Burning Man

I've been in San Francisco for ten years now and the electronic music scene has always been a substantial part of my existence here, but somehow I always resisted Burning Man. I've never been that much of a party girl and I could not shake the notion that it was just one huge rave in the desert.

Boy was I wrong about that one. I went to Burning Man for the first time last year, and had the time of my life. It's an incredibly special place indeed, and I feel very fortunate to have experienced it.

Turns out Burning man is much less about the party (though my oh my it is one hell of a party), and much more about the art, the creativity, the love, and the amazing experience that is this temporary city in the desert. It's not something you can really give justice to through a description, it's something you've got to experience yourself, and honestly I feel like it's a real crime to live in San Francisco and not make the trip at least once.

If I must attempt to articulate it, here are a few things that make Black Rock City so unique and special:

- The creativity, time, and energy that people put into Burning Man is absolutely staggering. At every turn, there is something to explore. Art is ubiquitous - from enormous multi story structures to small installments to huge metal sculptures to flaming everythings to parade float scale art cars to strange bicycles to motorized couches. You will spend most of your time exploring and when all is said and done, you'll have probably missed 80% of it. And that's just fine.

- Everyone is wearing ridiculous clothes the entire time. You may not really realize the extent to which you immediately size someone up based upon his or her appearance. When everyone is donning some silly absolutely absurd outfit that they pieced together, feeling comfortable parading around in their skin, the judgment you don't even know you are walking around with is removed.

- There's no commerce. You can't buy anything, other than coffee and ice - everything you need you are expected to bring in with you, and what you forget you can find a way to get on the playa. Contrary to what many may say, it's not a barter culture either. People just give you things. Last year I forgot lights for my bike, complete strangers were giving me some because they'd brought extra to hand out. Again sounds strange, but not needing to pull out your wallet for a few days, and having complete strangers happily giving you whatever you might need, is a truly unique experience.

- There's no concept of time really, you just go off and explore. I mean, you could carry a watch and coordinate with people to be somewhere at some time, but that's not how I did it. I just went, and did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. The ability to forget about time for days on end was incredibly liberating for me. Maybe that point is just for type As like me.

- There's no cell phone service. Unless you brought a walkie talkie to reach one other person, there's no way to communicate other than face to face. Sounds stone age, but suddenly you're not worried about coordinating, you just go where you go, and stumble upon who you stumble upon.

Put all these together , and you will feel like a child again. The sense of exploration and discovery is just profound.