BURNING MAN

What is it? At this stage in my association with the Burning Man Festival in The-Middle-Of-The-Desert, Nevada, it is what people talk about, write about, try to explain. It is: a week long art festival, an experiment in self-expression, self-reliance, anarchy, karma-economy. It is a drug fest, sex fest, love fest. It is either for those modern hippies that rub your arm when they talk to you and pry into your soul with their glossy, blissed out eyes, or for absolutely anyone and everyone (and I hear you could find even your grandfather there). It is a reason to brain storm without limitation, think of the craziest, strangest, most irrelevant ideas, surprising yet never shocking because I was expecting you to say something extremely unexpected, like that you're offering wine tastings from your belly-button.
What isn't clear to me is how this self-expressionism can truly exist as a part of a Group of people, a general Genre that we become a part of... Or how it can exist in a place where the pattern of thinking is more commonly shaped by the same illegal drugs(as opposed to the legal ones that shape thinking in the rest of America). Or maybe a lot of different drugs, but still, when we surrender our minds for a moment, we surrender our selves... Don't we?
I also can't quite wrap my head around how necessary materials for self-reliance in the desert include faux fur and glitter, along with a whole slew of unnecessary, burdensome things, a photo booth (apparently actually written, in this case, "photo boof"), 3 brightly colored wigs, 50-plus bottles of 20 year old wines... But I suppose this is an art festival, and what is art if not unnecessary... And at the same time, when I take a moment to examine myself, in many situations, hasn't art been necessary, in fact, for my survival?
One fact that doesn't need to be interpretted in order to be defined is that Burning Man is... The Desert. I can only base my images of the desert on deserts I have already experienced. The re-creation of Dubai, UAE couldn't hide the dust, dryness, wavering heat creating mirages dancing in the distance. Then there was the outdoor concert at the desert university in Beer Sheva, Israel where rain floated rather than fell and each droplet encased a globule of dust. Or camping with the nomads of the Israeli desert where the stars were so bright and numerous they inspired a couple insecure and bratty post-teenagers to recite poetry while waiting to fall asleep in sleeping bags laid out upon the dust.
I suppose for me, what embodies most concretely the only expectation I can form about Burning Man is a comedy sketch performed by a tasteless comedy duo from Great Brittain about a support group for people who want to lose weight. The woman (actually a man) leading the meating lists different foods for participants to determine their fat content. Chips... Lettuce... Dust.
"Dust, anyone? High in fat, low in fat?"
Silence... Very long silence.
"Dust is very low in fat. You can eat as much dust as you like."
So off I go in a few days time, maybe to express myself or someone else, maybe to learn to rely on myself in the elements, maybe to be inspired, to fall in love, to try something new... But definetly to eat lots and lots of dust.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcVZg2tVswk

Forever locked to the parking meter

I was on my way out last night and went to unlock my bicycle from the parking meter outside my apartment. There was another bicycle locked to the parking meter adjacent to mine and a man fiddling with it's lock. Though his hair was a bit shaggy and his beard was long, it was clear the look was intentional. He wore thick white-framed glasses, fitted dark jeans, a colored shirt and a jacket. As is the custom in San Francisco, I turned and acknowledged him with a smiling "hello". "Hi", he said, "How are you?"
"Fine, thanks."
Then he said, "Can I ask you a question?" which is a rhetorical, relatively pointless question, but effective in getting the attention of someone who isn't expecting a conversation.
"Yes," I said.
"Did you see me in this neighborhood last night?"
"In this neighborhood?," I asked trying to remember if I'd been out in this neighborhood last night, though I was sure I'd never seen him before. "No."
"Thanks," he said, "You see, I've lost my keys, so I'm trying to find people who saw me last night, so i can figure out where I was."
"Sorry," I laughed. "Good luck." I got on my bike and rode away.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm missing out, because I remember everything. San Francisco is like the 60s. If you remember it, you never lived here. I like to think I just have a different way of experiencing it. But maybe I am too uptight. I was accused once in Marseille of having "un balai dans le cul." In fact, a whole song was written about it on a rare night that I hardly remember.

I've been thinking about a tatoo. I've been admiring tatoos for years. I've been brain storming and sketching what mine would look like for just as long. Here, tatoos are practically a requirement. At times, because I don't have a tatoo, I feel a bit like I've forgotten to put my pants on and realized after I've already left the house. I keep wondering if I would get more work with at least one visible tatoo. However, this societal expectation also makes me proud not to have one yet and gives me strenght to stubornly stick to the viewpoint that I will stay this way.
I'll admit, as I was practicing yoga today, I was thinking about things that were not yoga... Thinking quite a lot about tatoos. I suddenly had this odd feeling that we don't realize the magnitude of the impermanence of our lives. We (I use "we" here because tatoo or no tatoo, I am a victim of the same condition) have beautiful artwork etched in our bodies that we imagine will last forever, not really understanding what Forever means. We also imagine this artwork represents ourselves as we are and always will be, or at least represents a part of ourselves we won't be embarassed to remember when it has changed. There's something in this continual dichotomy between permanence and impermanence that makes me feel the profound smallness of my existance. With this thought in mind, I am still committed to a tatoo-free state.
I do have one scar from an eye-brow piercing in college that will do for now, that I like and embrace because it was accidental... The scar, not the piercing.
I hope I have not discouraged anyone from getting a tatoo. I would love you all to get a tatoo and I will admire yours. You worry about the permanence of your own state if you want and forget all I've said... Or don't worry about it because life will keep happening anyway, making it's mark on our bodies and in our expressions whether we want it to or not.

whew!

All of a sudden I realized, I really was alright again. Almost everything that I had resolved to do in my weakest moment, I had done. And it had worked as I hypothesized it would. I left Europe to face the USA and my family, secretly my biggest fears, and I am no longer afraid of where I'm from. I swear it's true what they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger... For a time I feared that was just to make those of us suffering feel better momentarily, like a morphine pill or a cortisone injection. But really, I came to San Francisco, a new city to me, and I think it has been easier for me than many new arrivals to be at home here. After Manila, Madrid, Marseille and the many stops in between, some simpler than others, being back on my home soil, anywhere, is refreshingly simple... And though in some ways, I guess you could say I've become an awful snob, I get it... Even the things I don't agree with. They are in my blood (even if I don't want them to be) because I was born in this country.

the voyage in reverse/le voyage à l'envers

English version at the bottom:

Alors, j'essaie maintenant de vous écrire en français car j'ai parlé français pour six mois et des fois, mes pensés m'ont semblé être des peintures et de belles images...
C'est le matin à San Francisco, Californie et pour la première fois depuis que je suis arrivée, le soleil a brillé par ma fenêtre quand je me suis reveillée. Je me sens bien et je crois que je vais me prommener sur la plage, seulement à deux blocs de mon appartement.
C'est rare pour moi je crois, ce sentiment de tranquilité. C'est pas bon pour quelqu'une qui cherche inconsciemment l'aventure, tout ces changements plus nombreux et rapides que l'éclair et de vouloir autant retrouver le contrôle sur sa vie. On peut avoir l'un ou l'autre l'aventure ou le contrôle, mais jamais les deux. Je me sens presque toujours en conflit. Mais pas maintenant, pas ce matin.
Cela fait aujourd'hui un mois que j'étais en France, à Marseille ou j'ai imaginé que je pouvais rester... En fin, je me suis dit que ce n'était pas de ma faute, que je devais bouger encore.
Assis sur le bord du quai du vieux port, on a regardé les poissons qui ont formé des cerlcles dans l'eau à trois heure du matin, en attendant le moment oú je devais prendre le bus pour l'aeroport au plus noir de la nuit. À l'aeroport, ils ont pesé ma valise qui faisait 10 kilos de trop. J'ai commencé a enlever des trucs sans reflechir a ce que j'allais jeter. Car si l'on y pense, on devient attaché. J'ai laissé des vêtements, des chaussures, des livres, sur un siège de l'aeroport, et j'ai essayé de les oublier. Je voulais me sentir legère et libre. Je voulais vivre uniquement dans le présent et lâcher prise, comme je le dis aux élèves de yoga encore et encore parce que c'est la leçon que je dois appliquer aussi. Alors, j'ai abandonné ces choses materielles, mais pas les idées. Quand je voyage et quand j'essaie de m'instaler ailleur, je le fais toujours en rêvant à Marseille. Je ne suis presque jamais là ou je suis.
Je suis arrivée à Londres vers sept heures du matin et j'avais des nuages dans la tête ☁✈. J'avais besoin de sommeil et au dela du sommeil je ne me souviens plus trop de Londres. Une bière dans un pub, une prommenade le long de la Tamise avec un vieil ami. Il a un peu neigé, un peu plut aussi. Et je me souviens des scéances de yoga comme toujours.
De Londres, j'ai pris un avion pour New York. Le New York d'une autre vie quand j'avais des rêves différents... Mais c'est une ville qui est toujours aussi vivante et je l'avait oublié. J'ai plusieurs amis là-bas mais c'est une communité qui a encore évolué même pendant mon absence. Ils avaient leurs propres blagues que je n'ai pas compris et leurs propres amours que je n'ai pas rencontré. Je parlais moins leur langue que celles d'oú je revenais. Les rues semblaient tellement grandes et les couleurs grises... C'est d'une beauté différente dont je n'ai plus les yeux.
Je ne suis restée qu'une semaine. De New York je me suis envolée encore. Cette fois j'ai atteri au Colorado, l'état ou je suis née. C'était bizarre de retourner dans mon pays, tellement différent et comme inconnu. Le ciel était mille fois plus grand que dans mes souvenirs, dessous lequel je me sentais tel un caillou. Le reste du monde qui vivait dans cet état semblait ne pas remarquer qu'ils étaient sur le point d'être avaler par leur propre ciel☠. Ils étaient tous souriants, tous concentrés sur l'exercise et la nouriture sainne pensant vivre pour toujours. Le ciel délavé et les pelouses marrons et mortes dans ce climat sec.
Heureusement, après quelques jours dessous le soleil du Colorado, et quelques temps passés au prés de ma famille, j'ai vu les choses plus clairement. J'ai redécouvert les endroits qui ont évolué et maintenant ils sont plus vivant avec des restaurants et des bars branchés où avant il n'y avait rien. J'ai pensé de rester... Mais mon addiction au voyage m'a encore entrainé vers de nouvelles sensations. Un jour je dois essayer l'hypnotisme ou l'acupuncture pour arrêter ma manie de bouger.
Maintenant je suis à San Francisco, dans un appartement à deux blocs de l'Océan Pacifique et très loin de toutes les autres choses. Je m'habitue au bus ou je passe des heures en montant et décendant les collines. Cette ville est tellement belle, avec l'herbe verte élecrtique et les arbres plein des fleurs, la ville dans la nature et la nature dans la ville. Il pleut souvent et une seconde plus tard il y a du soleil☀.
Toujours je rêve de Marseille et toujours j'attends le moment où je me sentirai à l'aise quelque part.
***************************************

It’s morning in San Francisco and for the first time since I arrived, the sun was shining in the window when I woke. I feel good and I think I’ll take a walk along the beach only two blocks from my apartment.
It’s rare for me I think, this feeling of calm. It’s not good for someone who unconsciously seeks adventure, more numerous and fast changes than the natural speed of change, to want so seriously to re-establish the semblance of control in her life. We can have one or the other, adventure or control, but never both. I almost always feel in conflict. But not at this moment. Not this morning.
Only a month ago I was in France, in Marseille, where I imagine I could have stayed... In the end, I told myself that it wasn’t my fault I had to move again.
Sitting on the old port, we watched the fish circling in the water at three o’clock in the morning, waiting for the moment I had to catch my bus to the airport in the dark of night. At the airport they weighed my suitcase. 10 kilos over-weight. I began to remove things without thinking. The moment one thinks, one becomes attached. I left clothes, shoes, books, on a seat in the airport, and I tried to let go. I wanted to feel light and free. I wanted to live only in the present and let everything else go, like I tell my yoga students over and over again because it’s the lesson I have to learn over all. So, I let go of the material things, but not my ideas and as I travel trying to settle elsewhere, I do it always dreaming of Marseille. I am almost never where I am.
I arrived in London around 7 o’clock in the morning and I had clouds in my head. I needed sleep and outside of sleep I don’t remember too much of London. A beer in a pub and a walk along the Thames with an old friend. A bit of snow, a bit of rain. And yoga class as always.
From London, I took a plane to New York. The New York from another life that was mine when I had different dreams... But it’s a city that continues to exist in the present and I forget that from time to time. I have several friends there but it’s a community that was evolving the same when I was absent. They had their own jokes that I didn’t understand and their own loves whom I had never met. I spoke less their language than the languages of the countries that I traveled to. The streets seemed so wide and the colors grey... It’s a beauty of a different standard for which I no longer have eyes.
I only stayed a week. From New York again I flew. This time I landed in Colorado, the state where I was born. It was stranger to return than it was to land in countries completely different and unknown. The sky was a million times larger than I remembered, and beneath it I felt like a pebble. The rest of the people living in this state seemed as though they hadn’t notice that they were about to be swallowed by the sky. They were smiling and concentrated on exercise and healthy food in order to live forever. Not the sense of mortality that I had beneath a sky so big. The sky and the lawns, brown and dead in the dry climat.
Happily, after a few days beneath the Colorado sun, and some time with my family, I saw things more clearly. I discovered the neighborhoods that had evolved while I was away and now were alive with trendy restaurants and bars where before there was nothing. I thought about staying... But my addiction is to move. I tried to stop several times, but I always start up again. One day I have to try hypnotism or acupunture.
Now I’m in San Francisco, in this apartment two blocks from the Pacific Ocean and very far from everything else. I’m getting used to the bus on which I spend hours climbing and descending the hills. But this city is beautiful, with electric green grass and trees full of flowers. It rains often and then it’s sunny in a half a second.
Still I dream of Marseille and still I await the day when I will feel well installed somewhere, when I’ll stop writing so much about me and start writing other people’s stories because mine would bore you.