Blog (Irregular Reports From the Front)

Wednesday morning started off pretty mellow, though I still woke up early (at least I once again scored on a clean-ish potty). I stopped off and saw a few bits of nearby art on my way to and from the potty, and then wound up sitting in the Pink Swing with Anji for a little while to talk to her about some of the things going on in her burn. While we were there we saw a really amazingly all lime-green and black costumed guy trudging by, looking like he was on his way home from a crazy night out, and called him over so we could look at his costume more closely. He told us he was “En-Ki” (a Sumerian god), and he really made me want to up my costume game!

Anji and I decided we wanted to go to the Temple, so I went back to the yurt to change and grab my stuff and see if Josh wanted to go (he didn’t). Melanie joined us though, and we biked out to the Temple together and then split up when we got there.

I spent some time thinking about Josh’s dad and his imminent physical transition, and wrote him a little note on the Temple wishing him ease and grace during it. I also took off the embroidery floss bracelet that I’d been wearing since Gaming Camp started earlier in the summer and tied it to one of the wooden hearts that Anji had had someone make (they said “YOU ARE LOVED”) and bring to the Temple for people to use for their own messages. I wrote myself a couple little encouraging messages on the heart: “you are enough/self care comes first” (which is one of the big lessons that working—and breaking down—at Gaming Camp had reinforced for me) and “thanks past me for taking care of future me...I love you!” (which has also been a kind of ongoing theme for me this year). I didn’t drop down too deep into reflection because I knew my time there was limited—I had my Handpan Jam gig at Center Camp to get to by 10:30. So I left Anji there and biked back with Mel to Pink Heart to collect Josh and my handpan.

We were running a bit late and I was a bit anxious but everything turned out fine. When I got there Judith (my handpan teacher) and her friend Arsenic were already there with their handpans, and even though I was hoping that other handpan friends would show up, it turned out to be just the two of us (Arsenic didn’t want to be on stage). So the kindly volunteer stage technicians set Judith and I up some cushions on the stage floor and gave us a couple of mikes and we took all three handpans out there with us. We had no real plan about what to do and our handpans really didn’t coordinate well, but both of us were pretty comfortable with each other and with improvising so I think it still turned out pretty well. (We called it “extreme handpan sports” because it was so hard to get the pans to work together.) We started by trying to play pans together but quickly switched to taking turns playing one pan each and playing four-hands-one-pan together on each of the pans. I was nervous about playing on stage and I think that made me a little over-enthusiastic at times but Judith was very gracious and overall we had a really fun time playing with each other in that setting. Amazingly enough, there was a fairly big crowd listening to us, and every time we stopped or talked to them they seemed interested and appreciative. I wish I’d gotten video but Josh got caught up in the coffee line and didn’t make it back in time to get my phone from me (he didn’t have his phone on him) so it will just have to live in my memory. I did get a few pics from Mom though, for which I am very grateful. At the end of our scheduled half hour, the stage manager asked if we could keep going a little longer as the person after us had not shown up yet. So we said “um, sure” and kept improvising and playing for probably another 15-20 minutes or so. The handpan jam experience in general was a good reminder that things generally work out pretty well if you just flow with it, and trust yourself.

Unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of time to stick around Center Camp after the handpan jam, because I had another Pink Heart water bar shift to get back to and we’d already run late. So I hugged Judith goodbye and biked back to Pink Heart with Josh. I had another pretty fun couple of hours interacting and slaking the thirst of dusty burners, and at some point in there Halcyon came by and I got a chance to go walk him through the Radical Love Ritual with the wooden heart necklaces on the side of camp, which he appreciated. After the shift I was pretty dang tired and it was still blazingly hot so I went to chill out and nap in our yurt.

Once I got up from my nap, it was time to go celebrate with our campmates Cat and Andrew, who were getting married at the Heart Arch in front of our camp, and then there was camp dinner. After dinner Josh and I got dressed to go out to the White Party, which was all the way across the playa at 2:00 and E so we had to bike there. It was, as usual, a big fancy fun dancy time, but we only stayed a couple hours before we got tired of it and decided to head back to camp with Anji and House via a few side adventures to see some art. Among other things, we stopped by the amazing Tree of Tenere, which was a several stories tall tree with tens of thousands of LED leaves that continuously changed color and pattern. It was breathtakingly impressive but we did not stick around to climb up into it (which I now regret). We also stopped to play with a lit up rope that stretched up into the sky for hundreds of feet and was attached to a big floating weather balloon—trust me, it was more fun than it sounds.

We also stopped by the Man base to check it out. Right outside the base there were a variety of art pieces in a circle surrounding it, which we unfortunately didn’t spend a lot of time looking at (you get very overwhelmed by art sometimes and you have to pick and choose what you have the energy to pay attention to, especially late at night when you perhaps aren’t at your most attentive.) This year the Man stood on the ground but was enclosed inside a sort of pagoda or pavilion, which had self-playing gongs and chimes on the sides (reminiscent of the Temple a few years ago that played itself) and an altar next to his feet in the middle. You could walk around the inside floor, and you could go up stairs and walk around a wide wooden balcony that was approximately at the Man’s chest level.

While we were there, standing on the balcony and looking down into the main altar area, I noticed that I had apparently lost one of the metal hearts from the strand of lights I was wearing that night—I could see it lying in the dust just in front of someone sitting cross-legged in the corner against the wall. It felt like a nudge from the playa, so I decided to go down there and pick it up and see who that person was. When I did I found that it was a young man from the band that I’d welcomed into BRC as a Greeter a couple of nights before. Playa magic! We had a nice little reconnection and I told him to keep the heart.

Eventually we wandered back to Pink Heart and Josh went to bed but I stayed up because I had a sunrise shift on Headspace from 4-8am. I brought my pink heart fleece throws and my playa coat and wore my pink Headspace hat and I was ready to go. It turned out to be a lovely experience cruising the deep playa in the wee hours, even though I was pretty tired. There were several other Pinkies hanging out on Headspace during that shift, and I have fond memories of cuddle time and conversations with Alex, Anshul, and Sup, and some fun banter with Ian at some of the stops we made. Sup especially will always be my sunrise buddy...we had some great conversations and smiles and hugs all night long.

One moment I particularly remember was cruising across the playa as the light was brightening and the DJ was playing a cool mix of “Here Comes the Sun”. The combination of beautiful light, sound, and temperature was perfect and the feeling of freedom and happiness plus the realization that there was nowhere else better to be than right here, in this moment, with these people, in this place, was one of those peak Burning Man moments.

Once the sun was up, Headspace stopped at the Temple so that many of us could meet up with Kathy and Anthony. Kathy had made a beautiful, very personal art piece (an entire outfit including a headpiece all made of paper that had images and words from a poem she’d written) that she started off wearing herself and then planned to take off and place at the Temple to be burned in her own radical ritual of freedom and expression. She wanted witnesses and had asked some of us to be there with her as she did this. So there was small group of people who formed a solemn procession with her and walked with her to find a spot to put her pieces. We watched in silence as she removed each piece and put it on a mannequin and pinned them in place and cried happy tears with her as she stood there in just a simple black dress, free of the past and ready to step into her own future. It was a very moving ritual, and I felt really honored to be able to witness and accompany her in such an important personal shift. There were lots of hugs afterwards and she clearly felt happy and lighter.

After the ritual and hugs were done we all climbed back on Headspace and headed back to Pink Heart. I was pretty wrung out at that point so I went back to our yurt and tried to catch a few hours of sleep before I had to get up and change for the Pink Ride, which was at noon.

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Preamble and Prologue]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 1]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 2]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 4]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 5]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 6]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 7]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 8]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 9]

[Full set of Radical Ritual pictures on Facebook]

I got up early enough on Tuesday morning to ride out to the playa-side potties (which had just been cleaned, great timing!) put my tutu outfit on and eat some breakfast. Then I got my self and supplies up to the frontage, where one of my favorite art flunkies (aka my mom) and I laid out some supplies and blank flags on one of the “mushroom” chairs in a shady part of the pink lounge. There were already people hanging around interested in the flag making, so I gathered up a group of people and explained the project and then sent the first batch off to color. People kept wandering in to the frontage and wanting to do the project so I found myself doing the same thing I do at Maker Faire, which is to grab people as they come in and make a group to which I explain the project all at once. After explaining the project concept and handing out blank flags I would remind them to use newspaper under their flag, encourage them to talk to each other while they were coloring, and tell them to come see me afterwards for pictures, and then let them go off wherever they chose in the frontage. Mom was also really helpful in explaining the project and encouraging people to make flags, and in helping me clean up all the newspapers and sharpies that got left about. Yay for art flunkies!

For the last hour or two of the workshop there were clumps of people coloring all over frontage, which made me really happy. I believe we went through almost a hundred flags, which is significantly more than in past years. I’m not sure what made the project so attractive this year other than mere serendipity and timing (10am-1pm on a Tuesday seems to be a good time for people to come hang out and make art) but I was happy to see that everything worked out so well and that I had been able to touch so many people with the FYFFH project this year. I met some wonderful people and had a lot of fun talking to people about their flags (I asked each person to tell me a story about or explain something they’d put on their flag), and sometimes the timing worked out so that those stories could be told in a group setting, which I think was a great innovation. One of the important points of doing this project is not only to see and appreciate our own freaky bits, but those of others as well, so showing other people our flags and talking about our own freaky bits in a non-judgmental, supportive way with other burners (who are already mostly operating in a spirit of radical openness and appreciation) was really great. I also encouraged people to talk to each other while they were coloring, and to introduce their freaky bits to each other as a way to connect and to reclaim the word “freak” as a compliment (e.g. “hey, that’s really freaky!” or “you are such an interesting freak” or “hey I’m that kind of freak too!”)

The only hard part about the FYFFH workshop was taking pictures, because the place where I was taking pictures was in the direct sunlight and it was HOT, especially early on before the shade spread to cover the whole frontage. The direct super hot sunlight not only made it difficult to see the camera screen (I just pointed my phone in the right general direction and hoped for the best), but I actually got a little woozy and had to drink a ton of water and be vigilant about staying in the shade at all other times. I’m not positive I got all the pics I tried to take (because I couldn’t even tell if the camera app was on), but those I did manage to take turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I didn’t pass out any moo cards or flyers, but I told people that if they could remember the instruction to “fly your freak flag high” they could find the web site and see their pics later.

Anyway at around 1pm we started cleaning up and taking the final pics because we had to start setting up the frontage for ice cream, and both Mom and I were supposed to be doing a server shift. So there was no real break in between—we just transitioned from flags to giving people ice cream cones. I was all right with that though, because I really like being able to gift people something as lovely as a cold (albeit somewhat melty) sweet treat, although there were so many people there waiting for ice cream that we didn’t really have a lot of time to interact with people. I did get to see and re-hug several members of Daring Greatly whom I’d greeted at the Gate the night before, who had come by for the ice cream I’d told them about, and that was fun.

After serving ice cream for an hour or two, we were relieved by other Pinkies and had a little bit of a break where I went and laid down in our yurt. Then it was time to go work at the Pink Heart water bar from 4-6. It was still super hot and people were really thirsty and appreciative of our water bar, so that was fun gifting as well, but it also meant that we had to keep the line moving and there wasn’t much time for interacting with each person, plus I was constantly filling (or convincing other Pinkies to fill) and replacing the water coolers. Still, I had some nice conversations and was able to give out a few water bottles (sometimes in a semi-scolding way, where I’d tell people “hey, Pink love is tough love and I’m gonna give you this now but you’d better take care of yourself better from now on and bring a water bottle everywhere you go”). While we were at the water bar, there was a huge dust storm that blew in. Pink Heart got lucky and wasn’t really hit by the storm and was kind of protected, so it was kind of fun to watch it from a relatively safe place, and to see everyone so frosted with dust afterwards. After the dust storm there was also a bit of a rain (and a rainbow!), but luckily not so much that things got muddy.

After the water bar shift I believe there was some sitting around and some camp dinner, and then I rallied for one last push to go put up the laser-cut wooden heart necklaces and the accompanying sign and larger hearts that we’d made for the Gifting Wall. (Which I really think we should have renamed the Radical Love Ritual.) Michelle, Alex and Bella all pitched in to help, which made the whole thing go a whole lot faster and made it more fun, of course. The idea was that there were a bunch of blank heart necklaces on one side of the fence and you could walk up and take one off and write a couple words of love, compliment or encouragement on it with a pink sharpie also attached to the fence, and then hang the one you made on the other side and take one that someone else had left. So you got to make love and take love. You could also write additional words of love and positivity on either of the two larger laser-cut wooden hearts we attached to either side of the necklace area, and these would be taken to the temple to burn and release all that love and positivity into the world. Anyway we seeded the ritual by writing a few things on the heart necklaces and the big hearts and then just left it set up there to see what would happen. (More on this later).

After that I’m sure there was more hanging around and shenanigans, but I don’t remember specifics except at some point I did have a great conversation for a while with a guy who was the driver for the Soul Train art car (I’m spacing on his name). He was hanging out with us and rejuvenating while his car was down at the Black Rock Roller Disco a few camps down the Esplanade. I do know that I went to bed relatively early again, not only because I was tired from a long day but also because I had things going on Wednesday morning and was planning to stay up all night Wednesday night.

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Preamble and Prologue]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 1]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 3]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 4]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 5]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 6]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 7]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 8]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 9]

[Full set of Radical Ritual pictures on Facebook]

I woke up a few minutes before my alarm went off at 2:30am, and changed into the “space babe” superhero outfit that I’d packed to wear for my Greeter shift. I had found the base of this costume at a playawear sale in Berkeley a week or so before the burn. It was a zip-up, silvery black spandex bodysuit thing with short sleeves and super short shorts, with a long red spandex cape attached at the shoulders and six large round turquoise plastic “buttons” down the front that each had a circular infinity light inside of them. It was something I originally pulled out of the rack and looked at and went “naw, I can’t possibly wear that, it’s too small, too revealing, not flattering to my big butt and thighs”. But some other little voice inside me said “aw come on, just try it on and see...besides, every time you think some piece of apparel or accessory is just too outrageous, you wind up loving it later.” So I tried it on and it did fit (yay stretchy spandex), and it was in fact revealing but I decided to experiment with it anyway. I added black, fringed fingerless gloves, black thigh highs, sparkly silver UGG boots, the silver and turquoise crown I made at Gaming Camp and big star earrings. And thus was the superhero version of Supernova born. As it turned out, the night was mild and I wasn’t even cold so I didn’t have to put on a jacket over the outfit, and the light ups in the bodysuit were perfect for the night part of the shift. I wish I had some pictures of the moment but I will always remember how good it felt to be standing tall and proud at the Gate at sunrise with my cape flying in the wind behind me.

And being a Greeter turned out to be super fun! Anji, Kathy, Michelle and I rode our bikes out to the Gate and got there early for our shift, so we sat around for a bit in the Greeter station and got oriented by the very nice shift leads, and then when it was time, we all sort of randomly picked a spot in the Gate lineup to get started. We overlapped with the previous shift for a few minutes and watched how it was done, and then we were on our own for four hours. The Greeter before me gave me some great stickers that he’d made to keep handing out to people along with the usual What-Where-When guide, map and other materials. The traffic was pretty slow (it being so early in the morning) but pretty much everyone who came through was super stoked to have finally arrived and happy to chat and talk and do some ritual if they were first-timers (virgins).

I told virgins that we had two different Burning Man rituals for them to Participate in (they could lie in the dust and do a dust angel or some sort of dust encounter, and they could ring the bell next to the gate and shout “I am no longer a Burning Man virgin!”), and invited them to try one or both. Every virgin I talked to at least rang the bell, and many of them also did some sort of dust angel. I also told them that since the theme this year was Radical Ritual, they were particularly lucky to be able to do their virgin rituals at this burn. I told them this because I wanted to make the moment special and meaningful for them. (One of the gifts I like giving people at the burn is an awareness of/appreciation for a small, positive moment that they’re in.) I also encouraged people to Participate in the ritual of hugging the Greeter and did my best to welcome each and every person with enthusiasm and excitement. (I told people “oh man, I’ve been waiting for you for so long, and I’m so glad you’re finally here! I’m so glad to see you! Welcome home!”)

Anji was in the Greeter line next to me and she and I had fun playing around with trying to get incoming cars to come to our own line and not the other person’s. I would gesture towards the car or RV like I was trying really hard to pull it towards me with invisible ropes and then tell them when they got to my line “did you see that? I totally moved the car with my mind!” It made people laugh and it certainly entertained me. I asked people if they knew where they were going to in the city, and I gave people some PSAs about the heat we’d been experiencing and warned them to take it easy and watch for dehydration (and come by and get water from Pink Heart if they wanted). Other than that I answered any questions they had, gave them their materials and then sent them on their way. I particularly remember greeting an entire RV full of 7 guys both young and old, who turned out to be a rock band called “Daring Greatly” (isn’t that a great name?) that was coming to perform all over the burn. Many of them were virgins and they had a fun time doing all the rituals. I told them about Pink Heart and our water and ice cream and encouraged them to come by.

The four hour shift went by pretty fast, and all of us agreed it had been super fun and we’d do it again next year. After we were relieved we sat around the Greeter station for a bit waiting for the porta-potties to be cleaned so we could use them before we headed back. I will admit that the Supernova superhero bodysuit was particularly difficult to use the potty in, but I eventually managed. (You also just get a lot less fussy about cleanliness and hygiene when you’re out there in the desert. You kind of have to.) We went by Center Camp on the way back to get some drinks (I had a lovely iced Yerba Mate), and ran into Mom and Mama Doody and her friends Kathy and Katherine there, which was a fun coincidence. We didn’t stay long since we were pretty tired, but we did manage to see a few cool art pieces on the way back to Pink Heart.

Once we got back to camp, I changed out of my Supernova superhero outfit and puttered around for a bit and then finally laid down for a nap because I had another volunteer shift at Arctica (the ice-selling place) coming up at 3 that I had to leave for around 2ish. Thank goodness our yurt had an A/C unit and was still relatively cool on the inside so I could do that. (Mid-day naps really saved my butt this burn.)

I changed into a unicorn outfit for our Pink Heart Arctica shift (I figured white was appropriate for Arctica) and headed over with Josh and a bunch of other Pinkies. Just like last year, I was a Greeter for this shift also (greeting and welcoming people is one of my superpowers, after all), and also just like last year I was stationed right at the entrance to the Ice Dome. So I fell into the same shtick as last year, where I would welcome and joke and tease and ask people if they were “ready” (really I just had to make sure they were ready with their order so that they wouldn’t hold up the line once they got to the cashiers, but as is my way I wanted to make it a metaphorical question and a perspective shift as well). I would say “Are you ready? Are you clear? Clear as crystal? Do you know what you want? Are you focused, prepared, and confident? Because you know, ready people get what they want. And I want you to be successful here and get what you want.” People would laugh and say they were ready and I would say “okay, ready people cross the line!” and invite them to step over the threshold into the dome. At a certain point there was virtually no line and I would greet people by saying “guess what? I have an awesome gift for you. Check it out: no line. Savor this moment and remember that sometimes things really do work out in your favor.” (Again, the gift of awareness/perspective and assistance appreciating a moment.) We all had a good time “pinking up” Arctica and we got lots of tips and ice to bring back to camp when we were all through.

After we got back to camp from the Arctica shift, there was a camp dinner and a camp meeting, where we all squeezed into our kitchen/chill area and talked about All The Things. Anji and I had planned on doing a “newbies orientation/ice breaker” afterwards but the meeting had so much info and went so long that we said never mind. After that Josh and I took a shower in our newly remodeled Pink Heart shower (I didn’t really need a shower yet but Josh hadn’t had a shower since he’d been there for build, and it seemed like a good opportunity and experience to share), then we changed into night clothes and went and hung out on Headspace for a bit for the Headspace Homecoming dance, and hung out in frontage for a while too. I think I made it until around eleven or midnight and then I went to bed because I had a workshop to lead the next morning at 10 and I didn’t want to be cranky tired.

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Preamble and Prologue]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 2]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 3]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 4]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 5]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 6]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 7]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 8]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 9]

[Full set of Radical Ritual pictures on Facebook]

I’m trying something new this year, and pushing to get my Burning Man reflections and wrap-up blog posts done in the first few days after I get home, instead of weeks later. I didn’t keep a journal at the burn like I usually do (because reasons, none of which are particularly compelling), so I am feeling some sense of urgency to try to remember and set down as much as I can while I still have a little dust left around me. Not letting it sit and stew for a few weeks may mean that the lessons and themes from this year’s burn are still a little unclear, but perhaps doing this write up will help to clarify them.

As usual though, you are welcome to click here if you want to just skip to the end of all this detail and read the list of lessons and takeaways, and click here if all you want to do is look at the pretty pictures with captions. And if you are unfamiliar with Burning Man in general, you can go read some of my initial entries from 2011 in which I do lots of ‘splainin’, or click here to go to the official Burning Man web site which has more info and content and things to look at than you can possibly imagine. (But don’t get lost, come back here eventually!) 

It was another busy overwhelming summer for me and especially for Josh, so as soon as The Game Academy summer camp finally ended in early August we spent a few weeks frantically prepping and packing All The Things (as Josh commented, we bring the equivalent of a small apartment out to the desert with us every year, because we are glampers and unrepentant just-in-casers). Once again Josh decided to go up early to playa (he left Tuesday with Anji) in order to help build camp, and I stayed behind to get the kids started with Back-to-School and finish the last few pre-burn to-dos. Luckily we didn’t have any major burn projects to work on this year (Josh had to do some fixes to the water bar; I made another scallop coat and put together a little Pink Heart gifting ritual, which I’ll get to in a bit) so it was really “just” getting all our stuff together and loaded (which is harder than it sounds because as I said above, it’s a LOT of stuff).

Anyway...Saturday morning Mom and I packed our coolers and the few remaining things that didn’t go on the truck with Josh and Anji into our trusty minivan and left on Saturday afternoon to head up to Reno to stay at the Silver Legacy. We met up with our Pink Heart friends Ari and Mel there on Saturday evening and had a fun dinner and hangout time with them. We all decided to get up at 4am on Sunday morning (the gate had already opened at midnight) and have breakfast and get on the road by 6am. We caravanned with Ari and Mel and stopped at our traditional Love’s travel stop in Fernley for gas and last minute snacks and then got on the road to Black Rock City by around 7am. The traffic in to Black Rock City was surprisingly light (took us about 2.5 hours from Fernley to the gate, including a brief potty stop) and we were all super excited to hear BMIR (the Burning Man radio station) announce that the wait time at the gate was “only” about 2 hours. As it turned out, it took us closer to four hours from pavement to camp, but it wasn’t a bad wait. For me the real start to the burn is always in the gate line, where we all get to “practice” the kind of interactions we want to have and identities we want to inhabit for the week while we are still relatively free of other distractions.

So as it turned out, right as we pulled up to the end of the line of stopped cars after jouncing over the dusty gate road at 5 mph, I was gifted with my first taste of playa magic: one of the people in the car in front of us turned out to be my handpan buddy Reid. I asked him if he had brought his handpan, which he had, so we sat down right there in the dust and jammed on our handpans. Ari even joined us for a bit on his djembe. It was awesome!

We met some other cool people in line too, and had some nice conversations. I particularly remember a pair of Spanish guys I spent some time talking to, one of whom I wound up giving a playa name to (because he asked me to). I asked him some questions about what was up in his life right now, and what he was working on for himself at this burn, and he started talking about how he was always doing things for other people and how he wanted to start paying more attention to himself (I’m totally paraphrasing here). So I gave him a couple of ideas and then we settled on “O2”, which stood for oxygen (because we were talking about oxygen mask theory, where you have to learn how to put your own mask on before you can help others with theirs). His name was Alberto and so the pun of “o, too” was kind of neat also.

We finally got to camp some time around 1:30 or 2, and were able to pull right in and hug people and start unloading. It was beastly hot though, so we didn’t do a whole lot of schlepping and we were encouraged by Josh and others who had been there for days and were used to the survival siesta schedule to wait to put up Mom’s tent (which technically was already up, but had to be moved elsewhere). So I put my few things into the yurt which Josh had so nicely set up and prepared for me, and took a quick look out at the frontage and the playa around us, and mostly ran around hugging people and saying hello. I was really happy to see Josh (it was his birthday!) and also all the other Pinkies I knew. It felt great to be home with my PHamily, and to be so heartily welcomed by so many people I was excited to see.

Even though the heat and the dust and the pinkness and of course the people made it feel like Burning Man, it took me a while to really feel like I had arrived. That whole first day I’m usually all discombobulated from switching modes (not to mention switching climates). I finally started to feel like I was really there late in the afternoon on Sunday, when I was standing on top of Headspace (Pink Heart’s amazing art car) and looking out over the city (the Headspace folks had a bunch of us come on board and jump up and down a few times so they could do some weight testing). Kathy and Anji and other sweet friends were there with me and I was able to look around me at all the familiar/unfamiliar dusty places and people and really arrive.

Some time after that Josh and I (and another Pinkie friend, Bryan I believe) helped Mom move and set up her tent but we couldn’t find the rebar puller so we couldn’t put up her EZ-up shade over it. There was a camp dinner, and some fun Pinkie reunion time, but we didn’t do much else on Sunday evening (even though it was Josh’s birthday), because we were so tired from the intense heat and the remaining bits of set up. Plus I had an early morning Greeter shift that started at 4am so I kept it mellow that night. Josh and I retired to our yurt and snuggled and slept for a few hours until it was time for me to get up and meet up with Anji, Michelle, and Kathy so we could bike all the way out to the Greeter station for our volunteer shift.

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 1]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 2]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 3]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 4]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 5]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 6]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 7]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 8]

[Radical Rituals at Burning Man: Part 9]

[Full set of Radical Ritual pictures on Facebook]

Not that I always make excuses for not blogging as a way to start a blog entry (ok, fine, so maybe I do), but I haven’t had much time or spoons for blogging this past month or so, because I’ve been so busy going to various community events. Over President’s Day weekend our family went to DunDraCon (a gaming con with lots of roleplaying games that we’ve been going to pretty consistently since 2009), and then the week after that I went to Pantasia (a handpan gathering that I went to for the first time last year). Then a couple weeks after that I went out to Stinson Beach for a writing retreat and then to FOGcon (a writer’s con that I’ve also been going to since its inception in 2010, with the exception of last year during my chemo treatments). Going to three different big events which correspond to three different identities for me (and which represent three different communities I belong to) has gotten me thinking about how being a member of multiple communities has been a constant refrain in my life. And since this is my solipsistic playground, it made me want to write a blog post about it. So here are some thoughts about being multi-communal (is that even a word? It is now.)

Without going into too much analysis of what makes a community (a group of people organized around similar interest and/or activity) or what counts as community involvement (going to events, participating together in activities, talking about said activities, getting to know people in some amount of depth even outside the shared activities), I’ll say that I participate in and feel like a member of the following communities:

• SFF writers/readers
• Burners (and specifically my Pink Heart “PHamily”
• Handpan players
• Dickens Faire participants (and specifically Paddy West)
• Rodef Sholom congregants (and these days, specifically the Chevra Kadisha and the Board of Directors)
• Dixie District parents

(There are other events I regularly participate in; in addition to regular friends and family events and holidays, there are gaming cons, Maker Faire, Edwardian Ball—this one is kind of a mashup of the Faire and Burner communities for me—book group, etc. There are also groups I am loosely a member of: high school/college alumnae, Appleberry/Marinwood neighborhood, Marin School parents, etc, but these aren’t quite at the level of community for me yet. I feel fondness for the people who participate in those activities or are members of those same groups, but I don’t feel like they are “family” in the same way as I feel the others are. And yes, “family” is a whole other round of definition that I’m going to dodge here.)

Most of these communities have specific events (or at least regular activities) that I have made a part of my yearly cycle, which allow me to touch base with other like-minded folks in those communities and keep relationships going. More importantly, though, attending events (or regular activities) allows me to embody, encourage and fuel a particular identity facet for myself. Going to a writer’s con makes me feel like a writer; going to Faire every weekend for 6 weeks makes me feel like an actor and more specifically a Paddy Wester and part of the Faire family; going to a handpan gathering makes me feel like a musician, and so on and so on. I really like being part of all these communities at the same time—I feel like I gain a richness and a more complex understanding of how people are (and who I am, embedded as I am) from having multiple points of view. Of course many of those points of view are overlapping and synergistic, especially the creative communities like Burning Man and Faire or writers and handpanners.

Interestingly enough, most of these communities are fairly new ones for me. The Dixie parent and writer communities probably go back the farthest (I’ve been a Dixie parent since 2006, and my 10^th anniversary of going to Viable Paradise is coming up this fall...and I started going to cons in 2008). I’ve been a member of Rodef for much of my life, but I think really I have only been particularly active since maybe 2011, which is when I think the Chevra Kadisha started). I’ve worked at Dickens Fair since 2013 (though I of course also have Faire friends still from the Ren Faire/St. Cuthbert days 20+ years ago), and been a Burner since 2011, which makes it almost 7 years now (and we’ve been Pink Heart Campers for the last 3). I’m just under two years in for the handpan community, though it’s feeling like I’m definitely growing that. This particular period of multi-community involvement roughly corresponds to the period of identity work that has been ongoing since I left my Consumer Products Licensing career and started working for myself (first as a web solutions business owner and then as an independent creative).

With all those communities to be a part of, it would appear that I’ve traded depth for width (although I think that I’ve been able to go pretty deep in at least some of those communities). I never do spend all my time in one place, and the price of being active in so many places is that I can only give each community so much of my time and attention. But I seem to be juggling these 6 (plus my extended family/friends network) reasonably well. Plus, lately I have also realized that this “trading depth for width” tendency is part and parcel of the identity work that I’ve been thinking and talking about for years now (oh hi, midlife crisis). You know, that thing where the high-stakes struggle I was having to try to correctly identify the “one bright shining star” that I would spend my life following actually turns out to be quite easily and comfortingly resolved by accepting that my identity (and “career”, such as it is and has been) is not singular but rather made up of a whole constellation of sometimes related, sometimes disparate things. Clearly, that identity work process seems to be reflected in my interest in (and ability with) juggling these multiple, varied communities.

So here I am, reminding myself of this lesson, yet again: I, like all of us, contain multitudes (to paraphrase Whitman), and that is a good thing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Spoon Theory lately, which made me realize I’d never talked about it here on Parentheticals. For those who don’t know, Spoon Theory is a metaphor used by the disability community to explain what it feels like to have a limited amount of energy available for basic tasks of daily living and how it is more difficult to replace or regenerate that energy if one is dealing with a disability or chronic illness than it would be for others. (A “spoon” in this metaphorical sense just refers to “a unit of energy”, not an actual eating implement.) People use this metaphor to express various ideas about having energy, running out of energy, safeguarding one’s energy, spending one’s energy, etc. So one might say, for example, “I wish I could go out to that event tonight, but I am all out of spoons.” Or, “It took almost all my spoons just to shower and get dressed today.” Or, “I used all my spoons up yesterday and I don’t have enough back to do that today.”

When I was going through the active phase of my cancer treatments, with all the chemotherapy and surgeries, I was definitely much more spoon-deprived than I was used to being. Of course it made sense that all the difficult physical demands of killing cancer cells and re-sculpting my body would take a lot of spoons, and it was not surprising that I found I needed to hoard my spoons and spend them only (or at least mostly) on self-care and recovery activities (however broadly or personally defined those activities may have been in my specific case).

But then I got better, and after a while the physical demands eased and I found my spoons didn’t run out so fast. I found I could go back to spending my spoons on activities and projects besides self-care and daily living, like I had been used to doing. So of course, I did. And I’m happy to report that physically, my stamina and spoon supply seems to be nearly back to normal. (If I had to estimate, I’d say I’m at about 85-90%.)

But now...now I’m realizing that spoons as a metaphor for units of energy doesn’t only apply to physical energy, it also applies to mental and emotional energy. And I’m still lower on spoons in those areas than I used to be (or than I want to be). Mentally I’m getting better, though I still struggle with some concentration and memory issues and my stamina for doing intellectual work is still somewhat lower than usual (which is a bummer for writing, though I’m pushing through and trying to spend spoons on it as often as I can, because that’s still a major priority for me). Emotionally though, it’s even more of a struggle. I find myself in a place where I’m seriously low on spoons, both because I’m spending a lot and because they’re slow to get back. It’s like maybe I loaned all those spoons to my physical silverware drawer, or maybe that they’re still in the dishwasher and the dishwasher doesn’t get run everyday so I have to wait longer to get them back.

Metaphor torturing aside, I’ve found that it’s often been the pattern that once the physical demands lessen, the emotional ones surface to get their turn, and that seems to be what’s happening now in this phase of my cancer recovery. I’m still dealing with waves (sometimes larger, sometimes smaller) of grief, anxiety, depression and anger. And because I run out of spoons faster, my resilience is low; I’m less flexible, less forgiving whenever things go wrong or just go in a way I didn’t expect (which, because I am alive, is all the damn time). All that is understandable and fine, but this is also a time of additional emotional challenges brought on by the state of uncertainty, fear, anxiety, outrage and despair that our national political situation is creating. Every day seems to bring a fresh new worry or upset (or sometimes several), and even though I know I could just make like an ostrich and ignore the news, it’s hard to look away, to not at least bear witness even if I can’t summon the spoons to act. I know I’m not alone here—there are many, many people all around me that feel emotionally battered and exhausted from this same climate—but I’m finding it especially difficult to handle both my personal trauma and our communal trauma with a still-relatively-limited number of spoons. I’m impatient—I so badly want to be “all done” with all this recovery process and back in the cheerful, optimistic, enthusiastic, motivated, energetic mode I prefer, but I’m just not consistently there yet. I feel like the world outside my house is a rapidly devolving mess that urgently needs caring responsible people to fix it, and that I have to justify why I’m still floundering around in this depressive place. I find myself worried about being judged for not doing enough, for not improving fast enough—though I am pretty sure that it’s only me that’s doing the judging, not anyone else. (Why I am so judgy and hard on myself is a whole other topic, one which I have explored in therapy for many years and am still working on...suffice to say that during times of low resilience and not enough spoons, one’s chronic issues tend to get inflamed more easily.)

So what do I do with all this? (Apparently, I write a blog post so I can play with metaphors...) Seriously though, I think the first step is acknowledgement and acceptance of how it is: that emotional processing takes time and that I am still low on spoons of all kinds. Then the next step is a continual practice of mothering myself in a loving way, trying to be both gentle with and forgiving of myself during this period, which after all is hopefully temporary (God willing and the creek don’t rise.) Then after that I need to start being strategic about how to conserve and regenerate my spoons. Now is not the time *for me* to Do All The Things, or even most of the things. (Basic adulting and parenting excepted.) As I apparently reminded myself way back in 2011 (before I was even half as challenged as I am currently!), now is the time for practicing, prioritizing and pausing. I can be the change I want to see in the world, but I also have to respect and honor the place I’m at and the priority of self-care. (Oh hi, Oxygen Mask Theory, here you are again. Come on in and rest a spell, I made up the bed for you.) Fallow time is important for healthy growth, even for people who have plenty of spoons to spare. I can make more spoons for myself by resting, by making art and spending time around like-minded, positive, loving people. These are not indulgences; they are part of the process, part of the practice. 

Practice, practice, practice. Isn’t that the challenge and the privilege of living? As someone who is particularly grateful to still be alive right now, I’m going to choose to see all this opportunity for practicing my lessons as a good thing, even though it doesn’t always feel so good. No rainbow without rain. No mud, no lotus. Just keep swimming.

I’m a few days late getting this traditional birthday blog post up this year, because there was a lot going on for my birthday and then I got sick (which I refuse to take as an indication that I overdid it around the birthday shenanigans...it is after all seasonally appropriate and I have been around a lot of people). Today I’m finally feeling better though and ready to contemplate this dual anniversary as I do every year and see what it feels like this time.

For those just now coming to the party, my birthday is also the day I got diagnosed with cancer...the first time, back when I was 23. That makes this year my 25^th anniversary of the day my relationship with my body and my mortality abruptly changed. 25 years is a nice round number and worthy of celebration, though it would feel nicer (and more victorious) if there hadn’t also been this new diagnosis and cancer saga part 2 that I have been dealing with for the past year-plus. It’s become interestingly complicated to do this yearly philosophizing now that there are two cancer-versaries to contemplate, but I still like the dramatic dichotomy that this day of transitions from one state to another (from unborn to born, from healthy to ill) presents.

I do still feel a sense of victory, of having made it this far after the initial shock and upset of that first diagnosis. But that sense of victory is tempered now with the reality that life is complicated and the lesson that victory often comes at a cost (which sometimes takes a lot longer than expected to manifest). I can no longer see my life as divided into only three phases, pre-cancer, cancer treatments and post-cancer survivorship—my survivorship status is now no longer something I can confidently assume will not change, since it already has changed once, from cancer survivor back to cancer patient and then back to survivor again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m humongously grateful for and pleased at being back in the survivor identity after a tough second go-round, but the very fact that the pendulum has swung back and forth between having and surviving cancer an additional time makes me have to acknowledge that it could certainly do so again. (In fact, it is more likely to do so again than it once was.) I have to constantly be able to hold two possibilities in my head and heart: on the one hand, that I am free, that I have fought the good fight and triumphed and cancer has once again vanished from my body, never to return because we have salted the earth quite thoroughly (and will continue to for years to come, just in case); and yet on the other hand, that treatments for cancer can sometimes cause cancer, as they did in my case, and that my body seems to be a fertile ground for cancer (as evidenced by it popping up at least twice now that I know of), so even though we have done all we can to prevent recurrence, I cannot be certain that it won’t happen. Holding two opposite things simultaneously and being comfortable in that “gray area” of uncertainty is something I learned to do back in the first go-round with cancer, but now I’ve had a chance to repeat the lesson and it is even more nuanced and complicated. I would say that the ability to live in the gray is one of the hallmarks of maturity, so I guess I would also say “yay me” that I have made it far and long enough to even mature.

One last metaphor (because it wouldn’t be Parentheticals without torturing a few metaphors) that I’ve been thinking about in regards to this cancer-versary and the whole double-cancer saga I now possess is that of the Boulder in the Meadow. This is a metaphor I came up with after another, non-cancer experience to explain how it feels when things change abruptly, but it certainly applies here too. Imagine that your life can be compared to a beautiful forest meadow: open, wide, flat, with lush grass and beautiful little flowers blooming here and there. Perhaps a stream trickles through it, and little fish and frogs live in that stream, and the meadow grass is home to butterflies and hummingbirds and lizards and mice and insects—a whole happy ecosystem. Then one day out of the clear blue sky a giant stone boulder unexpectedly falls smack into the center of the meadow. It rips up the ground, crushes a bunch of grass, and wreaks havoc on many tiny creature lives. The stream now has to divert around it. And it completely changes the view of the formerly flat, open expanse—even though the boulder’s fall has not affected the entire meadow, you cannot any longer look across the meadow and not notice it. It is the single most obvious feature of the meadow now, and it cannot be changed or removed. Over time, things in the meadow eventually return to some sort of equilibrium, and the boulder is incorporated into the ecosystem of the meadow. Grass grows around it, flowers appear in its cracks and fissures, creatures take refuge in its shade. The meadow is still beautiful, but it will never again be the same open, expansive place that it once was. You can’t dismiss the boulder, or wish it away, or pretend you don’t see it. You can mourn the past, and remember fondly the way things once were in the meadow, but eventually you must accept the boulder as something that will always be there. Then you can find a way to view it as positively as possible, and choose to focus on the beauty that is still present.

So in this cancer-saga context, I now have two boulders in my meadow. I’ve had 25 years to incorporate the first boulder, the one that so radically changed my meadow’s topography. It’s nicely weathered and worn now, and has certainly made things more interesting. I have accepted it as an ongoing feature of my meadow, and even grown to appreciate its gifts. But this second boulder—it landed so close to the other boulder, and it’s even bigger than the first one was. It did more damage to the meadow than the first one, and in some ways it is harder to imagine that its presence will ever feel integrated (even though experience with the first boulder should be reassurance that it will, given enough time). It makes me once again remember and mourn the flat meadow that once was, and even the single-boulder meadow that once was. I know that acceptance and integration is possible, and indeed the process has begun, but it isn’t finished yet. Of course, it may never finish—the meadow is an ever-evolving place. But that second boulder still bothers and distracts me with its disruptive, obvious presence.

I wish I could hurry this process of acceptance and integration along, and get back to thinking more about the meadow than the boulders. But every day I still see my scars and feel the numbness and oddity of my new “foobs” (fake boobs) and it still bothers me. I still struggle with feeling like my memory and my energy are not back to “normal”. I yearn—oh how I yearn—to put this latest cancer experience behind me and move on, and I am impatient with the fact that I am still dealing with the aftereffects. However, if there’s one thing that the first cancer saga taught me, it’s that recovery takes time. A long time. I actually think it’s an ongoing experience, not a destination. So there is no “putting this all behind me”, really. There is only the journey, round and round the meadow, looking at things from all angles, appreciating what is good and holding what is not good with as much compassion as I can muster.

It’s taken me a couple extra weeks to actually write this down in any coherent way, but I’ve been thinking a lot about my intentions/resolutions for this 2017 year, and I think they are finally coming into focus. I think I am coming to accept that this year is *not* a year for proactively taking on new big challenges and aspiring to grander activities; I still have more recovery and processing to do before I feel like I will be “free” enough to seek out and accomplish big projects or big changes to my intentional life design. I still do feel a pressure to accomplish and help (help people, help our country, help change the world to be a better place) but I also feel a resistance, a need for taking my time and continuing with the self-care (which is mostly not physical anymore, which makes it a little more complicated). I think it is so important to be politically active and make my voice heard and help others make their voices heard too, but I still have to be conservative with my spoons so I don’t burn out or fall into despair and depression. So I want to focus on “small ball”, by which I mean working at a more local, personal level to live my values and operate as the kind of person I want to be in my marriage, my family, and my communities. I want to be a role model and really commit to the idea of “be the change you want to see in the world”.

So what do I believe in? What are my values? What kind of world do I want to live in? Maybe it would be helpful to list some of them for reference.

• I believe that people are more important than things. I prioritize spending time with people and making them happy over most everything else.
• I believe everyone—yes, everyone—has equal value and importance. Like Jewish tradition teaches, saving one person is like saving a whole world (and therefore hurting or destroying one person is like hurting or destroying a whole world.)
• I believe that for the most part, diversity and differences make us stronger and more interesting and should be celebrated and eagerly sought out, not ignored or devalued.
• I believe in community and collaboration, because we are all connected. I think it does indeed take a village to raise our children and make our neighborhoods clean, safe and nurturing.
• I believe that people are intrinsically good at heart and have the same basic needs for respect, safety, love, connection, comfort, creativity, meaning and purpose.
• I believe we humans are the stewards of this one unique planet Earth and it is our individual and collective responsibility to live in a way that supports and protects our global environment for ourselves and for all future generations.
• I believe in tikkun olam, the healing of the world, and in partnering with each other to make the world a better place for all, not just some.
• I believe in justice and the application of appropriate consequences for wrong actions, not as punishment but as encouragement and scaffolding for learning how to do things right in the future.
• I believe in peace.
• I believe in treating others as you would like to be treated.
• I believe that each one of us has amazing gifts and important stories to share, and that we should both share our own gifts and stories and take the time to appreciate each other’s gifts and stories.
• I believe in optimism and hope, even in the face of difficulties.
• I believe in honesty.
• I believe in self-reflection and personal growth, because the more we understand ourselves the stronger and more resilient we get and the more we can empathize with/connect to other people.
• I believe in treating others (and myself) with kindness and respect.
• I believe in play and creativity and trying new things.
• I believe in being of service.
• I believe in the “oxygen mask theory” where you need to take care of yourself first in order to then take care of others.

I’m sure there are more things I believe in, but this is a pretty good list for now. If I can keep reminding myself to live my life according to these beliefs I think I’ll have a successful year.

Once again I am stealing some time away amidst the familiar familial hurly-burly that is our Stinson New Year’s tradition to do some reflection on the past year and record it for posterity. 2016 will definitely be a memorable year in my book, mostly for purely selfish and personal reasons (helloooo cancer! And also, goodbye!) but also because this past year has definitely felt like a turning point in history, especially with the election of Donald Trump and all the accompanying upheaval in American life. We are certainly living in some interesting times and I am doing my best to stay solid in my values and my determination to keep loving and creating and making the world a better place for everyone.

But before I get too far down the rabbit hole of predictions and solutions for what kind of looking glass country we seem to be dealing with, let me go back to the point of this post, which was to record and reflect on what happened to ME in the year just past (because after all this is my solipsistic storytelling space). With the able assistance of my calendar and my photo log, I ought to be able to at least remember the highlights in vaguely chronological order.

January started off quietly, which was definitely welcome after so much upheaval (cancer surgery and treatments, holiday hoo ha) in the previous months. For my birthday weekend Josh and I got all dressed up and went to the Edwardian Ball in SF for two nights with a bunch of friends and had a terrific time. A few days later we also went to see the Wood Brothers in concert but it turned out to be kind of a bummer show since the band was sick. The week after that I had my first chemo treatment, at which I did not have a terrific time but at least it turned out to be less horrible than I had so fearfully anticipated.

In February I got my hair cut short in anticipation of its impending demise, which turned out to be a good idea since it started coming out in handfuls right around Valentine’s Day while we were at Dundracon (one of our annual gaming cons here in the Bay Area). After Dundracon we had a gaggle of teens over for Eli’s traditional birthday gaming sleepover. By the time I got to my second chemo treatment in February I was pretty much bald so I began to fool around with wearing different brightly colored wigs (I had blue, green, pink, auburn and purple but my favorite was the purple). One thing I was determined not to let chemo spoil was my trip to Joshua Tree in late February for Pantasia (a handpan gathering). I drove with my teacher Judith and a couple of her friends and we all shared a room and even though I was tired and queasy a lot of the time, I had a truly amazingly great experience there. I got to geek out and play some soul-lifting music with some incredible people in a gorgeous setting (including the trippy and wonderful Integratron nearby), and I even won the lottery, which meant I could acquire a new handpan (my CFoulke Aether, which is still my favorite). I made new friends and grew as an artist and I can’t wait to go back again this year, especially now that I’m feeling so much better.

In March I had my last two chemo treatments so that’s pretty much what I did all month. Friends and family were wonderful during my chemo treatment months and brought us food and helped schlep the kids around, although I was also able to keep doing some of my usual activities. I did have to let go of my desire to go to FOGcon (local writer’s con that I always go to) and instead stay home and lay low. I did manage to go see my brother and his friend Matej play a fabulous, intimate concert as the Pull-String Duo at the Maybeck House in Berkeley, participated in the Purim shenanigans at our synagogue, and helped throw Isaac a sleepover “Pi Party” for his birthday. My last chemo treatment was the last day of March and I celebrated with bubbles.

At the beginning of April I was still feeling pretty crappy trying to get over the final chemo treatment (plus I got a cold), but not so crappy that I couldn’t start making freak flag blanks and getting ready for Maker Faire (which I was determined not to miss because of cancer treatments). Josh and I stole away for a rejuvenating spa day at the Sonoma Mission Inn, I went to a party at Adrienne and Jim’s house where I got to hang out with my Dickens Fair buddies, and Mom and I took a trip to the De Young Museum for an art day and to see the “Flowers to Art” exhibit (which was awesome). We celebrated Passover with family, which was lovely as always. The Lucas Valley hills were amazing in springtime so I went for walks with various people at various times and even shot a music video with my brother where I played handpan while surrounded by green and wildflowers (it was very pretty). The biggest event of April though was that at the end of the month I had double mastectomy surgery, which though physically challenging  was even more challenging to deal with psychologically. But I got through that (again with the help of my wonderful family and friends) and was feeling pretty good after about two weeks.

Other than recovering from surgery, the two big things that happened in May that I was determined to do were Maker Faire and Wiscon. I am happy to report that I managed to participate in both. Once again I had a terrific team of friends who helped me run the Fly Your Freak Flag High booth at Maker Faire, and it all went really well (it certainly helped that I had run it so many times before and so I kind of had a system down). I even won Best In Class/Editor’s Choice awards which made me feel glad I’d made the effort. It was also good to be at Wiscon and re-activate my dormant writer identity by being around all the smart geeky people talking about all the craft and philosophy of writing...one thing the chemo definitely took away from me was the brain-power and discipline necessary to write, but the desire was still there and I was glad to be feeling better enough to want to start writing again. (Though as it turned out I didn’t actually start writing fiction again until Fall, because things got too distracting with all the cancer treatments and self-care, and then Burning Man.)

June was a pretty good month for the most part. I continued to run around doing lots of self-care appointments and all the usual end-of-school stuff. Our nephew Jonah graduated from high school and we went to Chico for the weekend to help celebrate that momentous occasion. The following week Isaac graduated from our beloved elementary school, which marked the end of 10 years of our time at that institution. I was sad to say goodbye to that place and those people after so many good experiences there, but it was also kind of exciting to be entering a new era. Isaac and I went to the Pirate Festival in mid-June, and then a few days after that our family foursome went on a quick 6-day trip to NYC (Josh had a conference to go to and the rest of us decided to tag along). We stayed in the East Village and had lots of fun being all touristy (Empire State Building, 9/11 Memorial, 1 World Trade Center, the Met, Central Park, Statue of Liberty, etc), watching Broadway plays (Lion King and Les Miserables), eating delicious food (mmmm bagels) and visiting friends. We walked a lot and finally taught our kids how to ride the subway. We packed a lot into a short time! After we got back we took the kids to see one of our favorite bands, Flight of the Conchords, in concert. We had a flat tire on the way there but still managed to make it in time to see most of the concert. At the very end of June I went back to a different UCSF campus to have my DIEP flap breast reconstruction surgery, which went successfully but was definitely tough to recover from (the toughest so far).

I declared July the month of Julaxing, where theoretically all Julia would do was relax and recover from reconstructive surgery (Josh and the boys were all caught up in Adventure Gaming Camp). Luckily for at least the first three weeks or so I had lots of people visiting and bringing food and helping entertain me while I sat around and healed up (which was harder than it sounds).

In August I helped my mom with her booth at the ACC Craft Show, and then the week after that the kids went off to sleepaway camp once Adventure Gaming Camp was over and Josh and I snuck away for our traditional belated anniversary trip to Ashland to see some great plays and eat some yummy food. Then we came back and hit the ground running trying to get ready for Burning Man. (Josh built a new water bar for our camp, which I helped with a little bit, and I made myself a new scallop vest and an art piece about my breast cancer saga to burn at the Temple, but mostly there was just the usual craziness of prepping and packing). Isaac started middle school, and then Josh left early to help with build and I drove up to the burn with Mom (who was back for her second year.) I had a really great burn...saw lots of art, danced and partied and met new people and gave away lots of things. I played my first handpan concert and got to spend some important “year of living cancerously” processing time at the Temple, which helped put a lot of things in perspective.

In September Eli started his second year at The Marin School and got his braces off. He’d also cut his long hair over the summer so he had a whole new look. We finally got our foam roof recoated and some new electrical work done (it was a big project involving coordinating with multiple tradespeople). I helped mom with her booth at the Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival. In late September Josh and I went to South Lake Tahoe for the weekend to celebrate with Josh’s family at the wedding of his cousin Robert and Lisa, then came back to visit with my extended family in honor of my cousin Rich and his wife Kim and their kids who were in town from Colorado.

In October we celebrated the high holidays with family (and I did a lot of reflecting on the one year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis). Josh and I saw Ani Difranco in concert. We helped set up and hold down the Pink Heart Camp space at the SF Burning Man Decompression event. We met up with Dave and Keri and Zinnie in Placerville at the Hangtown Music Festival, where we dressed in fun animal costumes and saw lots of great music including the Wood Brothers (actually only two out of the three Wood Brothers, as the third was out sick, but it was a great show anyway). Then I flew out to Columbus, OH for the World Fantasy Convention. I got to hang out with my writer buddies yet again and this time I actually even did some writing, which felt great. I got back from that just in time for Halloween, although this year I hung out at home with the teenagers watching movies and handing out candy rather than running around with Isaac and his buddies trick-or-treating.

November was the start of Dickens Fair workshops and performances, and my friend Robin came to visit for a few days. After she left it was finally election day and I think it’s safe to say that most of the country was pretty surprised and slightly more than half the country (including me, the one who was positive we’d finally have our first woman president) was pretty upset that it turned out that Donald Trump had won the election through the electoral college (not the popular vote). While still reeling from the election results and what felt like a new, more frightening and less friendly America, I went in for my final “fix-it” surgery to finish out the breast reconstruction. (Compared to the previous surgery, this one was a cakewalk—I didn’t even have to stay overnight in the hospital and I was back up and at it relatively soon afterwards.) Later in the month we went to go see Cirque du Soleil (Luzia) with our friends Janet and Todd and Audrey and John, and as usual it was an amazing show and we had a fantastic time. We had a quiet couple of days of Thanksgiving at my parents’ house. The only other thing of note this month was that I fortuitously acquired another new handpan (an original 1^st Generation Hang that had been retuned to the Kaffa scale, which I love).

In December Eli and I finished out Dickens Fair (we had a great run overall, and I especially enjoyed getting to model 4 times for the Dark Garden corset windows and leading my own shanty during the Paddy West Shanty Hour) and we went to go see our friend Mark and the SF Gay Men’s Chorus sing their annual holiday show. Josh and I once again threw our annual Black Turkey Party—this year was the 20^th Annual, which we celebrated by awarding a turkey trophy and knit, turkey-shaped “crown” to our friend Rebecca, who had attended all 20. We took the kids and met up with a bunch of friends to see “Rogue One” (the new Star Wars movie) at the Corte Madera Cinema, as is tradition. We celebrated Christmas Eve at Josh’s parents’ house, and Christmas Day at Brandi and Quinn’s with the extended Archer/Gomes families. And we ended the year as we always do, with my parents and my brother’s family out at Stinson Beach.

Looking back at my admittedly incomplete and largely on-the-bright-side list of all the big things that happened in my life this year, I am struck by the fact that even though there was a lot of difficult and unhappy stuff (and I haven’t even gone into the fact that 2016 also saw a horrible humanitarian disaster continue to develop in Syria, the exit of Britain from the European Union, the massacre in Orlando, far too many police shootings of innocent black folk, some huge natural disasters, a huge fire in an Oakland warehouse, and what felt like an unusual amount of celebrity deaths...Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, Muhammad Ali, Leonard Cohen, Fidel Castro, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, and many more), there was also a lot of good stuff: trips and adventures, time with new friends and old, music and art and food and celebrations of all kinds. I feel I can say without exaggeration that on the whole 2016 was one of the hardest and most challenging years I’ve ever seen, both for me and for our country and our planet, and I am more than happy to wave farewell to it as we begin afresh in 2017. Here’s hoping that this newly-minted year will be kinder and gentler for us all than the last one was.

A year ago today I had my first breast surgery (a lumpectomy and reduction). A week ago today I had what I fervently hope is my last breast surgery (tweaks to finish the DIEP flap reconstruction I had back in June). So I have been this new, smaller-breasted person for a whole year now. It still feels strange and unreal, though I’m finally getting more used to it. Being done with the reconstruction also brings with it a mixed set of feelings: on the one hand, “yay, that’s it, I’m done!”, where I’m happy to finally be through all the trials and tribulations and relieved to be relatively pleased with the results; and yet on the other hand, I also am feeling “oh, that’s it, I’m done?”, where I’m realizing that the form I’ve got now is what I’m going to have for—God willing and the creek don’t rise—the rest of my life. And it isn’t perfect, as it never is, but whatever my minor disappointments, now I must begin the journey back to body acceptance and self-appreciation all over again. Having done body acceptance work slowly but surely for decades already, it’s a little disheartening to have to do it again (and so relatively quickly). Do it I shall, with as much focus on the silver linings and bright sides as I can manage, but today is an anniversary where I mourn, just a little, the way things used to be back before I was a “modified” human.

The other thing that I’ve been mulling over the last few weeks (in between all the election hoo ha and the emotional rollercoaster that has created, which will have to be another post), is the “now what” feeling of existential angst that I mentioned in the last post. Other than the next 5-10 years of prophylactic hormone therapy, I am officially done with the active phase of my treatment. I'm excited about that, oh hell yes I am...but I am also feeling a little discombobulated and lost. I feel like a wild animal in a catch and release program—I got caught, I thought I was going to die, but now here I am thrust back out into the place where I started (more or less) and not sure about how safe it really is anymore or whether I truly belong there. Don’t get me wrong, I vastly prefer it out here to back in captivity, but I’m uncertain about what to do and where to go next. I guess I’m just going to have to put my focus on the first half of the “patient patient” moniker while I move away from the second, and see what this crazy, complicated, contradictory, unpredictable, and ever-interesting universe throws my way next.