Love During the Time of Corona — -5.0 — JackAss Mining Claim, above Darwin, California, USA
“I once knew a girl/ Or should I say she once knew me/She loaned me a room/ Isn’t it good/Norwegian wood…” (paraphrase)
Moon is not her real name. I made that up. It’s just what I like to call her. The good part is that when I call her Moon she doesn’t mind.
We have been placed together on life’s little corona adventure mostly by happenstance and the swing of a hammer. She needs carpentry, I need shelter. It is not a bad way to start a new friendship.
Most days we go for a walk in the desert mountains. The mountains surround Darwin and it is easy to reach about 6,000 feet of elevation in less than a mile of hiking. The thin air seems to clean out my lungs. It seems to freshen my attitude. It certainly seems to distance me from the chaotic loneliness of my former life. With Moon I’m not lonely.
Her dog is named Riley. He is a rescue hound and has that skeptical look of a puppy who has learned to question love. With me he seems cautiously optimistic. With Moon he is filled with boundless joy.
He also seems to love the high desert, the chase of the jackrabbit, the challenge of coyote competitions, the hoarse brae of a burro in the night. He is a good dog who has found a great home. I try to contain my jealousy.
It is evening by the time we reach the tight cut in the mountainside which is the site of the Jackass Mine. I don’t know exactly what they were digging for, cutting holes in the earth, hauling out iron cartloads of argentite, sphalerite, and galena from which they hoped to smelt silver, zinc and lead. But it seems the economics of it never amounted to sustainability. Now there is a much rusted crane derrick cemented into the cliffside. There are the remains of a wheel house burnt down to it’s foundation, a rough dirt road passable only by a rig with high clearance, and a trail that leads a few hundred yards up to the rocky peak of an unnamed view point.
Moon has one mechanical knee but she is presently very fit and mobile and I’m huffing and puffing to match her stride as we climb up for a view from the top. There is a jumble of squarish boulders up there and I think they are mostly basalt, baked by the furnace sun, scoured by the grit of the wind, sitting under the freezing night sky for all eternity.
A variety of barrel cactus (cotton tops) is blooming near where we sit on a natural basalt bench. To the east is the Panamint Range (snow dusted), the depressed bowl of Death Valley (about to burst forth with wildflowers) and toward the south the fingered peak of Matarango Mountain. The slanting western light illuminates everything is a rose-orange glow. To the west there is the sun, low in the sky, bright but fading, just hot enough to warm our hearts.
I would like to report that I am suffering along with everyone else during these times of viral pandemic. But that would not be the truth.
I’m sitting on a mountain top with Moon. I don’t think that I have to say anything more.
