Available by Matteson Perry

Author:Matteson Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

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I headed out toward the Playa with Grant and a few others. The dust storm had settled, making the lights visible and distinct. They came in every color, most of them blinking, spinning, or moving, all attached to something, either a human, a sculpture, or a Mutant Vehicle, the modified cars that crawl all over the Playa, part transportation, part mobile art piece.

We walked over to what looked like a Chinese pagoda. The structure, the size of a large barn, was powerful and foreboding on the flat desert landscape, but up close the intricate woodwork looked like lace. This was the Temple, the spiritual center of Burning Man and the last thing to burn at the end of the week. Still incomplete, yellow tape cordoned it off so a construction crew could work through the night to finish a structure that would burn to the ground six days later.

In the distance, in the middle of it all, stood the Man himself, a giant neon effigy reaching toward the heavens. I got a little choked up when I caught sight of it. A year earlier, I’d been dumped and depressed, hearing about Grant’s awesome trip, and now I was here, experiencing it for myself.

A couple hours later we returned to camp and I joined some people having beers. The jovial group was laughing, hugging, and singing, but I didn’t feel a part of it. I stood at the edge of the party, watching quietly, my excitement turning to anxiousness. I didn’t know anyone but Grant, and everyone else seemed to be lifelong friends. Not to mention, they were all so at ease with the strange clothes, the partying, the nudity, the drugs.

I felt like a kid on his first night at sleepaway camp—excited about what was to come, but also homesick and worried about making friends. What if the drugs and the people and the weirdness were too much for me? Maybe I was too square for Burning Man. My last thought before falling asleep that night was I don’t know if this is for me. I hope I can last seven days out here in the desert with these people.

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