Hunting for dark nights and wishing on stars

Summary

Shadows cast 10 miles long as the last sun tucks between ridges and mountain tops. Dusk falls faster on our basin side and slower on the other side, the sunset watched not by looking toward it but by looking in the opposite direction toward blood-orange peaks. End-of-day light climbs the highest summits till it’s airborne, and we fall into the shadow of the Earth. My internal compass starts up, shoulders relaxing as I settle into cardinal directions, brain tingling with orientation. My ass is sore from banging around all day on a broomstick. Is this spade-shaped taint-basher all we could think up for a bike seat design? At least I’m not crabbed over a keyboard, eyes two feet from a retina-splitting monitor, spinal column sinking toward the floor in a chair. It’s why I come out here, to shake myself off, cobwebs coughed out, pupils stretched as if waking. Nothing here is designed for us or our bicycles, certainly not this power-line road and not these Joshua trees, which don’t look like trees but like beasts occupied with their own spike-headed business. This is a definition of liberty, being rattled and jarred to pieces without anyone else’s concern. The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of LightCraig Childs, Torrey House Press, May 2025212 pages, hardcover: $24.95 My old friend Irvin Fox-Fernandez, wearing a warm hat and layers of coats, comes back from a walk up the wash, clutching woody flood debris in both hands, a husk of a Joshua tree appendage and tangled roots that died months ago. He’s got a wide-eyed half-smile on his face, a man back from a fine end-of-the-day walk. “The channels have all been reshaped by this last flood event,” he says. “There’s plenty of wood to burn.” I’d said “no fires” on this trip, wanting to keep it night-sky-only, but the temperature is already dropping, so I say fire sounds perfect. The wood and crunched-grass kindling is dry enough that he gets it started with a single lighter flick. With a few huffs and puffs, his fac...