In today’s #RandyTales, our hero feels those familiar homesick pangs…
I have always rejected calling my favorite dysfunctional vacation destination – Burning Man – “home”. “Home” is an abstract concept characterized by certain comforts like flushing toilets, food that isn’t coated in alkaline dust, a lack of things actively trying to kill you, and minimal dubstep at three in the morning.
Burning Man is an escape from reality. It is seen as the greatest party on the planet. It is a transformative experience that is unique to all 80,000 people who attend, some of them year after year. It is a raging shitshow trainwreck between multiple dumpster fires.
And about this time every year, I miss it.
Some years I actually go, which is another post about the panic of actually going “home”. But over the almost 20 years of being in this cult, I have not gone more than I have. I took a ten year break due to having the Agents of Chaos. Obviously missed those plague years.
Even though I am going to miss it again this year, I still hold on to my reasons for not going – I don’t have a “hell yeah” for going. And if it isn’t a “hell yeah”, why do it? Even if my mental state was in a position to subject it to all the things about Burning Man – which it absolutely is not (yay self growth!) – I am under no obligation to go.
So why do I miss it?
I could go with my standard answers: it gave me two of my great loves, my children, love of having my hair braided, my redefined notions of “family”, etc… And I could write a lot about all those (and have). However, there is a deeper reason. Burning Man gave me a place in this world for a weird kid from Oklahoma. I can not imagine a life where I didn’t go to that first Dark Skies 19 years ago. I can only think that without it, these years would have looked like the previous decades. I would have been more of the same and I am not sure I would have survived that.
I still want to go back. I want to take my Goddess and share this magic with my third great love. I want to take Nana and have her hold court at the end of the bar at Hair of the Dog and blow people away. I want to see the Agents of Chaos discover this thing that touched so many people and hopefully be transformed by it… or at least have a really good time.
So this year, I wait for the live stream to start, tune to Shouting Fire and BMIR, and watch what happens. I know, I know – “NO SPECTATORS”. But I’m not a spectator. I am a scientist observing this phenomenon and reporting on it.
Far cheaper really.