returning to reality after a week in the desert
It was an odd experience… returning to the real world after burning man ended. After a crazy 2 day train ride followed by 7 days in the desert my concept of reality was a bit shot. At first the only part of modern america I saw was what greeted me on the side of some road outside of the Sparks / Reno area.
I rode from the burn to Reno in the back of the moving van because there was only two seats in front and we did not want to get pulled over. Having not slept the night of the man burn into sunday I was quite tired from my journeys and excursions in the desert. So, after sleeping in the back of the truck with 10 bags of garbage I woke up after what was about a 7 to 8 hour journey from our camp. Greeting me when the truck door opened were two native american fellows, the girls and a large trailer with a hand painted sign that read “TRASH”. I gladly helped bring out the 10 bags and we handed the guy $20… Our part of ‘leave no trace’ was completed! I climbed back into the truck and waited out the final journey into Reno and woke up at a 7-11 convenient store which was obviously visited by many other burners heading back to reality.
After getting a bunch of snack food, coca cola (nearly 2 days without!) and laughing at the slot machines I returned to the truck for the final ride to downtown reno and the train station to unload all of our crap. We had a ton of stuff! It was eventually loaded onto the platform in wait for the eastbound train. At this point the girls go away to clean the playa off of the truck and return it. As they went away I cleaned the playa off of the gear and waited… a few hours.
My wait was not so horrible. Not only did I not see that many people on an empty train platform I didn’t see many cars on account of the platform being below street level. This was all great! Made even better by a family who had been in Reno to play Jazz in a Labour Day parade. The family played old time swing and jazz standards for about 20 minutes which was followed by the man who ended up being the father playing trumpet solo, alone for another 20. It was beautiful listening to him play Jazz, it was the first live jazz I had heard in a long time and at that moment it really did make me feel much more at home than I was.
I got hungry! and of course the first food I ate back in reality? It only could have been one thing… McDonald’s
Granted, not this particular one but you have seen many like it.
An interesting thing, my journey to get food. I had to ascend to the street level and I had never seen Reno before. It was an interesting little town, the blocks were small, everything was close together and there was casinos all over. Another thing was burners! I saw burners… All over the place I saw burners. This was a welcome sign because it made me feel at home even in this buzz and rush of a modern city. Dirty vehicles and better yet dirty people greeted me on the streets. Once I got into the place and got my food it was fun to sit and eat a meal with another burner… He was dirtier than I was but we both knew where each other had been.
It feels so good to walk down the street and see another burner and know where they had just come from… With a little nod and smile you kept on walking… Sadly, this nod and smile was rarely returned by the people on the streets of Reno, one of the first shocks and difficulties of returning back to reality.