Thirteen years ago, I went to the desert for the first time.
Since then, I’ve spent six years chasing that particular kind of childish wonder. The synchronicity. The absurdity. The moments of outright, inexplicable happiness.
I’ve participated. Led. Organized. Built things. Lost my shit. Questioned my life choices. Sworn I was never doing that again.
And then, somehow, I always want to go back. I still do.
Why does it call so deeply?
What is it saying?
And how the hell do you explain that to someone who hasn’t heard it?
I’ve tried. It never works. The words fall flat. The pictures don’t quite capture it. The stories become increasingly ridiculous when removed from the context in which they happened.
People think it’s a party. I strongly disagree.
Sure, I’ve experienced elation and ecstasy there, but also uncertainty and exhaustion, beauty and absurdity, pain and anger, moments of profound connection and moments of feeling completely alone. I’ve been overwhelmed by it, humbled, frustrated, and occasionally wanted to burn the whole fucking thing down.
And somehow, every one of those experiences led me to the same place.
Somewhere along the way I realized that maybe the thing I’ve been chasing isn’t a Man at all.
Maybe it’s the feeling.
That moment when something happens that couldn’t have been planned; the stranger who says exactly the thing you needed to hear, the ridiculous coincidence that somehow feels impossible, the moment you turn a corner and find something you didn’t know you were looking for, the feeling that the universe has briefly stopped being random, the possibility that around the next corner could be something you’ve never imagined.
That’s the part I can’t seem to leave behind.
Thirteen years ago, I wrote about the futility of trying to put it all into words. I wrote about letting go. About synchronicity. About memories becoming less important than what we do with them, and I ended that post with: I can’t wait to go back.
Thirteen years later, apparently I still can’t.
Maybe that’s what I’m feeling right now.
Not just missing the playa, the people, the art, the music, the dust, the ridiculousness, or the exhaustion.
I’m missing the possibility, the want, the anticipation of what could happen, the knowledge that something unexpected is waiting just beyond the edge of what I can see, the person I might become if I let go again, the things that haven’t happened yet, and all the things that will.
Maybe that’s why it calls.
Maybe that’s why I can still hear it.
It might be a moment, a feeling, or the space between what was and what could be.
And right now, sitting here while the dust is moving without me, I can feel that space.
I miss it. I want it.
All of it.
The wonder. The chaos. The uncertainty. The synchronicity. The connection. The possibility.
And maybe that’s all the answer there ever was.
Maybe I don’t need to understand why it calls. Maybe I just need to listen. Because somewhere out there, something is waiting to happen, and I want to be there when it does.
