Friday night, Burning Man 2003. Everyone else gearing up for a night of drinking and drugs and dancing.
People were gearing up for a night of drinking and drugs and dancing and carousing and loud music, and I so totally wasn’t into that. Instead I rode my bike out to my artwork and sat there and thought about stuff and talked to people who came by.
Actually it wasn’t that simple — when I got out there it was pitch black and I couldn’t find my artwork. So I enlisted a bunch of people from a nearby one: “Y’all want to play a game? There’s a reward at the end!” I was actually the one who found it, but I gave away some discs anyway. So I sat there listening to the beat of the city and feeling the cool breeze and looking up at the Milky Way and thinking about women and my job and my grandfather and everything, and after an hour or so I’d decided I was ready to go home.
One of the things I thought to myself when I was most down was: Sometimes the loneliness goes away for a little while, but when it comes back it feels even worse.
Also thought maybe I’ve learned everything Burning Man can teach me, for the moment.
And: Hearts are like eggs, meant to be broken. Scrambled or fried and served with toast.
I woke up before dawn the next morning, loaded up the truck, drove out to pick up my artwork. The Gods had one left for me. I went into our central camp area where the “fire” net was, to pull it out and bring it back — and as I was working I saw Becke wandering back to Magnus’ tent. I don’t think she saw me. Not surprising or anything. But it still was another knife to the heart.
Then twelve hours in the Pinz. Drove straight down from Fernley to Bridgeport and down. Stopped for smoked meat products in Bishop. While the Man burned, I sat and soaked in the hot tub.