Part 2: Don't Hate The Playa, Hate The Game

Part 2 of the playa begins on Tuesday morning.. our second day in Black Rock City and Kat and I found ourselves exhausted but smiling. She'd been out til well after sunrise and I turned in just before that, but because of the heat, hadn't been able to sleep much. The tents we'd set up were completely open to the sun's rays that were warming up steadily and exponentially and our little homes were turning into hot little ovens. We thought we could fight it, but by 10am or so, it was nearly unbearable and we were struggling and uncomfortable. Finally, I just gave into the frustration because I wondered how we'd manage the rest of the week if we couldn't even find a reasonable amount of shade in which to sleep.

Over the course of that morning tho, we'd met our neighbors to our right - also from Washington tho more southerly - and chatted with them quite a bit. They took one look at our situation and said they were having none of it. They offered to help us when the sun set later on to construct something tarp-like to cover our tents and provide some relief for the rest of the week. I think Kat and I nearly cried. Until then, they allowed us to share their lovely set up they'd created for shade and some peace and quiet during the hotter afternoon hours. I found myself many times in mid-conversation listening to someone and unable to stay awake at all, nodding into a fast sleep if I allowed myself and trying not to be in their way so not really getting to sleep deeply. Oh for the love of Pete, I thought.. I was just counting the hours til the sun went down.

When the sun began to relinquish its place in the sky, the neighbors along with Kat and I pulled together our collective tarps and fashioned something that looked pretty sturdy and would cover both our tents, since Pixie seemed cool enough in her larger and more covered unit. The neighbors were clearly much more skilled than Kat and I, knotting rope quickly, staking it down and all of a sudden.. we had ourselves a nice little space on the opposite side of their rented Ryder truck. Kat and I just looked at each other and sighed, instantly feeling 20 degrees cooler.

I'm sure many things exciting went on that night. I know Pix and Kat went out.. I, on the other hand, went to frickin sleep. For hours. And hours. But you can't sleep straight thru it all. There is SO much noise I felt only half asleep at times. There's constant oonce-oonce-oonce'ing of the bass from every camp blaring techno and a hum from the city and its new inhabitants cheering every so often all thru the night and into the early morning. Talk would fade in and out and I kept waking thinking I needed to see what was going on, but was literally so sleep-deprived and my head so heavy that I knew it was better to rest. It was early. There would be bigger nights and more of my attention would be required then. Better to pace myself and catch up on the dreaming than wipe myself out right away. And surprisingly, all the surround-sound just became white noise that never bothered me. Being a light sleeper I brought ear plugs.. and then never used them once.

I woke up Wednesday morning at 7am, feeling really good about staying in and heard Kat finishing her all-nighter and cozying up in her tent for a few hours of rest. I didn't hear Pixie rustling around so I thought I'd try to do some exploring on my own while it was cooler and challenged myself to get moving.

Pixie had tricked out my fancy playa bike with pirate tassles and stripes that went oh-so perfectly with the pink asian satin print with which she covered the bike seat so my backside would always have something soft to rest upon. God love her. So once bathed and dressed, I hopped on what would be my main mode of transportation other than my feet and made my first goal of the day to head back to this little coffee camp I found on Tuesday morning at 8:30 and Grasslands, just a few blocks away.

I parked my Bike Of Sassyness and made myself socialize with strangers for the next hour. The coffee was really good - that first day I'd found them they had real cream! - and so was the company. The pattern was to find something you could compliment or observe but really no ice needed to be broken like it would be out in the Real World. You could simply ask someone where they were from and they would happily humor you for a while. It wasn't hard to find things to talk about. There was art sprouting up every day on the playa, you could be a newbie or a long-time veteran.. it was easy conversation. Someone passed around homemade banana bread they'd made, which seemed very decadent after two mornings of Cliff bars and applesauce, and then the chit chat was interrupted by the 'delivery' of the 'newspaper' and the talk changed to the news of the man who burned 'the man' the night before. Truly my favorite little gathering place in the mornings for the cooler part of the day where you could indulge in the surprise breakfast offerings people brought over and would happily share and, at the same time, get your tidbits of playa gossip about this shocking pre-burn - the likes of which no one had ever seen before in all of the 21 years Burning Man has existed.

After coffee, I rode over to discover the far side of the neighborhood around 10:00 and Esplanade and checked each alphabet side street for something new. I thought I would head out into the playa for my own bit of art absorbtion, but was feeling like I wanted company so I went in search of Jumpsuit Boy at his camp to see if he wanted to join. Gladly, he did - but we rode over to Center Camp first so he could get his chai fix and we sat for a while there in the midst of all these people resembling carnies without a carnival.. dancing, sleeping, singing, drumming.. and caught up with ourselves since we don't see each other much back at home in the city.

Boy and I have a smattering of a nice past that was mostly physical and once in a blue moon we might dabble back in that, but it's been years now because a girl like me needs a bit more than that I decided.. and we genuinely like each other so we stay in touch when we can. Of course on the playa it's nice to see a familiar and adorable face and as a veteran burner being his seventh time there, I gleened some observations from him and I'm sure he found some new light from the wide-eyed joy I was feeling.

I tooled around mid-playa with boy for a while longer checking out the Steampunk Treehouse and these life-sized games we found that reminded me of my dad and then we both needed to move on to some other things, said our goodbyes of maybe running into each other again later on in the week, but we never did. I had a feeling we wouldn't.. there were just too many other entertaining diversions.

I was enjoying the random people I'd met, but I hadn't yet felt so comfortable I wanted to be independent all the time. I'm a girl who likes to share experiences and I hadn't spent much time with fair Pixie since we'd arrived. That led to a bit of uncomfy conversations, especially about my mini-meltdown of frustration due to lack of sleep between Monday and Tuesday. The playa is a very special place for Pixie and being new, and.. well, me, I was feeling the need for a bit of hand-holding and introduction that was probably more than she could offer. This was a big playground for her, rather magical, as it was becoming that way for Kat and I too, but she knew it better than we did and wanted to be out in it every second she could. I just missed her and wasn't explaining that in a way that didn't sound like I wouldn't be holding her back somehow. And sometimes friends tiff. Traveling together and extreme situations certainly bring out those qualities you overlook for the ones you adore during normal times and tho I prepared Pixie for the grumbling she might hear from me as I got used to the conditions, it didn't mean she liked it.

Thank God I'm a talker and a persistent little thing at that.. so I pushed a little and she would push back and we did that for a while until we eventually cleared the misunderstandings for good. And we found that tho we do and see things differently, our friendship remains solid. It's hard to have disagreements with the people you love, but we found a good balance of time together and time apart after that and maybe a little more understanding and respect for each other.

I love when love sort of wiggles into things and doesn't let go. It was so prevalent in everything out there that you couldn't help but notice, breathe it in, and hope it stayed with you when you left. So far, it has.