September 25, 2007
Burning Man, and all that it was, comes back with such force at moments. Still, exactly three weeks from the night I got home, the night I sat on the carpet in my living room beside my Burning Man crates and bins and mass of supplies, staring at my worn hands, completely lost in amazed thought, three weeks from the first night in over a week, but what had seemed like a year, that I spent without my new adopted crazy family, three weeks from coming home, it is all still so much with me. Tonight on the drive home, I watched a fellow commuter on his walk to somewhere, and it softly struck me that I was done with a specific part of my life. For so many years, out of naive egoism or conditioned beliefs, I've held on to the somewhat absurd hope, desire, intention to be famous or special or revered or different in a superior way than everyone around me. I've thought at times that this must be a universal desire, as conditioned as we are to watch with gluttonous eyes the lives of celebrities and self-made idols. And I've thought at other times that it was a solitary wish, perhaps part of the insecurities that have led my decisions and negative patterns through my adolescence and into my adult years.
And tonight, as I watched this simple, normal man, in his somewhat unique style of dress, carrying his work day home with him, wait for a light to turn, I realized I hadn't felt that desire to be different since coming home from Burning Man and all that it was. One of those parts to "all that it was," was finally understanding that being special and different isn't superior, couldn't be superior, but in fact being a part of it all is the truly amazing aspect of life. I was commuting and he was commuting. I sat in my car in my somewhat unique style of dress going about my life, just as he was going about his. And I saw that we were both contributing to it all, contributing one solitary part of the steady breathing that is life, the tick and whir and hum, the beautiful noise, the overwhelming-when-you-realize-it mass of energy that is life.
On the playa, that is exactly how it feels, or at least how it felt for me when "all that it was" finally clicked. I was on my bike, riding across the hardened sand in the middle of the glorious night, watching, watching everything and being, being a part of everything. I can point to the exact moment when I "got it." It was so perfect in its simplicity but complex to the point that it took me five days of existing there before it clicked in. I was in the midst of 50,000 people just like me, trying to be and do and scrape together a life that is satisfying and happy and aimed towards goodness and love. And for one week, we could all be whomever we wanted, do whatever we wanted, see and experience whatever we wanted. Because everything, EVERYTHING, was there in some form or another.
On the playa, you are all thrown into experiencing life together, thrown into the sand storms together, thrown into the gifts of beauty and kindness and hilarity that fellow beings were offering up. Everyone there, of course, experienced "all that it was" in their own unique style of dress, their own way. But everyone there also contributed and was an integral facet of what made Burning Man Burning Man.
At least for me, that's how I see it. It's likely vastly different for some, similar for others, and nearly identical for more others. I'm sure of that. Because as we exist and breathe and clunk through life, we can't help but be one of the threads that weaves itself perfectly into the unfathomable tapestry of the tick and whir and hum. Burning Man simply and finally capped a realization I've been working towards for some time, the realization that I own my life and I own my happiness, and living that life as best I can is my contribution to the beautiful noise.
Why this has been such a revelation, is almost embarrassing. Certainly many people have figured it all out in their own way before me and around me and are doing so at this exact second. Certainly infinite numbers of people have realized their part in the universe, their part in their own lives, their part in the noise. But for me, these thoughts were new. And it took a week in the desert to finally be able to articulate it, to finally even care that it was worth articulating. It took a week of completely overpowering elements, of physically and emotionally challenging work, Hard Fucking Work, a week of giving and contributing in a million little ways to the group I was with and to the larger experience as a whole, it took a week to understand that THAT indeed was what it was all about. The experiencing part, the being part, the breaking-down to the point of tears several times part, the unfettered laughter part, the representation of me exactly as I am, no pretenses, no fronts, no falsities, no non-me actions part. All of it combined, with me wrapped up in there, was life. Living. Breathing. Burning Man and real-world life.
I laugh because sometimes that's the only possible reaction. Many times out on the playa, you were so amazed and overwhelmed by what you were seeing or experiencing or contributing that all you could do was laugh. There were no words that could describe some of it. So we laughed in wonder, in awe, in realization, in disbelief, and we laughed with joy because all that it was, was so, so good. All that it was, was everything it was supposed to be. All that it was, was absolutely perfect. And I was a part of it all.
If anything, that realization will be the thing that I hold on to forever coming out of this experience. I'm grateful. I'm happy. I'm owning my portion. And it's good. It's so, so good.
September 13, 2007
I’ve been home for over a week. I’m still tired, still invigorated, and still experiencing bits of culture shock in this used-to-be-normal world. There’s even still dust in my lungs from the furious sand storms, either that or I’ve caught a cold from one of the hottest places on earth. Mostly though, I’m sad it’s over. Coming home, coming down, I’ve been electrically charged unlike any other post-vacation reality check in my life. I keep telling people that I think I’ll be able to better describe my experience when the experience actually ends. It hasn’t just quite yet. The magic and the bizarre-o and the decadent-overwhelm still linger. My senses are in the clouds, the gl o rious dust clouds, too high to come down to even write about it all.
But I suppose write about it I must, because that is my art, and if I took only one thing away from the entire experience, it’s that life is the medium for whatever artistic creation and expression we want to contribute to it all.
It was beautiful.
The chaos, the discomfort, the unbelievably hard work, the emotions, the connections, the laughter, the revelations, the family. I’ll write what I can, and share what needs to be shared, but of course, some of it is meant for only me, my eyes and my ears, my thoughts and my memories. Some of it will stay locked away, beautiful and untold, magical and only mine.
Since I’ve been home, I’ve yet to read the news, turn on the television, and barely listen to music on my mind-miles-above commute. I’ve gone through withdrawals and incredible cravings, small snippets of extreme sadness, and more than anything, just a joyful feeling of being, of existing, of contributing to the happy noise in the world.
That was one of my revelations, simple as it was – hearing that noise and realizing for the first time in a long time that there is happiness there; there is goodness there - in so many things and in so many people, all of whom are just trying to find exactly what I am, a home, a love, an outlet, a happy existence. Burning Man, in so many different ways, showed me time and time again that we’re all very much alike. Despite the difference in dress and in dreads, regardless of the income and the green-ness, we are all living trying to be happy in what little time we have. And now I can see what others have seen for years. Time virtually bstands still on the playa, until it’s time to go back, that is.
This past weekend I went to a dinner and wine tasting in a gorgeous restaurant with lovely people, and it made me smile to remember the wine and cheese social held in hundred degree heat on our dusty tables, under an old military parachute with dusty friends and even dustier strangers wandering in off the playa. It was brilliant, and nothing tasted better than that slowly warming cheese and boxed sangria as we mingled and mused over the beauty of it all.
I remembered coming off the playa after a long, hot bike ride one afternoon to find a mini restaurant sprung up from nowhere. The wait staff invited us in, parked our bikes and sat us down at a shaded table with linens and candles. They were dressed in black pants and long-sleeve white shirts with serving towels properly draped over their forearms. They served crackers and cheese and a chilled chardonnay in reused wine glasses that we were happy to accept. We sat in the shade enjoying their gift, looking over the landscape as if it were the most normal view in the world and as if these were the most normal circumstances in which to enjoy a second glass of slightly warmer chardonnay. When it was time, we thanked them and went on our way. If we would have come back out just a few minutes later, it’s likely the whole experience would have disappeared or moved on to another dust plot to comfort other sweaty folk. It was always one constant pulsing organism that morphed and grew and fed upon itself over and over. And the wonder of it all was that you never knew which part would present itself to you next.
It was like that every day at my Burning Man. Everywhere you traveled and looked and even when you closed your eyes, you saw something you had never seen before. A camp mate summed it up best when he said, “I’ve figured out that there’s two ways to describe this whole thing. One of them is ‘HEY, look at that!’ And the other is ‘Exactly.’” We would walk the streets near our home plot pointing out triple tall bicycles, transvestites on stilts, futons on wheels, the neighborhood spa and hotel, a bad advice booth, a roller disco rink, the local bar that would insult you before serving you, a yard of green, green grass. “Hey, look at that naked guy, dancing on scaffolding 30 feet in the air,” I’d point out. Then we’d look at each other, laugh and say “Exactly.”
“Exactly.” There was nothing that was shocking because there was nothing that was inconceivable. I went through the first few days amazed at all of the vistas and activities and gifting and countless other things that I couldn’t have even possibly conceived of. And the art was even more unimaginable. It truly was an art festival, and you could experience the different installations in almost any way you wanted to. Most were interactive – you could climb them, rest inside of them, make music of some sort, write your story, leave a memento, or just look on in wonderment. In the daylight, they were a completely different experience than at night. And to find the hidden good ones, you had to go searching. Even your search became part of the art.
In some ways, now that I’m back, I’ve started to look at the simple or the ugly or the amazing things around me as if they were part of some grand installation. And all I need do is decide on my interaction. There were a few specific things I wanted to get out of this experience, even as much as I tried to go with no expectations. The art, and how much it affected me, was a complete surprise. Each costumed and non-costumed person was art. Each group activity, each budding family of strangers, each tender or monstrous moment, even the grotesquely beautiful, the sordid delights and the grandiose demands for an audience were all art. It was one massive, amazing, complex piece hung on the flat desert wall of the world.
And I loved it.
Well, it has been a fun adventure over the last few years. I think my time in the desert has changed me in ways that have rippled into my time not spent in the desert. It is a spiritual experience that I have cherished in the moments of reflection and in times that I needed escape.
I love the community that we have created. The people I have connected so deeply with are very important to me. I look forward to future near life experiences with my Bloops!
B Love
