Lessons from Burning Man: You can, but you won’t

Dancing in the middle of a desert with 49,999 other people, monstrous flames blasting from the DJ booth above our heads and singeing our hair. Sound crazy? It was, and so am I.

After packing up some furry thongs, two pairs of stilts and some perception-altering “edible” granola, my buddy Donnie and I boarded our friend Andy’s 34-foot Airstream RV camper and headed for Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada. Also along for the ride were Thilo and Jochen, two straight boys from Germany. Twenty hours and several energy drinks later, we arrived at the gates to Burning Man.

The Berliners and Donnie were Burning Man virgins, which mandated jumping out of the RV, ringing a large bell and rolling around in the dust. Burning Man takes place on a large ancient seabed surrounded by mountains known as “The Playa.” A continuous stream of dust blows back and forth across the valley, coating everything in its path with a fine layer of white alkaline powder. Throw in some white wigs and you would think you were in the palace at Versailles, if everyone in the French court ran around naked behind water trucks to bathe.

Burning Man is a convergence of some of the most creative energy in the country and the world. Artists install amazing sculptures, many of them temporary, burning them at the end of the week. Two of these are the most famous: the wooden structure that is “The Man” around which the city of tents and trailers is built; and “The Temple,” a place of reverence to release painful memories.

But the most wondrous part of Burning Man is the radical self-expression. Want to ride a bike wearing a tutu, army boots and a cowboy hat on your head? I did, and you can. Want to dance with an Australian Marilyn Monroe inside an Arabian tent dressed as a giant purple fairy in jumping stilts? I did, and you can. Want to attend a co-ed tassel-twirling workshop at the Cirque Du Cliché burlesque camp? I did, and you can. The playa possibilities are endless.

Donnie and his boyfriend Tyler spent all day Thursday running around naked. Later they were lamenting how they could never do this back in Denver. To which I replied, “You can, but you won’t.”

Sometimes it’s you holding yourself back. Sometimes it’s some law or rule that prevents you. Other times it’s those parental tapes playing in your head that forbid. Well, I am here to tell you, you CAN. Don’t limit yourself. The possibilities on how you can express yourself in this huge world are limitless. Want to throw on a wig, white platform boots and some falsies? Just do it.

On Sunday morning we woke up to our neighbor from Diva Garden Camp rushing into our RV topless, with an open bottle of cold prosecco. “Boobies and champagne for breakfast!” Why wouldn’t you have boobies and champagne for breakfast? You can, but you won’t. They could, and they did. I hope a lesbian is reading right now thinking, “I know what I’m going to be doing next Sunday.” She can and she will.

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Before working as hostess for RSVP Vacations, my husband dragged me kicking and screaming onto our first cruise ship. What was I going to do, besides puke my guts over a ship railing? Up until then my vacations were always an adventure – hiking a volcano in Costa Rica, backpacking amongst the grizzly bears of Denali in Alaska, scuba diving with sharks in Fiji. What kind of boring was I getting myself into?

Well, I had more fun than an STD at a whore convention. One night, as we were dancing in our underwear somewhere in the middle of the Pacific under a sky full of stars, I looked up to the railings around the dance floor to see people staring down at us. They were just   standing there thinking, “I could never do that.”

I turned to Mr. Waste and said, “I NEVER want to be those people up there. I want to always be the person down here in the middle of the floor dancing my ass off.”

Don’t be that person standing on the edge with your clothes on. Jump into the middle of it all. You can. And you will.