Not Belonging on Teutonia

Everything smells like sage. It’s late afternoon in Mojave and I’m walking towards Teutonia Peak through groves of Joshua trees. Drought has mangled their limbs. Branches bend and twist as if searching for shade. Most of the time they don’t find it. Still they are beautiful. The harshness of this land is what draws me to it. I step over arid earth and I know that I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong. This place isn’t meant for me. There’s romance in the way the sun threatens to set the ground on fire. In how my sweat evaporates the second it seeps through my pores. 

I reach for my water bottle and let the liquid stream down my throat and rush through my belly. The trail curves past a lonely boulder. There’s a spot hollowed beneath it where you can tell a puddle once formed, but the dirt slurped up precipitation long ago. In places, the ground is split open as if gasping for more rain. The soil is patient. Time doesn’t mean much here. The splits run through the landscape like veins.    

I reach the top of Teutonia and everything is still. At summits back East, I’m used to a rush of cold wind and a scramble to layer my body in fleece. Here, the heat must have put the wind to sleep. I look out. The landscape glows red. But when you look closely, you can still see the Joshua trees and the shrubs and even the wildflowers, who know more about survival than you ever will. There’s lushness to this desert. 

I turn and watch the land stretch out towards the horizon. I watch how it rises into tanned mountains and dips back to flatness. Below me, withered roots of Joshua trees wait for cloudburst.