Daily Archives: September 8, 2004

burnt

What a goofy weekend. Last year, i went to Burning Man and left on Friday evening, emotionally destroyed and needing to get off the playa. I decided to finish out my week on the playa. On Wednesday, two of my dearest girlfriends came over and dreaded my hair. On Thursday, i dropped my car off at the shop and picked up a rental, determined not to playafy my car and deal with more breakdowns in Sparks. Ironically, they were out of compacts, economies, standards, intermediates, etc. so they gave me a luxury sedan that looked like a Jaguar. I felt like a pimp. On Friday, i went to the Exploratorium for a great meeting on education and then picked up a bunch of coax cable for friends on the playa and headed east.

I arrived on the playa, dropped off the coax and other supplies that people were craving and wandered into the night. I saw friends, i danced, i checked out cool art projects. More importantly, i saw the best temple i’ve ever seen. Last year’s temple was a joke to me – it felt anything but spiritual. But this year, oh this year. I danced through the night of the Burn, finding new muscles and loving every moment of it. I found peace from last year staring at the burn of the temple. And then there was clean-up. I spent all day Sunday and all morning Monday cleaning up the camp – pulling rebar, lifting boxes, tearing down the shade structure. I spent an hour searching for a member of our camp who failed to show up after the temple burn. And then the drive home. Gotta love when Denny’s is full of playa.

It’s hard to share what Burning Man meant to me this year, but it was very personal and i’m so glad that i went. Of course, i had forgotten that my flight to the east coast was on Tuesday so i was quite startled when Orbitz called to remind me. And now i’m off on the east coast with some friends in an interesting intellectual conversation.