Facing Moments

At Burning Man a couple years ago, a beautiful woman handed me the keys to her art car (basically a golf cart with some large and absurd decorations welded on) and while I careened blindly through a vicious after-dark dust storm she tried to ask, shouting above the noise, why I was so insecure.

I don't mind that question if we're cuddled up on the pillows drinking chai in some random pavilion we've happened across while walking the streets, but piloting this unwieldy machine through oblivious crowds of people passing through the misaligned headlights while choking on clouds of airborne extinct lakebed was not an activity conducive to serious conversation.

It is, however, a fair question, though few are so bold as to ask it. The woman who did lives near me somewhere and we run into each other now and then but she's always saying We should talk! and then dashing off again. Whatever. Things have changed since then anyway, rather significantly.

But the insecurities? Many remain and last night was a pretty good opportunity for them to wake up and sit on my face. The shop for a couple of automobile-related businesses became the space for the 40th birthday party of a Burner woman who's six feet tall in bare feet and has lots of friends and an indulgent husband and wears fishnets and really likes getting spanked. I enjoy spanking but somehow while in the surrounding crowd the shyness or reluctance or whatever it is took over and I could not push myself into so public a line and thus missed my chance.

One of many.

I've developed some very special friendships in that crowd. There was a lot of bonding in the desert this past year when we went up five days early to set up and lose sleep and build things and explore the hot springs and the art works and dance until dawn and huddle tearfully at the Temple at sunrise. So I had some wonderful people to talk to and dance with and get drinks for and so on; yet even so, when the woman with the brassy brown hair wearing a loose-mesh body stocking under her overcoat (and nothing else, and yes, she was built very well) who seemed to smile at me every time our eyes passed, when she was dancing alone and I was only loosely associated with anyone in particular to dance with myself, I found it impossible to drift over and take her inviting hips into my hands and ask for a dance as a normal man would do. This was not just shyness. I'm not shy enough (I like to think) for that alone to stop me. But it was about three by this time and I was tired and the emotional roller coaster had started to crank up and I just knew I wasn't all there and an instinct kicked in that told me to slow down, I wasn't ready for that shit, forget it, it's only January, etc. etc. Not to mention I was sort of playing a mental game with myself, because frankly I'm not overly interested in anyone new right now. But in those long moments of hesitation there was a very familiar old teenaged fraidy cat sharing my skin too, and I didn't like that, and had to wonder was it really lack of sincere interest, or was it insecurity in some form or other, that kept me locked into my own space?

Yeah, I over-think sometimes. That's not news.

That moment, that dance-able / teachable moment, was preceded by another moment that almost encapsulates the entire experience for me (and the entire blog post would consist of that moment if I was being more careful and not just writing quickly so I can go to bed -- you know how it is, I don't have time to write something short). At parties I tend to drift a lot because I get uncomfortable hanging with one person too long if we're not an actual couple, and I can't hear very well and a lot of conversations escape me, and worse, even if I can hear them a lot of conversations escape me because sometimes strings of spoken words just don't always add up in my mind. I don't know what that is. Somehow missing verbal / facial cues, or something, I don't know. Anyway, came a time the continual back and forth and in and out wore me out and I sat alone in a dark corner becoming withdrawn and thinking my participation was surely at an end. I remember the time: 1:48 am. The chair was behind the electric cart that's been for sale for a year, and through it I could watch the dance crowd unseen. Not really unseen: Some kids (i.e. twenty-somethings) chose that moment to sit in it and they invited me to join them but I smiled and shook my head, not wanting to expose the sadness that was starting to build. There is a deeply-held dark cloud that I have always carried inside me which is closer to the surface now than it used to be, and this makes me feel vulnerable and fragile at certain inconvenient moments. This was such a moment. I didn't really want to be alone but I needed to be and was getting sad over it and thinking, shit, I guess I'm done. Time to go.

Except that Chelsea saw me.

She's an amazingly beautiful and serene young woman who got to know me during that intense week last summer, as several did, through combinations of brief random conversation, extended mindless dances, and observing my interactions with my soon-to-be ex-wife. Indeed I remember an instant in a hot afternoon up there in Nevada when I confessed to her I knew I needed to leave my wife but above all I just wanted her to be taken care of, and god dammit the tears started, and Chelsea's kind eyes said the same things her words did; I suppose, but I don't remember her words. Upshot, people seemed to think I was a good guy. Anyway, she saw me in my chair in the shadows and came over to me, dancing, and held her arms out, and smiled, and said come on, and damned if her coaxing didn't work, and there we were, out on the floor again. I never learned to dance properly, you know, but I can fake it sometimes, so we contrived some swing-like moves and some spins, and I made sure to compel her this way and that and basically keep the lead; and we had a good time. And we drifted apart as people do, but I had a new lease now, and when I look back I cannot help but see her coaxing and her caring as anything less than a gift, given to me in love.

There's so much love. Above all, even more than the odd mixtures of art and engineering, it's the love that draws me to the world I've discovered there. Of course this is in part because I'm a loving person too. But I'm also strangely disconnected from the world, and so I'm always seeking some means of reconnecting, of repairing the break. The break dates back to early childhood, you know, and is really just another way of looking at the dark cloud I mentioned earlier. I think it's getting repaired now, and that's why the cloud is closer to the surface; preparing to be drawn out, like an evil spirit.

Moments that illustrate my lingering insecurities are not of course the entire tale, and I can't stop writing and allow myself some sleep if there was naked hot tubbing that I haven't mentioned. Somewhere else in a comment I mentioned feeding a cupcake to a naked woman in a hot tub. So I did -- another one of those friends mentioned above -- and it was only possible because the party was in the rare sort of auto shop that has a hot tub in it, next to the washing machine and within a towel's throw of the work area where electric scooters are being manufactured (it's a busy shop). Shortly after that, I noted that the tub was filling with people and so, being me, I stripped off and joined them. One of the beauties of the B-Man culture is it allows you the opportunity to shed your useless modesty. And by the way, though I've referred twice to "beautiful" women, external or popular conceits about beauty do not need to apply in this environment. Most people are just like everyone else (kind of an obvious statement) and beauty as any kind of differentiator is a personal matter.

Anyway, the little tub wouldn't hold more than four or five, and we just sort of sat and talked, and people got out and others got in. Just about the time I couldn't stand the heat anymore it got surreal when I realized I was alone in the tub with two women who were making out passionately; and no, I was not interested in joining them, but sat there trying my best not to look uncomfortable (try that sometime), not wanting to watch, not wanting to obviously look away, and not wanting the large crowd who were no doubt enjoying the comedy of the scene see me break a sweat over it. So I said the hell with all that and got out anyway. Found a towel. Put my clothes back on. Searched desperately for a cold drink.

There were other moments. Someone got the brilliant idea of constructing a flammable soccer ball out of wire and fuel-soaked paper and we kicked that about in the yard awhile, until it went out. Someone else made, well, I forget what the hell they're called. Miniature hot air balloons, anyway, made of paper and little fire things. You light them and they float away. Incredibly stupid idea, if you ask me, but the one I saw couldn't make any headway against the heavy damp air. But what is it with these people and burning shit? And of course some people lined up for body shots (not me), and there was a hula hoop I was compelled to try, and lots of excellent food (e.g. barbecued tri-tip), and the hours and hours that just seem to fly by with these damn parties, until shortly after four I decided, this time, I really am done, and without saying goodbye to anyone -- because there's a natural attrition as the night gets old and cold and while no one ever says goodbye, they do eventually turn up missing -- I went out to my Jeep and turned it on and wipered away the dew and drove the five minutes to my apartment and crashed until nearly eight o'clock, almost four hours of sleep, woo hoo.

I went back to the shop and spent several hours helping clean up, the clean-up crew consisting mainly of whoever hadn't gone home yet plus me, but this was a long enough thing to ask you to read. Thanks for getting so far. I'm out.

p.s. - Yes, I took pictures, maybe a couple dozen, but I'm not dealing with that right now.