First burn since 2016. Returning after a six-year gap.
The most overwhelming feeling on the playa in 2022 was missing friends.
Xara. Shangrila. Satreheedyn. Game Camp. Secret Exchange. Makin’ Bacon. All moved, all moved on — kids, or grown out of it, or onto new challenges, or just done. The diaspora of people who built something real together over fifteen years, now scattered.
A lot of them were there in spirit if not in person. The physical camps were gone but the architecture of where they’d been was still somehow readable. I rode past where Xara used to set up and felt the specific shape of the absence.
I did meet some new friends, mostly Rangers in camp. The staff camp at Ranger Outpost Berlin had grid power and experienced campmates and all the practical advantages of showing up as infrastructure rather than participant. That part was good.
Burned me to see the playa and to want what used to be there, and to know I had to build something new instead.