I am currently at camp, holding down the fort, so to speak. It is a cold night out here on the playa. I’m sitting in a wheel chair, not that I need it, it just happened to show up at camp a few days ago and it’s actually quite comfy. Is how it appears to be, often times things, people, items, just show up when and where you need them.
I heard it called “playaendipity” last night. I believe that’s apropos.
Tonight is Action’s birthday, so I agreed to stay in camp and keep an eye on the June Bug. Not too hard, really, she’s asleep and snuggled in for the night. I swear the child can sleep through most anything, fireworks, loud people stumbling through camp, the whomp of loud explosives going off in the not so distant vicinity.
So, I’ve just been sitting in camp, down loading some photos and drinking hot tea. I think it’s hilarious that it’s August 31st and I’m swaddled in three layers of clothing, a shrug, an over coat with the hood pulled up over my head, and a scarf wrapped around my neck. It is cold out there tonight kids, careful what you get in to.
I love hearing the random voices plowing through the night and the drifts and thickets of conversation that scatter through camp as people pass by on their way to whatever adventure the playa holds next for them. There is the constant white noise hum of the generator in camp as well as the low roar from the sound camps to underlay the snatches that I hear.
“Hey, is this where Yoms’ is camped?’
“Do you know the combo to the port-a-potty?”
“You just missed him, he’s out riding the zebracorn.”
“Yup, just a quick bump of k and then we’ll go hit it again.”
“Have they re-opened the gate?’
This last was asked of me by a sweet older gentleman who was about to head out to the Man and guard it over the evening. Ever since Mr. Addis torched it in 2007 the organization has kept an ever increasing eye on the activities around it. He was worried about his daughter, she was supposed to be in camp five hours ago and he had not heard yet if the gates were open or still closed down.
The roads were impassable this early evening. It rained. It stormed. It poured. I was walking through Center Camp and dancing to some Fred Astaire coming from some one’s radio when it began. You could see the showers coming down in the mountains and a shifting wall of dust moving ahead of the cold front.
Then it hit and it hit hard. It lasted for a bit over two hours. There is mud everywhere.
11:19pm November 13th, 2010
Burning Man Metropolis has gone by and I’m fully ensconced in my San Francisco life again, yet, I still feel it’s reverberations through out my day. I seem to constantly be running into people or meeting people that were there. I never construed myself as a burner, but it is apparent that I am one of the flock.
Just another tribe of wonderful misfits I get to belong to.
Auntiebubba 