Burning Man in the house

So the theme of Burning Man this year is "The Future: Hope and Fear". Personally I think that's two themes, but whatever - I'm not the BMORG. I'm much amused because my house is literally on Future and my bedroom is currently full of drywall dust - which is what the dry lake bed that Burning Man is held on is full of. So I'm having a mini-burning man in my bedroom. The metaphor continues. Burning Man is a temporary city - and well, my living in the future is temporary - as much as I pretend to be in denial about it.

I was sitting on the bed yesterday, surveying the project (sanding the ceiling, priming ceiling and wall and re-painting over the patched ceiling wound), looking at my bookshelves and the books and other items stacked on them. Feeling a sense of comfort from my books and things and at the same time feeling completely alien and outgrown. So many books with memories attached to them. Someone who gave them to me, someone who read stories out of that one to me. Books I bought with no intention to read. Books that changed my perceptions of the world when I read them. Books I keep to remind me of college classes I didn't do enough with. Books I want to know the contents of, but don't want to read.

I feel all these things in an instant. In the moment. And I'm detached. Detached from the thoughts, from the books, from my room, from my house. I'm not grounded here anymore. These things don't have my current energy. So where is it? The person who filled these bookcases is not the person looking at them. Where did she go? She's in the past: the Future. My world is shifting right in front of my eyes, in my own house. What do I hope? What do I fear? I fear leaving the future because it represents someone I no longer am, but I really enjoyed being. I've transformed some major personality characteristics in that house. And I'm walking out a different person with more awareness.

But the bigger question is, where am I walking out to? It's not the future, because that is what I'm leaving behind.

Comments

[shannon]

Burning Man in your bedroom?
Sounds....interrrresting.
:-0

By the way, if you are coming up for Memorial Day, please let me know. I'd love to see you.

Shanny

[susie]

By golly I think I will go to Burning Man this year. Where do I sign? I know nothing. The thought of dusty hot desert has kept me away. But people said the Maker's Faire was like Burning Man for kids so that was enough to get me interested.