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29 August 2010
Pre-Burning Man 2010
Having read recently that happy people are those who even enjoy an unexpected detour, and while we had stayed in Beaver, Utah right next to road we wanted to go west with, we drove accidentally seventeen miles to Kanab and back, but enjoyed the magnificent landscape all the same. So, we must be happy. The previous two days we spent, respectively, at Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park – both supremely beautiful areas that I have wanted to visit for the last fifty years or so. Incredible spots that everyone should encounter if they have not done so already.
We got to Reno to stay with Coral and Phil and have a meal of perfection at a nearby restaurant that they know. The following day we joined up with Sherry, and the five of us went tubing on the Truckee River. The sky had decided to cloud over just as we started, and there were claps of thunder, but we proceeded for the better part of an hour or two. It was hauntingly lovely but left us bruised, blue and almost unable to use our hands for a while thanks to the cold.
And then we drove 'home' to Gary and Stef's on "the Ridge" (North San Juan above Nevada City). Here we have been feted, fed and indulged on virtually every front. One night, at home, we (re-)watched Tom Ford's A Single Man; another night we all went out to see Inception which I seemed to have enjoyed more than did the others. Admittedly, the film is overly crammed with placating fill, but I appreciated the concept of dreaming within dreams and the possibility of choosing one's own reality.
We have had dinner in the New Moon restaurant one evening with Stef, Gary, Holly and Bruce. Richard and I spent another night in Jacquie's intriguing house with perhaps the best panoramic view of all. We also had a delicious and relaxed meal with Jacquie and Steve at Steve's home. My only regret was that Gary Snyder could not be there as well. We did, however, on another occasion get to meet Jonathan Feingold. For the rest, it has been shopping and preparing for Black Rock City. We have abandoned the idea of driving to Fresno for an RV that we had reserved.
I have been able to speak by phone almost daily to my Aunt Florence. Uncle Ralph's service was this morning. The difficult logistics involved in trying to be there for it made it impossible for us to attend.
Yesterday was the last of the Roman festivals of August (the Volturnalia). Having had four shots of coffee during the day – a beverage that I drink only rarely, it became a sleepless but holy night. I lay in bed and listened to the sounds of the Sierra Nevadas, basked in the luxuriant stillness of the forest, and heard wondrous currents of breeze sweeping through the woods and cooling away the exuberant and record-breaking heat wave of the last few days. It was all nocturnal magic and allowed me to connect on a more spiritual level with the uniqueness of this on-the-edge Gold Rush country.
One morning we awoke to no electricity, another day it was a sewage problem at Exstasia, one night a bear devoured the melon crop, and this morning it was no water. It seems to be always something – along with the negronis, margaritas, terrific food and the best of company. And now we are about to enter the otherworld of Black Rock City, an isolated enclave of utopia and complete separation. Our phones will not work there, and email is out of the question. We will be cut off from the rest of the world for a week. Under the situation of as bleak and raw an encounter with the natural as we tend ever to face, we shall see how the co-natural might balance out the deprivations for the sought for ecstasies to which we shall surrender. As much as I perpetually adore Stephan's funnies and Michael's political, scientific, ethic and philosophical insights, I ask everyone to suspend sending me anything until after the 7th of September. Otherwise my inbox will fill almost immediately, and the server will shut my accounts down. I do not need even an acknowledgement of this email. A Burning Man report shall follow in due course. May all continue to savour the wonders before us.