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.