Monday was a slow start. I was hoping to be able to go to the Temple and place my art piece and have my processing time, but the Temple wasn’t finished yet (there were quite a few things actually that weren’t finished by Monday, including the Man, whose head had broken off and they were struggling to fix, the Catacomb of Veils, various big theme camps, and probably a bunch of other things I didn’t see). So instead there was a fair amount of hanging around both in our little shade patio outside the yurt and out in the front of camp in the Pink Lounge. We had fun reconnecting with people we hadn’t seen in a long time (like Fink Purry and Aurora Gold, whose RV was next to us) and got to know some new-to-us Pinkies like the adorable Keith (who made the Love Trees art project across the playa from the Pink Lounge) and his wife Ali (later renamed Bliss), who were from the U.K., and Deron (an old friend of Halcyon’s and an amazing artist, who drew super cool sharpie “tattoos” on my arms).
We also got a chance to finally see Headspace, the amazing art car that one of our camp-mates (Mark) had built and brought to the playa this year (with a lot of help from a dedicated group of people, including our camp-mates Kathy and Anthony). They were still working on it when we first saw it, but we got a chance to get on it and look around and it was seriously gorgeous in every detail. I especially loved the metal sides with the “HS” logo cut out of them in a beautiful pattern, the gorgeous and comfy purple velvet cushions on the bottom level and the metal stairs that led to the upper deck with cut outs of the ten principles (at night these ten principles cutouts glowed with rainbow colors). Of course the face itself on the front of the car (which appeared to be white when viewed one side and black from the other, and was all lit up with changing color LEDs at night) was gorgeous and amazing too. Josh and I had contributed to the Kickstarter to help fund the car, and I was excited to see one of the “perks” of that contribution, which was supposed to be our names engraved on a copper plaque as “Headspace crew”. We found the plaque—but only Josh’s name was on it, not mine (probably because he was the one who actually sent in the contribution), which kind of bummed me out. He got a pink captain’s hat with the Headspace logo on it and some other schwag too, but at least we can share that.
Around lunchtime someone told us there was a camp right behind Pink Heart that was serving grilled cheese so Mom and I went to go get one. They were pretty delicious (as is any food someone else makes you in the desert) and even Mom, a diabetic, decided to treat herself to one.
Around 2 in the afternoon a big group of Pinkies gathered up to go take over a service shift at Arctica (the group that sells ice to the city). Like last year, Josh was a Slinger who hopped up in the ice truck and pushed ice from the back out to the front for people to grab and bring to the counter, and I’d once again signed up for a Greeter shift with Anjanette, so it was my job to welcome people to Arctica and make sure they knew what their ice options were in order to keep the line moving quickly. Even though it wasn’t in the formal job description, we felt was also our job to keep the people entertained and make even waiting in line into a true Burning Man experience. So we turned the enthusiasm and energy up to 11 and joked and played and teased with all comers, but with love since after all we were also representing Pink Heart. I especially had fun when there was no line—I would stop people as they approached the entrance and say “hey! C’mere! I wanna show you something! Wanna see something awesome?” and then I would gesture at the inside of the tent and say “Look! There’s no line...and you’re next! How often does that happen? Savor the moment! Enjoy!” (So really I was gifting them a moment of perspective.) I also joked around with the people in the front of the line by asking “are you ready? Are you focused and clear? Are you preparing to seize your moment as soon as it comes to you? Yeah? Ok, ready people cross the line!” (There was a literal bar—the bottom part of the dome—to step over as people came into Arctica, and drawing people’s attention to it helped them not to trip over it in their excitement.) That too was hopefully a gift, a humorous reminder of how our thoughts and intentions change our realities. Those few moments there were no people coming through to buy ice I’d chat with the other Pinkies and dance a little. It was a good long full three hours of playing with and talking to people and I was hoarse but happy afterwards. I got a few neat little playa gifts too. I love being able to meet and interact with (and gift enthusiasm and perspective-shifts to) such a wide and varied cross-section of burners...after all just about everyone has to come buy ice at some point. I would totally do another Arctica shift next time (though I am also attracted to doing a Center Camp coffee shift or even a Greeter or a Temple Guardian shift, for similar reasons).
When we returned triumphantly with our ice (and about $40/each in tips, which we contributed to the camp fund for buying ice), I was supposed to have a water bar shift but it turned out we were having a camp meeting instead. It was great to gather with all our camp-mates and introduce ourselves and get in the Pink Heart groove with Halcyon’s inspirational words. Lots of people (including Josh) got recognized for their over-and-above contributions to various bits of making camp go that year with rad pairs of glasses from Halcyon.
After camp meeting there was dinner and then that evening they pulled Headspace around to the front of camp right next to the Pink Swing and the Love Trees and the Tetrahedron and had a dance party there, which a bunch of us Pinkies enthusiastically checked out. The nice thing about having a party in your front yard is that you don’t have to schlep all your survival stuff with you and when you get tired, you can just go crash, which eventually, after much dancing and other fun shenanigans, I did.