Burning Man 2011

I woke up, the dust pressed against the insides of my throat and eyes. I rolled over on my air mattress and felt the ground beneath me with every breath. The sounds reverberated through the floor of the tent and into my thoughts. I unzipped my tent and the dry night air crept in. My thoughts exploded, crawling in and out of themselves, biting each other to break free towards some sort of coherence. They were jumbled and alive. The lights around me electrified and destabilized the air in overwhelming patterns. I peered outside the door of my tent and made my way out carefully. It was one of my first nights in Black Rock City, Nevada, and I was lonely, terrified, and exhilarated. I took a deep breath and faced my fears. I left my tent and picked my way through the back of camp, careful not to trip on any tent stakes, my Camelbak bouncing against my spine. I heard voices and music intermixed into the night, and I couldn't stop seeing color. I thought it would swallow me whole at first, but I began to feel it embrace me instead-- the reflection of the lights reached their arms around me. I saw the dust dancing in the air. I wandered along the city streets and tried to take it all in. I never would be able to.

Part of the mystery of Black Rock City is knowing that no matter how much beauty you see, and no matter how many whispers and shouts you hear--you cannot discover everything.

I passed by bikes, lights, stories, and people with every step that I took. My feet were covered in dust. It filled my throat, and it was beautiful. I found myself approaching the Temple. A large art structure where people can pen their thoughts into the wood loomed before me. As I got closer, I could hear glass chiming in the wind, and the lights were like Disneyland, but so much deeper, so much more aching. I was drawn in. I walked up the steps, and the lights of the Temple were refracted in the whites of the eyes of those around me. The chiming glass echoed on in the background, but my thoughts were on the city.

All the fears and the uncertainty I had about this place remained, but they were seeping deeper and deeper into the back of my mind. The loneliness and the trepidation was sinking into the shadows, and my heart was beating in my forehead. The city was beating in my forehead. I closed my eyes and leaned against the edge of the temple, reaching for a pen in my backpack. I begin to write on the Temple walls.