Last year after Burning Man, I promised to write and to tell the tale of all the things that I had learned on that voyage, and indeed it was a lot. Unfortunately, I was bogged down by 4000 or so pictures taken on iso 1600, so they all looked extremely funky and noisey. I am still planning on editing them, but the best laid plans, you know.
This year, even though I am still on the road, I will attempt to write about the trip. But first, some background.
Me and the Burns.
Burn #1. I went to my first Burning Man in 2003 with my ex-girlfriend. She and I had just broken up 6 months or so prior and after the appropriate length of wound licking, we were ready to hang out together. It sounds cheesy and clique, but from the second that I arrived at that opening gate I knew I was home.
I am not a community person, I squik about group dynamics, I see how people try to alienate and exile each other before I see anything else. I never did clubs, nor associations, I just -didn’t- like groups, so it really meant something to feel like I actually belonged there.
I remember many moments from that first burn, far too many to succinctly recall in one post. (especially one summarizing five burns). The first night me and Rhie decided to walk around the esplanade, we came up to a guy who asked if I wanted to ride an elevator. It was night, and all the camps were brightly lit and this ride would have let me see them all.
I wanted to accept but something kept me from it. This feeling like inside me saying, “no, I couldn’t”, which was the polite side. Deeper inside was this notion, this feeling of exchange, this cynical, “What do you want for it?” reaction. And that was the first taste I had of the gift economy. It is not barter, it is not trade, it is not a one to one back scratch deal. It is a gift. It blew my mind, how deeply cynical I was, how I immediately went to, what the fuck do you want from me, head space.
The rest of Burn 1 was devoted to falling in love, which is a story in its own right. A friend of a friend who I already cared and trusted re-met me at the Burn and we spent most of the week falling hard for each other, kissing, talking, riding our bikes and looking at art until dawn, passing out re-finding each other and starting all over again. We walked through giant chandeliers that had fallen from the sky and told each other we loved each other standing on the platform of a giant house of cards.
I left that Burn feeling amazed at the whole experience. It is not just the art, it is not just the city, it is not just the fact that the line between the audience and performer was blended beyond recognition. It we the Brigadoon quality of the thing, a city pops up and becomes dust in a manner of a few weeks and it all exists because the people make it so. It is the pathway for all amateur engineers to make their visions happen without having to apply for a permit. All art can exist without finding a gallery to represent. All singers who want to sing, whipping out their instruments and just making it happen.
Coming down was strange and hard. Back in the economy where all exchanges are managed and weighed and given a pre-determined value. I was unloading a truck and one of my campmates neighbor kept asking how long our water bottles were going to be on the yard that abutted his yard. Like asked 5 or so times and each time looking for some kind of leverage to get me the fuck away from his lawn. Not even on it, near it, making his car look ugly for an hour or two. I knew instantly which world was my preferred home.
