Burning Man
Indefinable objects emerge and retreat from a veil of white brown dust—a scene out of a dream. These objects are patterned and they have colors. At times, it’s difficult to tell whether they are humans or sculptures. The veil of white brown dust disperses, and the objects appear more clearly. Whether the objects are humans, art, both, or anything else doesn’t matter, because it just exists as it is.
I had heard stories about Burning Man for almost half of my life. My parents went for the first time in 2012. Remember how the world was supposed to end that year? Perhaps it really did for my parents, because they had stepped into a completely new one. At Burning Man, they spent four days in a pop-up tent battling the rough winds and hellish heat that Black Rock City produces. They had no AC, and layers of sand coated their tent, bed, clothes, and food. When they returned, I saw a new version of my parents. Mom’s blue-grey eyes were luminous in contrast to her skin, bronzed by the Nevada sun. Dad was decked out in necklaces he had received as gifts from the playa, and his hair was a new shade of brown. I was terrified and enthralled at the same time. I knew that one day I would need to go too. Thus, they began the yearly tradition of leaving for the desert while I wailed, “Take me with you next year!” behind them.
Six years went by until my parents decided to take a break. Instead of Burning Man, we decided to go to Joshua Tree, CA (my parents still wanted a little dose of desert). During this vacation, Dad decided that he wanted to bring something more to the playa for the next year: a sculpture.
He was hyper-focused during all the successive stages in creating his sculpture. The whole process—from computerized renderings to installing the last piece of sculpture on the playa—was about nine months. Around November, it was decided that I would finally be joining my parents in the desert that summer. I was ecstatic.
That feeling of excitement came in waves, though. It was around April when I remember sitting at my desk at work, reading articles on how to emotionally prepare for your first burn. As I read, my body quivered. I considered bailing entirely, but the closer we got to August the more I knew that going was exactly what I had to do—even if I felt scared.
Dad’s conception, titled Mariposita, was a twenty-foot sculpture of a woman emerging from a shell. The sculpture was made out of stacked solid-core wood. There was an ongoing discussion of how we were going to transport her from New York to Nevada. We settled on renting a twenty-six-foot Penske truck that Dad would drive cross-country. For a while, it was decided that he would make that journey alone. He had done the drive four times before, but to me, it didn’t feel right for him to go without a buddy. It was July, a little over a month until Burning Man. We were sitting by the pool at our friend’s house when I asked, “Why don’t I drive with you?”
My Dad said, “Sure.”
At 3:30 am on Friday, August 16th, Mom dropped me and Dad off at Home Depot, where the truck was parked. We loaded up the Penske, said our goodbyes, then took off.
On the first day, we drove nineteen hours through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and stopped eventually in Des Moines, Iowa. The rigs that tore passed us seemed bigger than ever. We rested for the night and started up again in the morning for a fifteen-hour stretch through Nebraska and most of Wyoming. There was thunder and lightning in Nebraska. Long, flat stretches of cornfields were shining, despite the grey vista. By the time we got to Wyoming, it was dark and we spent the night in a cabin-style motel. On its glossed pine wood walls, a taxidermy bull was anchored. We awoke in Rock Springs, surrounded by silver mountains and cool air—surprising for the middle of August. Sunday was the last leg of our trip; it was thirteen hours to Reno, Nevada. We drove through Utah; the green landscape began fading into brown, then into white. “Dogs” by Pink Floyd played through the truck’s outdated radio as we drove across the Bonneville Salt Flats, just past the Great Salt Lake. We pulled off to the side of the road to touch the blindingly white earth.
It was around 7:00 pm on a Sunday when we finally arrived in Reno. I was relieved to have finished the journey, yet already nostalgic about my first cross-country road trip. Throughout the entire adventure, I had felt the sense of being truly present. For months, I was anticipating this trip, and anxious to know what it would feel like emotionally. The actual experience was void of expectations, requiring no conscious effort to search for a specific emotion. I was in the moment, for every moment I was there. My past and future were irrelevant.
We checked into our room at the Grand Sierra and watched Forensic Files until we couldn’t stay awake any longer. That night we slept for twelve hours. Dad left for Black Rock City on Tuesday, so I was by myself until Mom arrived on Wednesday night.
I felt anxious as Mom, three friends, and I drove four hours from Reno to get to Black Rock by Thursday afternoon. The site was very far out. The closest town was an hour and a half away. My cellphone was losing reception as we crept closer, and I knew there was no turning back. Mom was driving, and I was sitting in the passenger seat. My eyes darted back and forth between the view from the window and the signal bar at the top of my cell phone. The ever-weakening signal was a sunset, slowly darkening my contact with the outside world. When my darting eyes rested on Mom, I felt the sense of calm that her radiance often provided me. I looked at her until my anxiety passed over.
We finally made it to the line. We crawled for five hours until we reached the gate. It was dark by the time we got to camp.
Arriving on the Thursday before the actual burn week means that you get to see the city in progress, not yet entirely built. There was little lighting set up when we arrived, so we had to rely on headlamps and flashlights. After reuniting with Dad and saying hello to a few fellow campmates, we put on our big coats and set out to see how Mariposita was coming along. Dad climbed to the top of her unfinished body and pointed his headlamp downward—it was the first time I ever saw her in person.
That night was a bit surreal. I was drowsy from sitting in the car for eight hours while trying to ground myself in a new environment…in the dark. At some point in the night, I decided to surrender to the discomfort, since all I could do was wait until morning when I could see.
My days at Burning Man went a little bit like this: In the morning, I would wake up around 7:00 am for a bike ride while it was still a bit cool. The sun would be out, but it would remain hidden behind the purple mountains that enclosed the circular stretch of desert. Riding to Mariposita first, I would talk to some of her visitors. Then, aimlessly and intently, I would pedal along the soft, tan sand. There I saw runners preparing for the annual marathon, and ravers, still in their fantastic costumes from last night, heading back to their camps after watching the sunrise. I took in as many of the small details and large statements I could before my stomach started to growl.
I would arrive back at camp around 10:00 am. I ate breakfast cooked in a military-grade kitchen used to feed over a hundred people. I spoke with my campmates, always learning something new from them. At noon when it was much too hot to exert myself, I would sit underneath a shaded canopy.
Sometimes I drew there; sometimes I wrote. One time, I played my guitar and sang for my friends. We normally laid low until the sun went down and a new atmosphere was unveiled. Colorful flashing lights decorated people’s costumes and bikes. Sculptures came to life in a different way by their particular lighting. Music was all around us like sirens urging you to follow their songs. It was a time and place where people were allowed to just play, in whatever way “play” meant to them. At night, I felt like all of my childhood daydreams were realized.
I could write a thousand more words about the seven days I spent in Black Rock City. Instead, I want to tell you just one particularly remarkable story that I took back with me.
It was Wednesday, the day before we were to leave the playa and fly back to New York. Dad was giving a speech at the ARTery, a nearby camp, about his sculpture. We left our camp, Mirage Garage, at around 1:45 pm. From the time we left until around 4:00 pm when we got back to camp, I had only taken about three sips of water—a big mistake. In addition to dehydration, I felt my eyes start stinging about five minutes into Dad’s speech and they didn’t stop. I assumed my eyes were irritated by the dust. Tears were consistently flowing as if to flush something out. Despite feeling very uncomfortable, I was able to tolerate the irritation and even felt fine when we got back to camp.
A friend from New York was in the main tent, so we talked to him for a while. Here I started feeling a little loopy, so I excused myself and made my way to our Shift Pod. I sat in front of the air conditioner, hoping to feel some comfort, but I could not relax my mind or body. I couldn’t sit still, and I felt very off. I decided to go find Mom who, luckily, was close by and I told her that I wasn’t feeling well as we returned to the Pod. While walking back, I said out loud,
“I need to cry.”
I sat on the air mattress in our Pod and cried the hardest I have ever cried before. I hunched my head over my legs and just cried and cried. Mom left at one point to get me coconut water and some ice to put on the back of my neck. In between sips, I wailed, “I need to get off the playa.” I could not stand to feel so uncomfortable anymore. I could hardly breathe as my chest felt constricted, and I was shaking uncontrollably—it was terrifying. I wanted to scream, but I was also laughing. I thought that I would never feel normal again. Mom was my angel. She knew that everything would be okay, and she did everything in her power to make sure that I felt that way too. I chugged the rest of the coconut water and slowly started coming back to my senses. After some decompressing involving a campmate named Fluffy and an episode of Family Guy (a delicacy in Black Rock City), I felt like myself again.
As I look back on that experience, a few things come to mind. Firstly, I realized that water is extremely important in the desert. If you ever find yourself at Burning Man, never stop drinking water. Secondly, I realized that this was the first time I had really cried since I moved to New York City. I had always been a person that was in tune with my emotions. Before I moved, I allowed myself to feel everything and cry when I needed to. After I moved to the city, I felt pressured to put my guard up in order to “survive.” This caused a mental build-up, and I believe that my episode was a result of those past two years coming to surface.
This experience is the special thing that Burning Man can provide you: It forces you to confront certain things in your life that you might have never thought to confront. Although that feeling was scary—possibly the scariest feeling I’ve ever felt—I am grateful to have experienced it. I was at my most uncomfortable, both emotionally and physically, but I got through it. All the negative emotions that I had bottled up were flushed out, causing the world to feel a little brighter.
Maybe it even opened me up to crying too much. The next day, Thursday, was when we were to pack up and leave, with the trip ending as swiftly as its description. I was utterly heartbroken, crying nonstop from the moment we left until two days after we got back. I’m kind of embarrassed by that.
I will hold the memories from that trip close to my heart forever. I miss it all the time, but I’m excited for all the future burns that await, starting with next year. So, reader, if you will be attending as well, let’s make sure we say hello and have a drink (of water)! Love and dust.
By Sophia Carnabuci
All photos were taken by Sophia Carnabuci.