning in a couple or a few months, or more, I’ve lost track; I can. A bite of burrito, a sip of latte, check my phone, another bite, take a picture (I could fill a gallery with vertical burrito cross-sections), finish the burrito, plenty of latte left for the drive, post the picture to Stories so everyone knows I am Away (there’s nothing to steal from my apartment anyway), hit the road, and now, for real, we’re off!

As I have written previously, I love to drive, and on a road trip, no matter how brief, not even the loathsome presence of all other drivers can dampen the mood of God’s Perfect Driver. Neither can the expected logjams of morning traffic on the 210 from Pasadena to San Bernardino, where as the wind ominously rises (it is one week after the windstorm that started the Eaton and Palisades infernos, and both are still burning) and bullies my poor Kia, the highway finally begins to clear, cars peeling off onto exits forgotten as soon as they are past, a mere few of the countless flyover neighborhoods of great Los Angeles.

Somewhere near Redlands I pass the house. It camps on a tiny, yet prominent hill maybe a couple hundred feet from the highway, empty windows, tall weeds, curiously lacking graffiti. One story, not particularly broad. Brick chimney. Just a house on a hill, surrounded by acres of empty, renaturalized land, bordered by the rattling grey snake that likely killed it. Here, at the sputtering fringe of the contiguous city, the day’s score calms from the rousing bombast of adventure outset into something more contemplative, more atmospheric, as the desert is wont to inspire.

Now, there’s the Morongo casino, the welcoming monument to the desert valley, a shining pillar and voluntary toll-booth to the dry lands and their oases, so often, as today, wrapped in gusting winds blowing westward fast clouds of dust.

Now, there’s the usual rest stop, as my latte comes home to roost—and shit, it’s closed. I can probably make it to the park, only another 30-40 minutes. Probably. Deep breaths, and no more water. One more sip.

Now, there’s the exit to the 62, the High Desert Highway, the lazy patroller’s ideal hunting ground with its long straight stretch of empty, tempting pavement, bushy median trees obscuring predatory Challengers. Twist through and up rocky hills into Morongo Valley, a dust-beaten little place that in only five years has gone from tumbleweed town to gentrification target, clean new crystal shop-cafe hybrids and restaurants, real restaurants, occupying the shells of crusty dives. Dives, I should admit, I never went to, and never wanted to, but liked to look at. Then a long rise over a tall hill and I’m in Yucca Valley, and the High Desert.

The windows roll down and I can finally breathe away the last desperate grip of the city, and life, and work, and regardless of the time of year, whether it’s an oppressive 95 or a repressive 50 outside, chills fall from head to toe.

From here, normally I’d take the more scenic and direct Alta Loma—which runs across the southern incline of the valley and provides views of the entire breadth, from Yucca Valley and the hills toward Pioneertown in the west all the way to 29 Palms in the east, and the Army base at the feet of more stony hills in the northern distance—straight to the park; but thanks to the closed rest stop, today I gotta go. So instead the 62 takes me past Walmart and every fast food chain known to California, into kitschy, popular, yet still somehow quaint Joshua Tree, and the park Visitor Center. Rapturous relief in a Port-a-Potty. I stop by the fridge at Roadrunner Cafe, the far-better-than-necessary kitchen conveniently attached to the Visitor Center, grab a friendly-looking veggie sandwich, and for the third time today: we’re off!

Finally, to the park.

More Airbnbs than the last time I drove up Quail Springs Road, sprawling homesteads and tiny houses with charm-chic painted names on faux-scrapwood signs staked at just the right awkward angle along the roadside: Hot Rocks Ridge, Desert Springs Oasis, Lazy Lizard Lodge. But that’s to be expected after two years. Who am I to lament—I’m staying in one, just a little ways back down the hill. I like the privacy, the solitude, for the most part. It’s why I’m in the desert; it’s why I love the desert. Plus I’d rather not have to listen to a sinewy and enthusiastic pair of climbers climb all over each other through the horrifyingly thin walls of any of the motels around here.

Joshua Tree. The park.

There’s definitely a spot, a moment, on the road into the park, just over the first hill, past the busy Maze Loop trailhead, past the first informational sign explaining to paste-faced tourists what a boulder is, where the park opens in front of you; and perhaps it’s a Californian thing, even an Angeleno thing, if not a City thing, to feel such overwhelming relief at such vast emptiness. The eponymous fuzzy trees dot hard-packed ground as far as you can see, patterned as if hand-scattered, broken up by piles of boulders of sizes, individually and as collective hills, ranging from “woah” to Gasp!. But it’s the distance, the sheer amount of land between you and anything, even as your car curves down the intruding black stripe that slashes through the center of it, the space that lets the sky bend, that is breathtaking. As many times as I’ve been here, it is always breathtaking.

An impatient Subaru honks at me for driving in awe in a National Park. I let them pass (and confirm, yes, that they indeed look like Subaru drivers), and try to decide where I’m going to stop for today’s exercise in masochistic thrill-seeking. Probably, as per usual, the increasingly appropriately-named “Hemingway” formation. I find my usual turnout past the main lot, and park.

Getting out of your car in Joshua Tree, the first thing you notice is the quiet. Beyond the Doppler of the occasional car going by, the only sound is wind; rustling the bristly Joshuas, battering your ears. There are birds, but they rarely chirp. There’s the occasional skitter of a lizard or fuzzy desert mouse through the underbrush as they play deadly hide-and-seek with circling hawks. You might, if you’re lucky, hear one soft thump as a jackrabbit—always bigger than you think they are—bounds away. Of course, this is only true if you, like me, prefer to keep your distance from people in nature, if you find an out-of-the-way spot to explore. If you instead park at the massive lot at Hidden Valley, for example, the sound of wind retreats behind echoing shouts and laughter, and the critters largely avoid the constant stampede of dust-kicking feet.

But here it’s quiet, and I’m happy. It’s funny; when I’m packing for a day in Joshua Tree, I double and triple-check to make sure I have my headphones. I’m convinced that I couldn’t possibly last several hours with no music, no podcasts, no soundtrack to living, mainly because I can’t last ten minutes without that in my everyday life. But every time I’m here, and I’m standing on the dirt, Camelpak on, sunscreen applied, hat, sunglasses, and sturdy trailrunners, I can’t imagine putting music on. In fact I am viscerally revolted by the thought. Partly because I’m justifiably worried about rattlesnakes; you do not want to miss that rattle, not even for the mind-massaging first chords of Soccer Mommy’s circle the drain. But mainly because it feels so grossly, intrusively human, so arrogant, so unforgivably boneheaded to presume, “You know what would make this astounding natural beauty even better? Some fuckin’ Party Rock, baby!” Often at this point in a rant I’d qualify, shrink, I’d say that this is just me and my little preference, to each their own, enjoy nature how you will…no. No, no no. This time I’m calling you out, you ignorant music players, especially you music players that use speakers Christ Almighty, I am calling you gross, intrusive, arrogant, an unforgivable bonehead, turn that LMFAO off and listen to the freakin’ wind and learn to be where you are.

Composing ourselves.

I’m in Joshua Tree to wander around, climb rocks, and have epiphanies.

The term “rock-climbing” is more-or-less used to describe high ascents using ropes, pitons, pulleys, et cetera clanky safety gear. In the same climbing parlance, what I do in Joshua tree is a combination of “bouldering” and “scrambling,” smaller scale climbing (of rocks) with a lesser, but nonzero, degree of danger. Fall when rock-climbing: very bad. Death bad. Fall when bouldering: ouch. A sprain, maybe even a break or dislocation. Fall when scrambling: depends. Scrape, cut, sprain, ow, but the biggest danger, in my experience, is potentially falling into a place you can’t scramble out of, 127 Hours-style (my parents are going to love reading this). I have so far carefully avoided every such pitfall, but I come across them all the time. Your prerogative as a climber is to responsibly choose the situations you put yourself into, understanding the consequences; so as long as I don’t put myself into a situation that could disastrously result in 127 hours of pain, suffering, and amputation, I’ll be fine. Mostly, I don’t do that. Mostly. It would be easier if the potential-127 hours-routes weren’t so exciting.

“Hemingway” is the best spot in the park for scrambling and bouldering. There are at first sight seemingly endless piles of boulders, and then you climb those piles and achieve an excellent view of endlessly more piles beyond, and not just piles but heaps, stacks, and hills, different, increasingly and varyingly towering and formidable, beckoning and challenging: “Can you find a way up?” And while I tend to distance myself from people in my immediate vicinity, the other perk of Hemingway is that there are often people within shouting distance, other hikers, climbers, and wanderers. It’s a layer of peace of mind that, frankly, lets me take a few more risks, knowing, again, that I probably won’t end up in my own personal 127 hours. Probably.

I’m not going to further describe rocks to you, but basically, scrambling goes something like this:

1. Stand before a huge pile of massive boulders that could crush me instantly if they decide Today is The Day in Geologic History that they’re going to Move.

2. Wonder if I should be doing this. At all. Especially alone.

3. Decide I’m already here, so why not.

4. Analyze the rocks, evaluating routes. Cue 90s beep-boop-bop cybervision, techno-target reticule and rapidly populating electro-charts, calculations whizzing upward in an endless scroll: That route looks safe, that one looks fun, that one looks really fun but if I fall, yikes…

5. *Bing!* Route selected. The fun route. Not the safe route, not the yikes route. The Goldilocks Rule of Scrambling. If you only pick safe routes you’ll never come back because it’s no fun. If you only pick dangerous routes you’ll never come back because you’ll never leave.

6. Ascend. Grip, lift, perch, push, scrape (ow), clamber, little hop, hup, hup, hup, squeeze between these two, hope there’s not a spider in there, lift gently, there it is, got it, up, done!

7. Repeat until tired or no more up.

In the midst of that process, getting my sturdy but increasingly vincible body up and over these boulders, there’s the ever-present, ever-welcome distraction of the desert. Just behind huffing, puffing, and grunting, there’s the aforementioned wind, the skittering in the brush, the faint unintelligible echoes of other climbers calling out to each other as they dangle, tiny, against the face of a sheer rock wall. Every time I pause for a quick breath I glance behind me at a landscape of contrast, unfiltered sunlight beating down relentlessly except for deep lakes and ponds of shadow thrown by the tallest boulder piles, a still-life but for the deceptively slow drifting of predators silhouetted in the bright sky. Then back to the climb.

Behind the imposing first wall of Hemingway there’s a long, long-dried streambed before the next craggy tower. I’m on the other side of that streambed, and I can feel, as I pick my way up the final few rocks, that this is the turnaround point. At the top—not the top top, but the top of this particular ascent—I wiggle myself through a cranny out onto a nice, flat, shadowed ledge, rock still warm from its daily sunbath. I read a few pages from my book, then get chilly in the shade as a breeze moves through, whistling in the higher reaches above. I throw on the jacket I sweated off on the way in, pull up the fuzz-lined hood, and doze for 10, 20 minutes.

Down and back is always harder than up and in. Harder still when you’ve just slept and allowed loose muscles to relax and congeal. There’s a symphony of cracking, snapping, and popping with a chorus of groaning as I stand and stretch. Wincing, I look out at my route back—the rocks seem somehow so much rockier than on the way in—and whisper an apology, a prayer, to my joints. A lot of hard landings between me and the car.

But I make it fine. The stretch of walk to the road after dismounting the final boulder is a place of unbelievable satisfaction. I’ve remembered why I like doing this, and proved to myself that I can still do it, without hurting myself, and can look forward to doing even more of it tomorrow. The winter sky is already growing dark, the desert cold. I watch for pesky fallen cacti that love nothing more than to stick through the side of a shoe into a vulnerable foot. I chuck my bag into the passenger seat and bask briefly in the car’s warm, shielded interior, catching myself just shy of another nap, before heading out.

Trepidation, on my way to the Airbnb. I’m good at booking Airbnbs—in fact, I’m better than most people I know at booking Airbnbs (or VRBOs, or whatever). If I know you, it’s true. I’m better. I’m really good. For instance, I actually check to make sure the place has air-conditioning (or heat, per the season) and wi-fi. I look at the neighborhood the place is in on Google Maps to make sure it’s not full of burned out buildings and empty lots and haunted people who stare unblinking at your car all the way into the driveway. Streetview. Yeah. I know the tricks that all you plebians seem to fall for every time I let you do the booking. And every time we’re walking through the place and you’re shaking your head in amazement that there’s no electricity or something I say, “Crazy that they didn’t mention there’s no electricity here,” while I think, “They absolutely mentioned there’s no electricity, you just didn’t read it dummy.” At this point, especially in Joshua Tree, I’m practically a pro.

That said, even I get duped sometimes.

Because you never know with 100% certainty how an Airbnb (VRBO, etc) is going to turn out until you’re in the door. Gorgeous photos tell you nothing. Comprehensive photos, multiple angles of every room and the exterior, are much better. If any rooms, amenities, or outside photos are omitted, red flag. What don’t they want me to see? Barren, scrap-strewn backyard? Buzzsaw-wielding, metalworking neighbors? A wood furnace requiring wood I have to provide myself, like I’m Paul freakin’ Bunyon?

Even if the photos are comprehensive and all the other details line up, though, there are things you can’t know. Furniture quality, for example. It’s extremely easy, and extremely common, to disguise shitty furniture in photography. The same for fixtures and building materials. Many times I’ve walked into an Airbnb only to discover the place feels…hollow. The wood floor creaks, too new and cheap. Walls echo loudly. Light switches don’t work. Wall art still has stickers. The bed is as hard as the rocks I’ve been climbing all day. There’s an odd…smell…from somewhere, like a small critter snuck into a wall and died during construction. All unfortunate signs that you’ve walked into a trap of an Airbnb, one of some greedy jerkoff Angeleno’s many income siphons.

Luckily, the trepidation is unwarranted as this one turns out to be none of those things, and is in fact among the best I’ve ever booked.

Everything works. Like, everything. Lights, shower, water, even the automatic shades that lower from the ceiling to obscure the wall-to-wall front windows (that look out onto a fantastic view of the desert valley), which I worried briefly didn’t work until I realized I was just hitting the wrong button. Not only is the place functional, but it has real, genuine taste. It wasn’t furnished from the Pinterest sale bin, and neither is it someone’s recently-deceased grandparent’s recently-uncluttered home. It’s minimal, but roomy, organized, and thoughtful. And did I mention that everything works?

Though it’s a side house next door to a house-house on a larger property, the view is unobstructed and there’s plenty of distance between this place and the next. Space to breathe, to relax, space for privacy. Space, perhaps, to fill in with imaginary spooks once it gets dark—but I can live with that. I’ve been living with imaginary spooks, light or dark, all my life. Not to get…you know.

After confirming that the place is lovely and everything works—and playing with the automatic window shades for somewhere between two and 20 minutes—I throw myself down on the couch, which is comfortably firm and crucially not a rock, pull out my laptop, and begin hunting for food. In the two years it’s been since my last visit, unfortunately both of my go-to local pizza joints have closed down. Fortunately, two new ones have opened up. I pick the one that has wings on the menu. Never fully trust a local pizza joint that doesn’t have wings; they either take themselves too seriously or are a health-food restaurant in disguise. I find a not-too-sketchy (dangerous), but not-too-clean (expensive) liquor store between me and the pizza shop. Then I spend about 15 minutes willing myself back off the couch.

Bashfully, I think what I find tremendously beautiful about sunsets is how uniquely stunning they are depending on where you’re seeing them (as well as, obviously, the weather). From my apartment window it’s a cascade of gradients across the sky that disappears behind the house across the street. From Venice Beach it’s a burning orange ball that drifts down, down just off Point Dume, casting afterimages of surfers, soccer players, and packing families as they savor the last moments of quintessential California joy. From a backyard in Belgrade, Montana it’s a purple ink stain blossoming behind cloud cover and far mountain peaks, a cue for an evening walk around the sparse neighborhood. From the coast of any island in Hawaii it’s an existential witness, as close as an individual comes through their own inadequate sight to beginning to comprehend the Sun and Earth as bodies in an incomprehensible space, before the bodies vanish in a supernatural green flash that throws all colors of perception across the horizon.

In the desert the sunset fuzzes the harsh terrain and wipes a rough brush across dirt, rock, and scrub to render a breathtaking painted landscape, a few moments of fullness and rich beauty before the night plunges all into cold, empty, dark unknown. Driving in the brushed light feels cinematic, not of old westerns but dismal thrillers with grey endings, so many of which have a scene of lonesome driving through jaw-dropping beauty, the driver either too preoccupied with untangling life-threatening quibbles to notice or all too aware of the conclusive symbolism of fading light. Right on time, I pull up to the liquor store.

I walk out with a tall bottle of Eagle Rare, a good bourbon. I pick up the pizza, one of the first of the night out of the hot brick oven. The place is too bright, smoky, and empty, not the kind of place you want to sit in, but the pizza smells good and I hope the business lasts.

I have to reverse to find the house’s unmarked dirt driveway. Once inside I toss the pizza and wings in the oven to warm, lower the window shades, gulp down a quick burning shot, and head for the shower.

And stop.

Why, why why why, why, why—why—do they make showers so goddamn different and so goddamn complicated?

I stand, naked, on tile, staring at an arcane set of unmarked golden spokes mounted on the wall opposite the shower head. There are two long spokes and one short, and the short spoke when turned turns the long spokes with it, while each long spoke turns only itself. On the wall directly under the shower head is another set of unlabeled golden spoke-handles, but only one short and one long. Again, the short turns the long, the long turns itself. Next to that, mounted on the wall is a washing hose.

Get it?

Clearly this is supposed to be intuitive, or else they would have labeled it, I think. So, sending my mind into a state of intuition, I intuit: One set of handles must handle (hah) the temperature, and the other set must control the pressure. The three-spoked handle may correspond to hot, cold, and…something, while the two-spoked handle controls the pressure and direction to the shower head or the washy-hose thing. I chuckle to myself, shaking my head. Easy!

I turn one of the long handles on the three-spoke set: nothing. I turn the other: nothing. Ahah! The temperature! I was right! I reset both and turn the short spoke, which turns all three. Water sprays from the shower head. This really was intuitive. Now to set the temperature. I look at the two long spokes. Hot is usually on the left, I guess. But do I turn it clockwise or counter-clockwise? I try clockwise, and wait a minute: the water remains cold. I try counter-clockwise and wait a minute: the water remains cold. Hm. Maybe that’s the cold control. I try the other long spoke: same results. I say, out loud, “Shit.”

I run out to the kitchen to make sure the hot water works. It does, instantly. I run back and stare at both sets of gold handles for another two minutes. The water remains running, and remains cold.

I know how to turn the water on at least, I don’t quite reassure myself. Maybe the two-spoked handle controls the temperature…for some reason. With the water on I carefully approach the two-spoked handle under the showerhead, gasping when I can’t fully avoid the frigid water (it is 40F outside and falling). I turn the long spoke. Nothing seems to change. I try the short spoke—and yelp, “AIP!” as the water pressure changes destinations and freezing spray immediately blasts my face from the washing hose, pointed helpfully outward at precisely face-level. I duck out of the way and flip the short spoke back—and yell, “NO!” as the same freezing water drenches me from the showerhead I’d stepped under. “YAH!” I jump like a wet cat, out of the way.

I am drenched. I am cold. I am mad.

“WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A SHOWER WITH NO LABELS!?” I yell at the shower. I dry off and go check the house manual to see if there are instructions. There aren’t.

When I come back the water is steaming.

“WHAT.”

I am dumbfounded. I touch the water—and recoil. Extremely hot. It must just need time to heat, I think, but which handle activated the hot water? I return to the three-spoked handle and turn one of the long spokes a bit clockwise. When that doesn’t appear to do anything after a minute, I turn it more. Does that look like less steam? I touch the water: definitely cooler. The water eventually settles to a barely-tolerable heat. I don’t know if that spoke turned down the hot water or turned up the cold water, but the pressure stayed the same and at this point I can’t be bothered to find out. As long as I keep it on this setting, then I can turn it off and back on again without changing anything.

It is admittedly, when finally working, a pretty terrific shower. Heat and high water pressure are a magical combination after a long day in the sun, whether in a ridiculous shower or a hot tub’s coveted jet seat. There are few more comforting feelings, matched only by the moments after, scrubbed to a new layer of skin and in a loose, soft shirt and sweatpants.

I plop down on the couch and nearly fall asleep (it is 6pm) before I smell the warming pizza and remember I have food waiting.

The pizza’s good. The wings are good. The bourbon is also good, and about 15 minutes into The Hurt Locker it hits me like a sledgehammer and sends me into something like a waking coma. Sensation becomes slippery. Ralph Fiennes appears briefly, memorably, and dies. I finish the remaining pizza and wings that I was going to leave for tomorrow, way back when I was mostly sober and full. I manage to avoid drinking more bourbon. I do something for another two hours, maybe read, check hopelessly to see if she texted back, and then I finally let myself collapse into bed.

Some people struggle to sleep in foreign beds. I do not. I’ve always found them, with rare exception, more comfortable than my own bed. Whatever that means.

I wake, curiously un-hungover. Sore, definitely, from yesterday’s scrambling, just about everywhere, and the small nicks and wounds are starting to itch. But not dry, not spinning. Feeling pretty good, overall. Suspiciously…good. I drink a full glass of water anyway, just in case.

Light floods the room as I raise the window shades, revealing a brilliant blue cloudless morning, all the signs of a brutal and uncompromising cold waiting in ambush behind inches of glass.

I head down the hill for breakfast. The desert is as slow as anywhere on weekend mornings, and it’s a pleasurable crawl to Big Dez for a big, soul-warming coffee and a couple hefty pastries. As anticipated the cold is dry, sharp, bracing, and I need the coffee more for heat than waking.

I enjoy the pastries over a bit of Stop Making Sense to amp up for today’s excursion, stretching, hopping around, constantly staring out the windows at the minute movements of the twitching desert town. Then we’re off again.

I manage to mostly beat the weekend line at the park entrance, which can stretch a mile or more down the two-lane road in peak season, and even now in the off-season, at the wrong time, can grow long enough to wait an hour to enter. Once through, it’s back to Hemingway. There’s an old favorite spot a short ways down a dirt road with treading that feels designed to rattle my poor Soul until all the screws fall out and the intrepid little car disintegrates and plops me in my seat directly on the sand. But it, somehow, holds together.

An enormous hill of jumbled car-sized boulders looms. I’ve climbed it before, several times, but each time I’ve doubted I would make it. I can see many routes up, it’s obviously possible; it just feels unlikely. A big task for small me. Then, as I plant my foot on the first rock, my body remembers: up is easy. Up is only push, lift, pull. Find the next path. Step, pull, lift. Next path. Step, step, jump, push, lift. Next. It takes me about 40 minutes to reach the top.

I pause and take a long drag from the Camelpak. My heart is pumping but not racing. I have probably a dozen new little red marks: scratches, dings, nicks, and what I reluctantly have to call a gash near my left elbow from catching myself on a slip. I have a little gauze and some athletic tape, and I clumsily but securely wrap my arm. Then I move on.

At the top of the boulder hill is a dirt slope that ramps to a crack in the massive block of stone that tops this formation. I scrabble up and discover something I hadn’t noticed before: the crack is actually a tunnel that leads through the stone to its back. Creeping through, I hop onto a small ledge, a pocket of rocks and dirt with a sheer drop—about 60 feet—on one side and a sheer cliff wall on the other, and a gap under a large boulder that I could probably crawl through. Here, on this precarious, lonely perch, I pause. There could be spiders in there. After five minutes of hemming, hawing, stomping, kicking, and verbally warning the imaginary(?) spiders of my impending approach (nearby climbers hear faint echoes of: “If there are any spiders in there, tarantulas or otherwise, I’m coming and I mean no harm! Just passing through! Here I go!”), I shove my backpack through and army crawl under the boulder.

Standing up on the other side, my stomach drops. Mental alarms ring. This is what we don’t do.

I’m on another, smaller ledge, unprotected. The wind blows strongly, and that’s important because one random powerful gust could potentially throw me off balance at a critical moment. And the only way off this ledge, besides back, is right through a highly critical moment.

All I have to do is climb up onto this one, thick, round-ish rock, and then it’s two steps and a short leap onto a huge, flat rock that’ll be safe. However, the round rock is…round. Which means that although it looks grippy, one false move, one misjudgment of weight or balance, one surprise gust of wind, could put me off the rock. There are no holds, nothing to catch myself on. Off the rock and 50 feet to the ground. There’s also a slight gap between my ledge and the round rock with about a 20-foot drop underneath, making it even trickier. It’s still not a difficult move to get up there. It’s just a bit of momentum and balance. I can do it with about 95% confidence. It’s just that there can be absolutely no mistakes. It’s a scary 5%.

My first and loudest thought is correct:

THIS IS WHAT WE DON’T DO.

Then, a second, insidious, churlish, childish, brick wall of a thought:

But I don’t wanna go back.

The past few months have been a lot: of work, of emotion, of stress. Especially the last month. In the past four weeks through the holidays I’ve worked the most shifts, and some of the most exhausting shifts, I’ve ever worked at the restaurant. Many of those nights and days were rewarding, not only in customers served and made happy but in feeling like a driving mechanism of a supportive team. Still, fulfillment doesn’t always top up the tank, and the more you work the less it does. Rest, and life outside of work, has to take care of the remainder, and there has not been much of either lately. In fact there has been very little life outside of work for some time now. Arguably years. So when I got a little money for Christmas, I booked myself this short getaway practically as soon as it hit my bank account.

But it seemed like as soon as the holiday rush died, LA caught fire. Thousands displaced overnight, my parents fortunately but unnervingly in the Yellow Light zone (“Be ready to go.”), Wednesday sunrise smothered by two monstrous roiling plumes of pitch-black smoke encircling the entire city. Trees fallen everywhere, onto parked cars, through buildings, blocking sidewalks and highway entrances, in many, many cases bringing power lines and poles down with them. That first morning I drove from my place in Los Feliz up to Montrose (in the hills where the wind has always careened) through Glendale, staying on side streets. On Los Feliz Boulevard, an artery connecting the 5 to Hollywood and Silver Lake, two massive pine trees tangled in power lines dammed the entire road, and I knew even before I caught up with the news that it was bad, really bad, because though this was not only a fire and safety hazard and a major power failure but also an enormous traffic fiasco waiting to happen, there was not even one emergency vehicle in sight. Just cars beginning to line up, a few drivers and locals standing and pointing, people self-organizing the early chaos. Some helpful utility worker had at least thrown strips of reflective high-visibility fabric over the dam so that no one would drive into it in the dark.

Days of chaos, checking in, wondering where, why, how to help. Opening the restaurant, and a shocking, welcome, flood of regulars and displaced. Help, work, an overwhelmed sense of not doing enough, of not being able to do enough. A worthless guilt over leaving on a two day trip on the first day the wind died, two weeks into the fires.

Least importantly, but nevertheless affecting: a crush. The first I’d felt—allowed myself to feel—in a long time, almost unwillingly. You know how they go. Highs and lows, an exhilarating and terrifying lack of control, revealing your worst self in overwrought attempts to be your best, and your best in the few moments you manage to forget the self-imposed stakes. This one was on a downslope when I left for Joshua Tree. But there was hope in it being felt at all.

And so all that pent-up exhaustion, depression, and frustration inspires the third, winning thought, streaking like a rocket through my mind as I stare at this potentially deadly rock:

FUCK THIS ROCK.

Decided, shutting off my mind, I take a sip of water, tighten the straps on my bag, and make the first move.

Instantly things go wrong.

The gap is wider than I thought. Or my legs are shorter than I thought. Either way as my toe lands on the round rock across the short gap I’m caught in a ¾ split, with no strength or momentum to propel myself up to the top. Also, I’m tilting backwards, towards open air. 50 feet of open air.

Using the explosive burst of adrenaline from sudden, mortal fear, I throw both arms forward over my head to reset my balance, or at least fall in a less deadly direction. I achieve the latter. Before I can fall 20 feet to certain injury, I shoot my right arm out and slap the top of the rock, grinding my palm into the gritty stone. Shooting pain as my right shoulder slightly hyperextends, but the move catches me. I think quickly, unsure how long I can hold this position, nearly all my weight thrown against the rock, one toe extended to the relative safety of the ledge. I could try to shove myself off the rock and pendulum back to the ledge; but I’m not feeling particularly strong from this position and I’d likely just fall back on the rock. I’ll have to climb up.

Truly, deeply, FUCK THIS ROCK.

I twist my torso over my front leg so I’m facing the rock directly, then slap my other arm over the top and dig every inch of skin into the stone to get as much grip as possible. Then I reluctantly release the toe on the ledge.

I dangle briefly, splat against the side of the rock like a child’s lint-covered sticky-palm toy, toes scraping to find some hint of purchase beyond prayer.

One toe finds it. Just a hint.

I pull hard on my arms, scraping my chest up across the stone until I can plant it over the rounded top. Then I slowly move one arm, then the other, a little further across the top face of the rock, grip, and pull again, hoisting my belly over the edge. Finally, carefully, one leg, and then the other.

I stay flat on my stomach, not trusting my balance while still on the rounded boulder. A strong gust of wind blows through, whipping my shirt. Yeah, flat is good. Flat is great.

I squirm my way to the edge, just a short hop away to the huge flat rock and safety. I listen for telltale moaning of wind rushing through nooks and crevices in the higher rocks nearby, and when there is none I quickly stand and jump across.

Safe.

Panting, I sit, take off my pack, and take stock.

My right shoulder is sore, but there are no sharp pains. My knees have a couple dings from bouncing off the rock. My forearms are embedded with gravel but most of it brushes off, revealing a couple light scrapes. My hands are in the worst shape, my right hand especially, scratched up and a few tiny rocks planted too deep to squeeze out with my fingers. They don’t hurt now but they’ll infect if I don’t take care of them tonight.

All in all, not too shabby.

I squeeze some water over the scrapes and onto my hands. Then I throw the pack back on and continue.

There’s a little green dead-end canyon up here between the massive peakstones of the formation. It’s not the little green canyon I was looking for—and now I’m confused about where exactly that particular canyon is—but it’s where I’ve end up. There’s a tall pillar of stones in the middle and more jumbled boulders around it. At the far end there’s a rock wall with a break in it that looks surmountable but I know from experience isn’t, at least for me. Ironically, that was my last near miss, that inspired The Rules and an impeccable run of safe choices up to today. On the right is a sheer rock wall and on the left is a sloped rise topped with individual, house-sized boulders. In the gaps between I know there’s some decent flat rock and shade, and a view off the front of the Hemingway formation. A nice place to stop for lunch.

I’m there in the shade unpacking when a voice right next to me shouts: “RIGHT!”

I nearly hurl my lunch off the top of the rocks.

I look around, see no one, and then again: “RIGHT!” Then, “YEAH, THAT’S IT!”

Then I hear the clinking of carabiners and faint grunts of exertion. Climbers nearby. Maybe right on the other side of the boulder, or on the face of the formation in front of me. I quietly gather my things. They wouldn’t expect me to be here, and surprises are dangerous for them, too.

I find another spot a couple boulders away and enjoy my chicken curry wrap in peace.

The top of a pile of rocks in the middle of the desert is a peerless place to think.

Especially for someone like me, who will chase every possible mental distraction with urgency. Here, in nowhere with no cell service, the distractions are mostly gentle: Ooh, look at those hawks. Oh, that’s a nice breeze. People still drive Hummers?

In the past I brought notebooks with me to capture wild ideations on my Dungeons & Dragons campaign, short stories, life and career goals. None particularly useful. And why should my thoughts be useful here, where there’s no place for utility as a concept? Today I decide to leave productivity out of nature entirely, and the thinking is all the more pleasant.

Breeze, alternating warm and cool. Faint, unintelligible calls of the climbers nearby, echoing oddly off the rocks. Fainter drag of tires on pavement as the occasional car passes a few hundred feet away. Once in a long while, a chirp, a screech. My own deep, increasingly satisfied sighs.

I could do more of this.

Can I afford it?

Mm, good point. Maybe more than once a year, at least.

Maybe.

…

Should I get into rock climbing?

Can I afford it?

Mm, right, right, good point.

How about running again?

Sigh…I guess. But my knees.

I’m already playing volleyball.

Yeah. Maybe only if I really really want to.

Lol.

What? I could want to run again.

Lol.

…

Dinner?

Hungry?

Yeh.

Chinese?

If there is one. Maybe that Thai place.

Sure. Ooh, some crab rangoon…

Hello.

Some noodles…

Uh huh.

That chocolate cake in the fridge.

Oh hohoho I forgot about that.

Oh yeah.

Helllll yeah.

…

Think I’ll ever figure it out?

I hope so.

Seems like the more I try,

The less I figure.

Let’s just focus on being a good person.

And cleaning the apartment.

Jesus, yeah.

What’s that thing Masa said on Parts Unknown?

Big ol’ bites.

That’s what he did. What he said was,

Once in a lifetime, never again.

Time to go.

Down is methodical.

At least from here at the top of Hemingway, it’s only down. It’s not down, then up, then over, then forget which way I was going—there’s basically just the one way. But the boulders are big and deceptively far apart, and not everything that looks like a safe route is. It’s slow pickings. Sit on the edge, dangle a leg, tap a toe, scoot off, lower down, twist, find the second foothold, release the toe, move one arm, then the other, drop. Next rock down. The only trick is to not get impatient and let the drops get too big; my knees will scream.

About halfway down, scooting off another rock, my jeans rip; dead center saddle. Super. Really good. Definitely weren’t my good jeans or anything. My only good jeans, or anything.

It takes about 45 minutes to reach the bottom, another five to trek through the brush back to my car, keeping a careful eye for dozing snakes. I inspect my pants tear in the reflection of the door; doesn’t look super visible. I could probably grab a quick coffee with none the wiser.

I get the coffee, and none are the wiser. Back to the place for a thankfully easy shower. Two lazy horizontal hours, reading a nice, pulpy fantasy novel. Warm sunlight through the wide windows. Soft music. No traffic, no passing pedestrian conversations, no distant sirens or honking. I coze.

When the sun begins to set, I stand at the windows and watch the entire parade of oranges and purples march down the northern hills, until only the dusting of individual tiny houselights is left in their wake.

Later, I get the Thai, noodles and rangoons. There’s more bourbon, then chocolate cake. Juror #2, a surprisingly thoughtful Clint Eastwood flick.

Out, hard.

Nine beautiful hours. Still had the dreams, vivid and visceral, but at least they evaporate upon waking.

One final, glorious shower to relax the all-encompassing soreness and ease the itching of dozens of healing breakages.

Then, we’re off.

I stop at a Vietnamese restaurant that sells bagels in the morning, mostly because I want a Vietnamese coffee, and it is, unfortunately if not surprisingly, a sad sight. Someone spent way too much money on the place and clearly dinner revenue isn’t cutting it, so they’re trying to make up for the shortfall by opening other dayparts. It’s not going to work. Alas, not all adventure ends in treasure. The coffee is delicious, though.

Two hours home.

My mind tends to drift (more) on the 10. Luckily this isn’t an oops-I’m-falling-asleep morning, which has happened a couple times before. I feel lean, baked, happily wrung-out and hung up to dry by the desert. As usual the minute I pass Morongo going the other way my thoughts leap, like Superman, in a single great bound back to responsibilities left behind, tallying, sorting, prioritizing. Dinner service tonight. Events to plan and promote. Staffing and coverage. Inter-team peeves and bickerings to soothe before they chafe and draw blood. Once the mental list is satisfactory I move on to grander questions, such as: What am I DOING? I wince. I am less sure than I’ve ever been; yet, more stable than I’ve been in a long time. I’ve become deeply skeptical of dreams, but without them I feel aimless, and not in the wandering around some deep neighborhood of Tokyo, charming, lackadaisical, “I’ll find my way,” kind of way. There’s a sudden intense urgency to it. I don’t feel guilty for the days off, they were necessary, but now that I’m back, or on the way, I better figure things out before time runs out and time can run out anytime. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? Where do I, ugh, see myself in five years, ten? Does my life ride on some undone Great Work? What will it be? When will it begin?

The waterfall cascades across all 12 lanes and I plunge into it, back into it, back home.

🌵✌🌵