this is from an email i sent to a friend recently. i am keeping this here more for my own purposes, to see if i learn anything after next year:
my playa time this year was productive, and useful, but it wasn’t all that much fun…and THAT i have already taken steps to avoid next year =) more fun is definitely in order next year.
i had volunteered earlier in the year for a collateral ranger team, and never heard anything back, so i assumed they had selected someone else for the position or that my suggestion had not been followed that the position be split into a team. so i carried on and committed myself to various other volunteer activities, both within the rangers and within the fire spinning group that has become my family over the last year and a half or so. i am sure you can see where this is going, about a day before we left for the playa, i got an email saying "looking forward to working with you, you are on this other team!" so in an instant, i became over committed, which made me want to be committed =)
so, things i learned from the playa this year:
1) as with any other job in the world, if an employer knows you will kill yourself for a job, they will let you. it’s up to YOU to set good and healthy limits/boundaries and then stick to them to keep things harmonious in other areas of your life. you can’t be there for everyone, you can’t plug every hole, and what you want and need matters too….just as much as it does for others.
2) working constantly while camp mates get closer with your spouse feels really shitty. by the end of the week, they have private jokes, and all you feel is excluded and sad. refer again to point #1 both with regard to boundaries and working too much.
3) NEVER say to yourself at 3:44am on an early tuesday night intercept shift while gazing wistfully at the rapidly diminishing full lunar eclipse (as though that were not spectacular enough), "wow, things are really quiet, maybe we should knock off a few minutes early…" it will be followed by being one of the first on scene to some nut job making your life ever so much more exciting by torching the man early and will continue off-playa as you are called to testify against said cluetard. was in court today and it was quite interesting. i can honestly say before today, i had never stopped while driving through lovelock, nevada and while the courthouse is a neat historical place, not sure i would have, had it not been for said court appearance, which should be the first of many.
4) being a dangerous art liaison kicks ass, and will continue. being an intercept lead also kicks ass, but isn’t worth the relationship conflict it causes. with sadness, i will no longer do this.
5) dangerous art itself kicks ass and i am impressed with the amount of discussion and safety planning that takes place to make sure everything goes as it should.
6) being a performer in the inner circle at burning man is both exhilarating, chaotic, memorable, tedious, long, over too soon, waiting too long, and at the same time, anticlimactic.
7) the quality and tenacity of friendships made during the year will always be tested at burning man. some of those tests will be passed with flying colors when people understand what you want and need better than you do and endeavor to take care of you because they genuinely care. this is one of the greatest feelings in the world.
8) in spite of the fact that we would like it to be true, burning man does not cure all. grief continues to hurt, and while it is cathartic to bring ashes to the playa, create art, and ritualize things that need to be purged, it still hurts like a bitch. i still miss my mom. i always will. i understood this year in a way i never could have before, the importance of having something like the temple.
9) who rangers the rangers when they need it? no one as well as they should and one well-meaning ranger can barely make a dent in it. domestic violence and disrespect between people claiming to love each other are still trigger issues for me.
i think those are the important things. i worked too much and i won’t do that again. that’s the theme for the year. for sure.
peace.
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