Chapter Six: There's No They. There is Only Us.

I was walking back from the Portapotties one night, late in the week. Ahead of me were two guys having a conversation about the amount of distance that lay between the o'clock streets. Specifically, they were talking about how hard it was to find camps based on their addresses: did 4:00 and Chance REALLY mean 4:00? Or was it closer to 4:15? And really, where WAS 4:15? One had to guess its approximate place along the street.

I was with them: it WAS hard to locate camps according to their published addresses. UNTIL. Until one of them said "They really should mark the streets with the quarter hour too..."

That stopped me in my tracks. They? THEY should do this? Which "they" would that be?

It was a moment of real clarity for me. Before BMan, the conversation would've likely passed unnoticed by me; at best, I'd have nodded and agreed. But there, on the playa, at an event that expects self reliance and participation from every person in attendance, those words were utterly dissonant and out of place.

Now I don't cotton to the whole Burnier-than-thou mentality that I see on Tribe.net and hear tell of from people I know. I am just too old for that kinda shit. Really. But man oh man, at that moment, I was sorely tempted to walk up to those guys and say "If you want quarter hour signs, then make some and put them up. It's not THEIR responsibility to do that. There is no "they" out here. There's only "us.""

And it's largely true. Beyond the basic infrastructure (the city layout, portapotties, burn platforms, center camp, airport placement, and so on) and a some "public utility" camps (Lamplighters, Camp Arctica, Black Rock Rangers, Medics, etc.) there is only "us" out on the playa. You can send and receive mail - real USPS mail - on the playa via the BRC Post Office, a theme camp. You can fly into BMan via the BRC Port of Entry, the playa's airport & aviation theme camp. The playa hosts several radio stations and a couple of newspapers. Three bike repair camps, two 12-step camps, and an aluminum recycling camp: all there because some folks saw a need and created a camp to fill that need. Radical self reliance + participation.

And yet, I found that the playa frequently provided for unexpected needs or desires, not as a flip side to radical self reliance and participation, but as a by-product of it. Where so many are so well prepared, there is bound to be excess, and somehow, that excess seems to make its way to those who need it.

I bore witness to this in a big way one afternoon late in the week. RossyGoat and I were out riding around, looking for a place to get some bodywork done. We didn't have any luck at TempleWhore nor at the HeeBeeGeeBees, so we were going to go up to Sunscreen camp and get a sunscreen massage. As we were leaving the HeeBeeGeeBees, I remembered that Vietnamese Iced Coffee Camp was right next door in Avalon Village. I asked Ross if he minded a brief detour for an iced coffee; needless to say, he didn't. So we searched Avalon, and finally found VICC, but they were running behind.

"We're not going to be open for another half hour," one of VICC guys told us. "The person bringing coffee isn't here, and until he shows up, no iced coffee. But when we get it, we'll be serving in Quixote's Cabaret around the corner."

Well, crap, I thought. I'd wanted a vietnamese coffee SOOOO badly. And then I remembered that we had an extra pound of ground Charbucks at the camp. So extra, in fact, that Christina had offered it to Espresso Camp that very morning (they didn't take it cause they need to grind their own).

"We have a pound of coffee back at our camp that we're not going to use. It's Starbucks...," I said, with a shrug. "Would that help you guys out?"

It would, and it did. Ross and I rode back to our camp and got the coffee while the VICC crew set up at Quixote's. We got the first brews, and OH MY GOD WAS IT EVER GOOD!! But the deliciousness of the coffee was almost secondary to being able to help them out. Because of Ross and I (and our whole camp by extension), at least 5o people got iced coffees that wouldn't have otherwise.

A lot of folks call it "playadipity:" the notion that the playa will take care of you if you find yourself in need. And it's true. She does. But of course, the playa is us.

Intermezzo #2: Stasis

The words are coming soooo slowly right now. I don't know whether it's because I've decomped fully, I'm coming down off a manic cycle, or the stress of impending Bar results combined with no job. It really doesn't matter, I guess. I'm having to pull each word out individually, like picking nits out of a squirming child's hair. But I'm doing it cause I believe it needs to be done. It's just taking longer than I'd hoped.

Sigh.

Chapter 5: Embracing the Absurdity

It doesn't really matter how much you read about Burning Man. It doesn't matter how many pictures you look at. It doesn't matter how many burners you talk to or videos you watch or tribe lists you subscribe to. NOTHING prepares you for it. Oh sure, you can have all the required AND recommended gear listed in the survival guide. You can have all the water and food and sunscreen you'll need to stay alive and healthy in the desert. You can even have the furry playa coats and boot covers cause you know that's what people do out there. But you just. Don't. Get. It. You can't get it. Not until you've been there.

But here's the secret - insofar as my perceptions went anyways: There's NOTHING to get. Really. I promise that I'm not being obfuscatory when I say this. There is nothing to get. The entire thing is utterly and completely pointless. It is pure absurdity. And that's what makes it perfect.

HUH?!?

Think about it: Wearing costumes in a desert. Cars shaped like fish and dragons and cupcakes. Life-sized games of Operation and Candy Land. Teeter-totters made from steel I-beams. Installing art that costs thousands of dollars and countless man-hours to create, only to take it down a week later. Building a 15-story free form structure entirely out of 2x3s at a cost of $250,000, using it as a dance club for a week, then burning it. At best this has most people shaking their heads quizzically asking "Why?!?" The answer to that is simple: Because. That's it. Just because.

I realized the truth of Burning Man while walking across the Playa the first Sunday night we were there. I was with some campmates heading toward the Man (though he hadn't been raised yet). In the distance, I could see center camp, and to either side, curving back toward us in a massive arc were the big Esplanade camps, many still being built. They were all awash in color and there was music swooping and diving over the playa. It reminded me of how Atlantic boardwalks look at night when seen from the ocean. But being in the desert, away from any semblance of civilization, lent an otherworldly effect to the scene.

While this immense, carnival-like vista incited childlike glee in me (much to the amusement of my friends, all of whom were vets), it wasn't until I stepped outside myself and saw us, as a group, traipsing across the desert, dressed up in frippery and fur, and alight with glowsticks and EL wire that the utter absurdity of what we were doing, of what this place was - it's very raison d'etre - hit me. Just Because.

It was one of those epiphanies where it feels as if the wrapping paper has been ripped off the package and you finally get to see what's inside. In a flash, I understood the fallacy of daily life: there always has to be an answer to the question "why?." Everything we do in this society, every move, every decision is calculated to get us to the next step (whatever that is). And we spend so much time calculating and deciding and moving forward, that we never get to enjoy where we are now. And once we're there (wherever 'there' is), we're looking for the next big thing yet again.

This is nothing new, of course; the Buddhists and Taoists have understood this for centuries. And I've understood this on an intellectual level for a couple of years now. But never have I understood it on such a deep and visceral level. As humans we DO need goals and purpose. But in filling that need, we've forgotten how to just be. We're so focused on purpose, that we've overinflated its importance. There must be space in our lives to exist, solely for the sake of existing.

Walking out there, that balmy clear night, I realized that Burning Man offers that space. Nothing happens out there for any reason other than itself. The the art out there exists for its own sake, not for critical acclaim, not for monetary gain, not for entree into some circle of society. It exists because some artist looked into his or her heart, had a vision, dreamed a sky full of ideas... and decided to make it happen. For no reason other than "because." What a fucking GIFT! So too with the camps. And the people. They are there just because.

And in this simple existence lies perfection. Something that just "is" can't be wrong.

This revelation literally knocked the wind out of me and I had to gasp for air. D'you ever remember - as a child - saying something so unexpectedly insightful or doing something so successfully that it caused your chest to fill with huge emotion? Like you couldn't open your mouth or do anything other than smile because if you did, you might cry or laugh or squeal or somehow EMOTE in a big uncontrollable way...? Cause that's how this felt. It's how it still feels.

Don't misunderstand me, though. Burning Man, on a "real" level isn't perfect. It's not some utopian idyll. It's a city, with all the good and bad that a city has to offer. But in concept... THAT'S where the perfection lies.

It's so funny now to see the looks people give when you tell them about the Playa. They don't get why you'd want to wear a prom dress with engineer boots and a glowing cowboy hat in a desert. You can see it on their faces: Well, that's just silly.

And you think, "Exactly."

Chapter 4: Bloop!

The first decision anyone has to make once they've decided to go to Burning Man, is whether or not to go alone or to go with a camp. When I say "alone," I don't necessarily mean without another person, but rather I mean without the infrastructure a camp has to offer. Although some intrepid souls like the experience of going truly solo or in a very small group, many people prefer to hook up with a larger group of folks. I'd venture to say most do this, though I don't know for sure; there are gazillions of camps, it's just that they're not all registered as theme camps. More on that later.

The advantages of going with a camp are many, the most obvious being that you share the costs of food, water, shade, grey water disposal, etc., whether through dues or simply through coordinated group buying. Considering that you have to pack in ALL the water you will need for the duration of your stay - 1.5 gallons per person, per day, which doesn't include showers or dish water - it's nice to know that that bit is taken care of.

My initial plan was to go solo, believe it or not. Not only was I considering that, I was considering doing it with Ro, too! [n.b. - This last fell by the wayside pretty quickly, although I hope to take her in the future now that I know what the score is] Once I started researching in earnest - reading the survival guides, reading the thousand fold threads on tribe.net - I realized that it might be best if I went with a camp. Since I hadn't gone basic, boring, plain old car camping in a good 20 years, it seemed that jumping headfirst into extreme survival camping in a desert 1000 miles away from home might not be the best plan.

A marvelously random (or not random by some folks' estimation) series of events led me to the proverbial doorstep of Bloop! In March, I volunteered at the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, where I met Christo and Lola, who invited me to an after party which I attended. A few days later, I was surfing the net looking for a photographer from SEAF whose work I'd admired. One of the hits I got was his profile on Tribe.net. Well, his profile led me to Christo's profile, which led me to Lola's Profile, BOTH of which were BMan oriented. Interest in BMan piqued. A day or so later, I was laboriously avoiding the scintillating topics of Trusts & Estates and Employment Law by surfing Tribe some more, and I decided to see if Hampshire College had a tribe. It did. And whose name did I see on that tribe? None other than Lola's! That fact alone - our shared experience at one of the U.S's weirdest, most hippie-liberal colleges - gave me the cojones to email Lola to say "hi and thanks for the party and hey did you know we both went to Camp Hamp and we were two years apart?!"

At this point, the BMan idea was still nascent, but it was evolving quickly. Within a week or two I emailed Lola to ask her if I could pick her brain about going, and she said she was glad to talk, and why didn't I come to a meeting of their camp and see if it was a good fit. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Bloop! was a first year camp. Christo and Lola were veteran burners as were some other members, but they were starting the camp from scratch. All I can say in retrospect is "DAYUM." I had no fucking idea until later how much effort it took to create the infrastructure necessary to make this work. They were hampered, too, by the fact that 2/3 of their members were virgins, and thus had no clue what was needed. Man oh man, I am in awe of them.

We were attempting to be more than just a group of folks camping together; we were trying for theme camp status. The benefit to being a theme camp is that you actually get space assigned to you (as opposed to arriving and finding an open spot), you get listed on the map, and you get early admittance. There is a process to this, however, which includes much doing of paperwork, filing of grey water and waste disposal plans, and so on. Most importantly, however, you have to have a THEME. This basically means some sort of interactive, community-oriented thing, whether that be an art project, a bar, the provision of a service...

Bloop!'s theme was - and is - fun. Pure and simple. We had a booth in front of our shade structure, from which we gave out kisses, misted people, and proffered cards and buttons good for hugs or kisses or snuggles. We also blooped people, which involved putting a dot of purple on their forehead bindi-style and offering a blessing such as "May you find what you seek on the Playa." Silly fun.

We also had a stargate that Perfect made for us, complete with green lasers, as the entrance to our camp; a bunch of home made hula hoops hanging on our camp sign for passers-by to play with; and "the Alter-Ego project." This was a project where a person would strap on a live-feed camera and mike, and go out into the neighborhood and interact with people. The catch was that he or she had to take directions from an operator back at camp, doing or saying what the operator said to do or say. It was SPECTACULAR idea, that due to a couple of unfortunate changes in circumstance, didn't really get off the ground on the Playa. We tried, but just couldn't make a go of it. We'll be doing it again, with some technical revisions this time... MWAHAHAHAHA....

Other than that, though, our camp was a rousing success. People DID have fun being "assaulted" by Christo or John or Ross or Bill wielding stop signs and a bull horn. People stopped and smiled and chatted and laughed. Sometimes we gave them drinks. Sometimes they joined in and blooped people with us! Plus, our shade structure was immensely inviting: it was strung inside with christmas lights, and housed 10 REALLY comfy, REALLY big lovesac type beanbags, two sofas, two futons, two hammocks, and an armchair. Every single morning, we awoke to the presence of people we didn't know, snoozing blissfully in the beanbags. THAT is a Burning Man success! And people regularly told us how cool our little camp was and then were astonished to find out that it was a first year camp populated largely by virgins!! We worked our asses off to make it a success, and it was 100% worth it.

The other piece of our success was the fact that ours was a low drama camp. By some camp standards, we were small - only 26 people. Our goal was 30 members and we hit that, but lost a couple of folks at the last minute to health and monetary issues. Thirty is kind of a magic number for a camp: many more than 30 and the divisiveness and drama factor grows (as do the admin concerns), while many fewer than 30 renders the dues unaffordable, and the workload untenable. Part of the low dramaness is likely due to the fact that we were largely virgins and had no fucking clue what we were getting in to. As I said, there were only a handful of vets: 9 to be exact. Of these, only four were really instrumental in the formation of the camp; the other five came on board toward the end of the prep process. As a result, there weren't a whole passel of know-it-alls to gum up the works. So too, people generally didn't own their particular areas or projects with such vehemence as to cause strife and create drama.

Even out on the Playa, we got along swimmingly, which is not always the case in BMan camps. The extremes can really work against you out there and if you're not in charity with your mates, then things have the potential of being really ugly. But somehow, we WERE largely charitable with each other. Sure things tweaked each of us here or there, but ultimately, we all took a very burner attitude and called it good. I couldn't get down on one person for forgetting to bring a dust mask when I forgot to bring shampoo. We all left something behind. We all fell down somewhere in our planning and packing. We all felt crappy and grouchy at some point out there. We all had a hangover or simply too little sleep at least once. Somehow the picky shit didn't grate the way it would've in the default world. Maybe it was a virgin, thing. I don't know. Maybe it was that we each had the freedom to ride away from the grouchiness and take refuge in the quiet of the deep playa.

In the end, our camp spent a lot of time together. Most of us ate breakfast and dinner together. We tended to go out at night in pretty large groups (8 or 10 people, though those groups generally splintered off at some point just due to sheer size; six is about max for staying cohesive while romping the Playa at night). We hung out in the late afternoons and took our siestas together. With very few exceptions, we all pitched in and took cooking shifts or ice duty or clean up or trash hauling. When one of us was lacking something, someone usually had a spare to give. When one person needed something out of the ordinary, another either had it or figured out how to manifest it. We shared our Gatorade. We shared our sunscreen. We shared our Pringles and Jerky and Goldfish. There was no miserliness out there.

Was our camp perfect? No. There were small dramas: a couple not getting along here, or someone not doing their share there. And everyone hit an emotional wall at some point, cause that's what the Playa does to one. But DAMN we were a good crew. Silly, playful, bawdy, goofy, sexy, dorky, fun.

Christo, Lola, Perfect, Rossy Goat, President Bill, Shura, Christina, LingLing, Saxon, Gato, Danni, Jonathan, Bruce, John, Joshuahhh, Annapurna, Heather, Ben, Dishy, Hottie, Danna, Cool, Sean, Brian, Scotty, Doug, and Kara....

I walked in knowing none of these people any more intimately than I know my postman. I walked out with 25 really good friends who I care for and trust. Not bad for a week's work, eh?

Intermezzo: The Decomp Wall

So yeah, I hit my decomp wall yesterday. Seriously. As in huddled in a corner sobbing for an hour. Basically, all the stress came tumbling back into my life in full force, effectively reminding me that I although I can take a vacation from it, the stress always returns.

So my task now is to figure out a way to stop lower case d dealing with it (that is, coping) and actually Capital D Deal with it (living in such a way that the stress is minimized in the first place). That should be easy, right? RIGHT? C'mon...lie to me people! Sigh. So much work to do...

OK, now back to your irregularly scheduled BMan adventure show.

Chapter 3: "Welcome Home!"

That's what they say to you when you get to the Greeter Station. Cheesy, huh? Yeah, I thought so, too. Now I get it. But lemme back up a bit...

It's a long, slow drive from the highway to the gate; a mile or so at 10 mph. It felt like forever. We had to wait in a short line - maybe 5 vehicles ahead of us - for about 20 minutes. Because it was the Saturday before the event opened to the public, everyone needed to have their names checked against an early arrival list. Then the gate workers had to do cursory searches of each vehicle to make sure there are no freeloaders or hangers-on trying to get in free. With ticket prices averaging $250, it's no surprise.

We were waived through without being searched, and we drove the slow mile to the Greeter Station. To our right there were signs placed Burma Shave style, containing quotes and snippets of poems about hope and fear - this year's theme. My favorite was the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, from Frank Herbert's Dune:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

It was quite haunting.

Our next stop was the Greeter Station where a man named "Naked Bruce" welcomed us home, gave us program guidebooks, a map, and hooked us up with our placer, who would guide us to the patch of desert which we'd inhabit for the next 10 days. There is a tradition that first-timers - Virgins - get out and ring a giant cowbell. I told my co-pilot that if he outed me, I'd flay him alive. Those of you who went to Hampshire will understand from whence my aversion public bell ringing arises. I didn't ring the bell.

Finally we were inside. Really, truly inside. We drove along the outer ring at a devastatingly slow 5 mph (prevents dust from kicking up) and met our placer at the 3:00 keyhole. Our address was 3:00 and Brave, but that was only a general pointer: 3:00 can encompass BOTH sides of the road, in BOTH directions. Our "real" address was 2:50 and Brave, Man-side.

The placer took us to our plot: a 100' x 150' chunk of glorious desolation. We were the first of our group to arrive! We walked the perimeter with the Placer, and he pointed out our neighbors: Zu on the 2:45 side (whom we knew and were sharing a gennie with), Nosefish on the 3:00 side, and the Damn Fucking Texans behind us at 2:50 and Anxious. Across the street from us were the Energy Riders.

It felt GREAT to be out of the van, and even better to FINALLY have my feet on the Playa. GOD DAMN, I'd made it. I was astonished at my own audacity for having come. I was proud at the risks I had to take to get there. I felt like a million bucks.

There wasn't much around, seeing as it was Saturday, but Jacob told me that it would start filling in a little more each day and soon you wouldn't know it was the same place. In fact, he told me that the city changed SO much over the course of the week that it wasn't uncommon for landmarks to change and for people to get lost trying to get home, stoned, at 3 am. Luckily for us, we were right next to the 3:00 keyhole, and therefore it would be easy for us. He turned out to be absolutely right. Ahem. Not that I would know first hand or anything...

The remainder of our Saturday-arriving campmates showed up about a half hour later, and we immediately got to work unloading the van. Sunset was at 7:40 ish, and we had a lot of work to do before then: we had to get our shade structure up, our kitchen at least nominally set up, and our own tents/shade structures up before dark. This was especially true since our gennie wasn't arriving until the next day - it was coming up via the Zu crew - and therefore we had no power that night. All told, it took us an hour and a half to unload the truck, and our shade structure - an army parachute once used for cargo drops - was up within three hours.

After the sun set, I EL wired my bike and then went riding the Playa with four campmates - all virgins like myself. We rode the Esplanade (the innermost street, facing in toward the Man), then cut across the Playa back to our camp. A lot of the camps were still being built, and a lot of the art installations were still works in progress, but there were lights and music and a buzz of excitement that filled the air. It was truly magical to ride across the desert in the darkness, a cool wind in my hair (Yep, channelling the Eagles... God I'm a geek), stars so much closer than I've ever seen them.

I had worked my body harder than day that I'd worked it in many MANY years. I hadn't eaten anything except some cheetos and a coke since breakfast. I was riding a bike (much to the dismay of my very ample ass) for the first time in a decade or more. I was nearly 1000 miles away from everyone and everything that represented security and safety. And I'd never felt better or more comfortable in my skin that I did at that moment.

I hollered a giant YEEEEEHAAAAAWWWW into the night, as I tore across the Playa with my new friends. They all hollered one in return.

Dorothy was right: there's no place like home.

Chapter 2: The Playa

Grey-green. Mustard. Ochre. Sienna. Umber. Occasional ribbons of rust and cinnamon layered in the striated ancient hills. Miles and miles of muted earth tones contrasted against the blue of a late-summer sky and the industrial grey of well worn asphalt.

I was aching inside. Fear. Sadness. Visual boredom. Around the last bend we lumbered in our overladen mothership. And there she was in all of her blinding glory: The Playa.

Four hundred square miles of the flattest, most arid, most desolate earth known to man. An ancient and all-but-extinct lakebed, it gets impassably muddy with winter rains, but it never holds water for long. So arid and alkaline the rest of the year that nothing - no plants, no animals, no insects - inhabit it naturally. So flat that land speed records have been made and broken here. So white in the distance, that it stung my eyes to look directly at her.

My fear and sadness fled. I could do this.

All of a sudden I couldn't sit still in my seat. I started bouncing up and down and giggling like a child. My co-pilot, for all his opaqueness (opacity isn't the right word here) and sarcasm, understood completely, and actually seemed to take some delight in my giddiness. It was his third Burn and he knew exactly what I was feeling. I took comfort in his sudden openness.

I rolled down the window to breathe the day in. It was nice to feel real atmosphere after having spent so many hours with the air conditioning running (not that I wasn't TOTALLY grateful for it...) It was hot outside, but not uncomfortable. High 80s, low 90s maybe. In the distance, the Playa receded into nothing. There was no horizon where earth met sky. The shimmering heat created a mirage that made it seem as if the world just ended in blue.

It was 11 miles from the NV Route 447 turn-off to the Playa entrance. I couldn't get there fast enough. Of course, it was particularly slow going along this stretch, partly because of the relative sizes of the vehicle and the road, and partly because of the police presence - unseen, but very much there - waiting to enforce the 35 mph speed limit. Our route bypassed the two nearby towns - Empire and Gerlach - so we didn't have to slow WAY down, but discretion en route to Burning Man is definitely the watch word. Don't give 'em ANY reason to pull you over.

After a couple of miles, I saw small breaks in the whiteness: dark smudges in the distance. In a flash I realized that THAT was Black Rock City!! I was astonished at how the desert dwarfed the site. Granted the city was barely formed, but even still....

When we finally turned onto the playa, we had to close the windows as well as the vents. Playa dust is a fine powder, slightly...well, slightly greasy to the touch, and it sticks to everything. It doesn't come off easily, either; you have to use vinegar or lemon water to cut the alkalinity. I couldn't resist just keeping the window down a few extra seconds to take a good deep breath. I wanted to smell the playa, to breathe her in. Yes, in the back of my head, I knew I'd be smelling the dust for 10 days (and then some, if my lack of motivation to clean my gear is any indication...). But at that moment, I needed it. It was like I was breathing life back into my Self.

And Now For the Narrative. Chapter 1, anyways...

I've been trying to write this for days now. The Trip to Burning Man. My great mid-life adventure. I've come to the conclusion that I suck at writing things down. My thoughts rush so fast and I just can't keep up (you'd think I'd be a better typist by now, but you'd be wrong).

On top of that is the fact that this whole experience defies fucking description. The phrase "there are no words" is more appropriate than you know. It reminds me of that stupid SNL skit "Mango": "Can you know the mighty ocean? Can you lasso a star from the sky? Can you say to a rainbow... 'Hey, stop being a rainbow for a second'? No! Such is Mango!" Yeah. Like that.

But the writing needs doing, and I'm the only one up for the task. So here goes...

...

Those of you who know me, know that I have my, er... obsessive streak. Y'know, the streak that causes me to research 23 different computer bags before choosing one. Mmm Hmmm. THAT one. Well, the trip to Burning Man brought out that streak in SPADES. I obsessed for months (in between studying for the Bar) about this - clothing, survival gear, how to deal with dust, with the monthlies, what kind of food holds up in the heat, what size ziplocs were best, what kind of EL wire to put on my bike, advance demoopifying. [n.b.: MOOP means "matter out of place" - it's basically anything that isn't naturally on the playa, which means everything. Because of the Leave No Trace ethic required by the Bureau of Land Management and wholly embraced by the BM Org, anything that is brought in must be either burned or packed back out. So, much effort is put into minimizing MOOP potential - no feathers, no shelled nuts, no excess packaging, and so forth.]

Well, for once it paid off. Not that my excessive planning and obsessing was totally necessary; There were people in our camp who weren't remotely as prepared as I was, and they did just fine. But I admit that I REVELED in the knowledge that I was capable of doing for myself - that I wouldn't be a burden on my campmates. Pretty proud of myself when people assumed I was a two or three year burner! SCORE!

The Drive: I helped co-pilot our camp's mothership (a 26' Penske van loaded with 2 tons of water, an assload of bio-diesel, food, and all our camp AND personal gear) with, Jacob (aka "Perfect" or "the Angel" or AJ, depending on which playa name he's going by at the moment), one of the most marvelously opaque individuals I've ever had the good fortune to know. He drove, I navigated. It was all told about 17 hours through southern WA, central OR, northeastern CA, and Northwestern NV. In other words, a lot of time to spend pondering what's forthcoming.

I did my best to leave my expectations behind. That's the advice I got, read, heard, saw time and time and time again. Don't have any expectations. Don't have any expectations. My infant Buddhist practice has placed much emphasis on leaving expectation behind, so I took the advice. My only expectation was that I would have AN experience, but I was open to the myriad forms that experience might take (including that I could hate every fucking minute of it). Ultimately, I took the attitude that if could do what I've done for the past three years with no break, I can live through ANYTHING for 10 days.

Still, a lack of expectation didn't prevent me from feeling dread like I've never felt the closer we got to the Playa. For perhaps the last hour of the drive, I simply wanted to cry. Just sob horribly. Undoubtedly some of that stemmed from my co-pilot: his edges were showing. Or something. I don't know what it was. All I know is that every time I made an observation about anything, he responded snidely. In retrospect, I don't know that it was snideness or sarcasm; he's an odd, odd soul, and I'm not convinced he was doing it purposefully. I'm not convinced that he wasn't either. Regardless, I did finally call him on it and then I shut up.

So there was that. And the fear of the unknown. And the length of the drive. And the knowledge that I'd not be sleeping in a real bed or having a real shower for over a week. Oh yeah, and PMS. Niiiiiice. I really did have to work not to cry that last hour. I tried parsing it out in my head as it was happening. The best I could come up with was this: Buddhists often talk about the very mixed emotions they experience when they meet their root guru. They know they are tapped in to someone and something special, but also someone and something that will cause their shit to be laid bare. This is daunting and not terribly comfortable. That's about how I was feeling those last hundred or so miles through scrub brush and sage. I wanted to be excited, but I wasn't. I was horribly unhappy.

Then we rounded the last bend in NV Route 447, and I saw it: the Playa.

Prologue: Last Things First

I'm avoiding decomp. I don't want to return to default, and yet I haven't been able to synthesize the experience enough to weave it in to default. Or maybe I'm just clinging, I don't know. It's hard to let go of a place and time in which you feel completely at ease.

For a little over a week, I felt essentially no stress. D'you know how liberating that is? To not feel the grinding of fear and worry and pain? For the first time in uncountable years I was actually at ease. But nature abhors a vacuum, so the physical manifestations of stress are flooding back in like Barbarians over (under, through) a medieval wall. Headaches? Check. Stomache pain? Check? Nausea? Check. Body aches? Check. All disappeared while I was out there in the dust. All have returned in force.

My friend LingLing and I talked earlier this week about living in integrity: that cellular/spiritual knowledge that we're livin' right, livin' as we're supposed to. Is this some sign that I'm NOT? And if not, what do I do? The default world situation I'm in is not one that I can extricate my Self from quickly - I have massive debt to pay and I will do so willingly. I borrowed, now I must return. And I really do want to practice law. I want to be an instrument of social justice and order. I want to use my powers for good, not evil. It's a matter of finding the balance between what I need to do to regain solvency and what I WANT to do to live in integrity.

I know that the culture of the playa - it's generosity, it's economy, it's openness - isn't really sustainable out here. But I feel like parts of it are reproduceable and I want to not only carry those parts with me, but foster them to the greatest extent I can. Am I just wishing on a star? Am I clinging to a good, spirit lifting time? Or is there really a path out there on which I can do this...?