We'll See What Happens

      Returned from another journey to Burning Man.
      As I was preparing to go I spoke of this being the last time, that maybe ten years in a row was enough, and that even if I did ultimately change my mind that this last-time-perspective was a good approach, a way to stay present while there.
      And yet I feel as if I have somehow come back with less connection than any other time. And, even as I think those words, I'm not yet quite clear what I mean.  Some extrapolation . . .
      It has always been a complex re-entry process to the other 50 weeks which occurs after that powerful week in the desert. And as different as each year's experience out there is, so is the process of reintegration.
       Because I do love being there in so many ways (oh that city of dust and dazzle all surrounding me at night, creativity run amok!), while we were out there this year I constantly joked with Tammy as if I was already shifting away from my resolve and was trying to imagine ways to come back next year.
click on images to enlarge
[I even got a bit excited about taking on an art project I dreamed up years ago - maybe starting a Kickstarter for it - "The Sisyphus Shoe Shine Stand".   Upon my return I discovered that a similar project, dealing with the absurdity/futility of shining shoes in the desert, had actually been done this year, though with a far less evocative name:  The Silk Route Shoe Shine Stand.]
           
      I leave in the heat of summer the last week of August, and return the second week of September. Change is in the air. The changes my body and mind have been through are many - air travel, daily temperature ranging from mid-40s to high-90s, intense altitude differences, driving a car hundreds of miles, experiencing exploding and burning artwork, the wildest array of humans sharing their creativity, dramatic changes in diet, sleep patterns cast to the dusty wind, etc.. While everything upon return is still green, an occasional colored leaf on the sidewalk suggests a process beginning, which is also whispered by the occasional strangely different cool breeze.  Nothing much.  And yet . . .

      Back to work and the other routines - shopping, laundry, commuting - along with reading books, using smartphone, computer. Trying to reorganize eating and sleeping habits.  I've gone through this 10 times now, and that turning of seasons over 60 times - yet it's still very powerful, deeply coloring moods, affecting thoughts. (There are many songs about September and autumn.)
    
      This year's week of Burning Man seems, contrary to my aspirations,  somehow a detached experience; the thoughts around it, like the photographs taken and shared - distant. From this back-for-a-week perspective the range of art I experienced seems the weakest yet, my participation rote, routine, uninspired. Quite far from joyless, the week feels uninspiring and worst of all: lacking much Awe (my drug of choice.)
     Was it that, or is it just the distorted lens of my decompressing memory here.  The swirl of thoughts at this point does not allow summing up - and any answers that do rise to the surface need to go into a bag to be sorted through later. I learned from a wise man once to be careful about epiphanies, good or bad.  And as we did in the tent when the dark clouds and thunder struck the desert the first day of the event - sometimes you just have to wait.
      And yet, at least in part due to decades of heading back to school I suppose, it's always a time of year of resolve, a drive towards focus. (The past three years I have taken on a self-discipline of a photo-montage-a-day for the month of October. This seems a good tradition to extend. And I want to write more.)  I have the urge, need, to hunker-down.  Self enforced regimens if necessary, but - work!  Sometimes you just have to work.  (soundtrack: "Work" - Lou Reed/John Cale).
      As with everything: we'll see what happens.