Two days out of Burning Man 2005 and I've temporarily settled into an apartment on Washington & Hyde in San Francisco. I decided to visit Sheiny here to decompress from my time in the desert and to allow another small taste of the city. SF has been pulling me quite a bit in the last year, as this is the second time in the last 6 months that I find myself in the shadow of the Golden Gate bridge.
Now, staring at the computer screen, it's virtually impossible to recollect the events of the last two weeks in any sort of order. Currently, only a few memorable events weigh clearly in my head: Happening upon a DJ Thursday night who overtook a crowd of hundreds with epical melodies and a lever in the DJ booth that spit fire 10 feet into the air at his whim. Spinning my own vinyl with Robb Green at Playa-go-Round on Friday night. Stopping mid-pee on Wednesday after hearing a familiar Denver name, only to be whisked away within minutes to an intimate gathering where Michael Franti composed his peace. Emerging from a wooden tube filled with assorted stuffed animals on Saturday morning to the 3rd most memorable sunrise of my entire life. And an invite to one of the most kickin' camps on the Deep End of the playa.
Once again I met new friends from all over the world -- the Zu kids from Seattle, Victoria & Crew from London and SF, two Cool Bus Irish School kids from Dublin, a silly couple sharing Jager and vodka tonics from Salt Lake City. I helped devirgininze three of my own -- Sokolicky, Monaco & Freedom. I connected and reconnected with friends close to home, including Demetreus & Kimber Xara, Delicioso, Sean Dee and Mr. Green. And I watched my partner in love and life shine her universal light.
But the magic of the playa sometimes takes time to close its lessons. And there is one event that still looms dark in my heart. For that I wrote a poem in hopes that the golden circle, now ashes within the pile of the Temple, will soon rejoin our infinity once again.
'They say the desert makes or breaks relationships.
Of that, I can clearly see.
Lines once drawn in thick charcoal of emotion
are easily blurred between sleep-deprived thoughts
and drug-enduced experience.
A planet that sleeps so separate from reality
allows so easily
thoughts of persons, places and feelings left on Earth
to slip soundly through the cracks of temptation.
We leave our comfort willingly
in order to re-write rules so confidently placed before us
that we'd forgotten if they were truely our beliefs
or ideals layed out to oppress.
What seemed so right in a place where love lives free
now leaves my heart, once opened bright in the desert heat,
feeling faulted, torn heavily, undone.'
