The Man burns in 20 days, and for the first time in eight years, and for the third time in the last eleven, I will not be there to see it.
My relationship to Burning Man is such a beloved thread of my existence that I have--understandably--been waffling for months and not quite believing myself when I said that I might well sit this one out. Its been challenging to justify to myself my potential absence through the use of pragmatic reasons that ultimately felt flimsy. "I want to save my energy and resources for other big projects i'm working on in my life". Yeah, well, truth is i have hella energy and am capable of doing it all. "I'm ready mellow out my relationship to hedonism a bit and don't feel like putting my body through hell for two weeks this year". Yeah, well, whatever. Just mellow it out a bit there and spend your time focusing on relationships more than on raging it. And so forth. All the reasons I had for not feeling like going failed to stand up to real scrutiny.
Recently, though, I realized that the actual reason I won't be on the playa this year is quite simple and doesn't need pragmatic justification. And that is: that after all these years I want to feel what its like to miss it. Every year that I have made that amazing journey to that most absurd and impossible and beautiful city, I have learned very different lessons and grown in very different ways. I can literally pinpoint the things that my experience gifted me each year. And this year what I want it to give me is the knowledge of what it feels to really want all those beautiful moments and not get them. Part of this is that over the last several years I have felt the truth of my raw, ridiculous enthusiasm for being there wane. Not because it has become any less amazing, but because repetition of anything in life, no matter what it is, will inevitably dull the edge of excitement. I have done well to stay ahead of this by changing up my experience and tackling different projects, from drumming up different constellations of camp dynamics to helping to create Miracle, PolyGone and Paradox. And it has continued to be a powerful, useful, and joyful part of my life. But in truth, each year a tiny bit of lustre and freshness has slipped away.
The reason why I know that this year that sensation has overtaken me is that I have done nothing in the off-season to prepare myself for meaningful engagement with projects on the playa. This year I have handed off my camp-planning role completely to the Mother of All Awesomeness Judith and Quillan 'the Golden Child' Hill. And rather than filling the space created by that handoff with project plans, inspiration, and eagerness to take my radical participation to the next level, i haven't succeeded in giving more than a very passing thought to my contributions. And to me, that means that I don't deserve to be there this year, and that the very best thing I can do to revitalize my relationship to the most magical place in the world is to experience absence from it. It is possible that I surprise myself and love the feeling of not being there, and I never go again! More likely I think is that bowing out will fill me with a renewed sense of eagerness and energy that will allow me approach the burn next year with a full quiver of ideas and inspirations. When i finally saw it in this light, it just felt right. I want to miss the feeling of it more than i want the feeling of it itself.
Where all of this sort of falls flat is how it applies to my relationship to you there who is reading this. None of the vast number of amazingnesses of Burning Man have ever meant squat to me in comparison with the opportunity to spend a week or two of the year surrounded by all the loves of my life. As a wise man often says, 'friends are the gold in life'. He is 1000% correct and of course I hate the the idea of passing up on the opportunity to share all those moments with you all. Perhaps the worst in some ways is that some very very beloved people in my life will be coming for the first time and i won't be there to watch their eyes the first time they scan the horizon of the city of black rock.
But so it goes. I don't get to choose to have some parts of the ride and not the others. So, if at all possible, find a place to appreciate the idea that as you play amidst the dust, call in the sunrise from the stoop, and revel in the beautiful madness of our lives together that i will be enjoying the hell of out feeling the pang of missing you and appreciating the joy of our bond more than i could if i made the trip this year. Its gonna hurt so good.
My dad likes to say, in respect to having space within relationships, that 'you need to have oxygen to have fire'. I've always liked that, and hope that my absence this year only fuels the very beautiful fire of knowing and loving you all in my lives.
Kiss the temple for me Monkeys!!
z.
Ps. Thanks Felicity 'F-Bomb' Palma for the pic.