What I Carried Into Burning Man

The Burner Bus left me on the playa with three overweight bags, no phone signal, and a vague idea that the Man at the center of the city was supposed to help me find my way. Everyone else seemed to understand the clock system. I looked at my bags, looked out at the desert, and wondered how I was going to get to camp.

I had come from Manila with gifts, snacks, costumes, and enough luggage to cost me around $400 in excess baggage. A man dressed in white walked up and asked if I was lost.

“Yes,” I said. “Let me carry your load.”

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I offered him my Gucci hand carry. Yes, I brought a Gucci hand carry to Burning Man. He asked for the heavier bags instead: my big Rimowa and a giant duffel I’d bought in Tokyo, which I’d always thought was too big to be useful. Somehow, I had filled both. “I haven’t worked out today,” he said as he picked them up. He carried them all the way to my camp, and before I could properly thank him, he was gone.

People say the playa provides. I had been there only minutes, and already a stranger had carried what I couldn’t.

For years, something inside me had been telling me to go to Burning Man. It was a bucket-list dream, though I couldn’t quite explain why it mattered so much. This year, I finally found a way to clear the dates. I missed most of the calls meant to prepare me because my life in Manila was its usual rush of work, meetings, events, and parties. My assistant packed everything. I showed her the looks I had in mind and asked her to put lights on my clothes. So much for radical self-reliance. I would have to learn that part when I got there.

At first, I said I didn’t want to bring costumes. I wear costumes often enough at home. I thought I might like to blend into the sand. Then I opened my storage and realized I already owned an improbable amount of Burning Man-appropriate clothing from years of parties and Halloweens. The costumes came along, together with small comforts to give away: Katinko, Yoga Love, Relazz for sleep, gifts from House of O, and far too many snacks. I didn’t know what I’d need for a week in the desert, so everything seemed essential.

At camp, I was shown an empty patch of ground and a box containing my tent. I asked if someone could help me set it up. He said he could after the briefing. I had an hour to wait and nowhere to put myself or my bags, so I started. My friend Jerik passed by and helped me figure it out. By the time the briefing came around, I had a place to sleep.

It was a small beginning, but it felt enormous to me.

Next came the bike. I am not a confident cyclist. The last time I had tried riding seriously, I kept falling. This was an electric bike that seemed to pick up speed just when I wanted it to slow down. I struggled so much that people thought I was simply being timid. Then we discovered the bike had a problem. Once it was fixed, I learned to ride it across the playa.

I don’t drive in Manila. Suddenly, I was navigating a moving city in the desert, often following friends because I still couldn’t trust my sense of direction. I was scared. I also knew that if I wanted to see anything, I had to get on the bike and go.

There was so much to see. I cried during a meditation. I danced at another camp as if I had never danced before. I went to parties and, sometimes, left them to walk alone among the art. I skipped things people told me I had to experience. I learned that I could write my own Burning Man story.

I also learned how much of that story other people would write with me. One evening, I had gone out dressed for daytime and stayed until it was dark. I had no lights, which made walking across the playa dangerous. A woman stopped and told me she had extras. She wrapped me in little lights until I was visible again. We went our separate ways, but I walked on feeling much less alone.

Kindness appeared in ordinary forms, too. At Camp G, someone was always cooking something wonderful. On a cold, rainy day, we crowded together under shelter while a French campmate served beef bourguignon. It warmed our hands, our bellies, and the small space we were sharing.

I met Germans and Colombians who, within days, felt like friends I had known much longer. One of them, Stefo, was German. In the middle of a party, he would ask me a question that went deeper than party conversation usually does. I would give him the answer I was used to giving, and he would ask another. His questions made me stop and look more closely at things I thought I already understood about myself. We could be surrounded by music and people, yet somehow have a conversation that felt entirely our own.

I took my turns working. One night, I helped clean up after dinner and found that I enjoyed it. At a party, I was tasked with cutting and handing out croissants. I danced as I served them, watching people’s faces light up when I offered them one. I make events for a living, but that afternoon reminded me how happy I am when I can contribute to someone else’s good time—even in the smallest way.

For all my love of being with people, I often went back to my tent because I needed to be alone. I am a closet loner. Being alone at Burning Man took some practice, though. Music thumped from every direction when I tried to sleep. Water had to be used thoughtfully because others needed it, too.

And the weather kept changing. One day there was a sandstorm; the next, rain and mud. Then it was too hot, or suddenly so cold that I was grateful for the winter gear that had ended up in my bags. Every time I opened my tent, a little more dust came in. It settled on my clothes, my bags, my face. Some mornings I looked like an espasol. After a while, I didn’t care. My senses were awake to everything. I felt the heat, the cold, the music, the exhaustion, and the kindness. I felt it all.

Then there was the fire.

I watched a colossal work of art go up in flames. I had climbed the Man before it burned, and when I watched it disappear, the crowd cheered beneath a sky full of fireworks. I understood the celebration, but I was still trying to understand what it meant to let something go so completely.

The Temple felt different. I had walked through it earlier and seen people sitting quietly with their grief. During the Temple Burn, the crowd was so still that I felt I could hear people crying. Stefo stayed beside me. I moved closer to the flames until the heat hurt my face. I wanted to feel something I could name. I could sense the loss around me, yet I wasn’t sure what loss meant to me or why my own response felt different. I couldn’t force an answer there, even that close to the fire.

Back at Camp G, we broke bread and talked. I listened more than I spoke. I was still trying to make sense of what I had seen.

In the morning, I helped take my tent apart. Across camp, everyone was doing the same. The place where we had eaten, sheltered from rain, made friends, and told stories was coming down around us, with our own hands doing the work. I had spent the week learning my way through this temporary city. Now I was helping return our little part of it to the desert.

My new friend Sacha gave me a ride back to Reno. She looked at my bag and said, “Your Gucci hand carry covered in playa dust is a vibe.” She was right. By then, the dust was on everything. After a proper shower in a hotel room, I found myself watching Shark Tank and unexpectedly tearing up. I was back in the world I knew, where people pitched ideas, heard no, and got on with things. I had missed that world, yet I was sad to leave the one I had just encountered.

I haven’t come home with a neat explanation of Burning Man. I remember a stranger taking my heaviest bags, a woman wrapping me in lights, a campmate feeding us on a rainy day, and the joy of giving someone a croissant. I remember riding a bike while afraid, dancing until I forgot myself, and standing near a fire with a new friend beside me, without finding the answer I thought I was looking for.

I went because a voice inside me kept saying, “Go.” I’m glad I listened. I came home more certain of the kindness people are capable of and more willing to trust myself when I don’t yet know the way.

For a week, we made a place together. Then we took it apart. In the end, you just let it burn.

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