High School vs Burning Man

I'm sitting up again at 5am pondering the world....and thinking about life. My life, to be specific and all the amazing people and things in it and what pops into my head....but high school. Man I hated that place. It sucked rocks. I never "got" it. I was an outsider in even the outsiders world. My high school was no different than yours, we had all the normal groupings associated with high school...the jocks, the popular people, the geeks, the band geeks, the drama geeks etc etc. I understood how it worked but as a messed up kid from a messed up home I stood outside even of the most basic grouping not knowing where I fit. I was lucky, I had a few friends that I counted on but I got out of dodge as quickly as possible. Everything was about exclusion and "I don't like you for X Y or Z." Not my scene.

College was better and worse as my own personal depression deepened. There the color lines blurred a little, you could be some one new from high school but somehow you still managed to end up boxed into your "your" table at the cafeteria or whatnot. And when a fight happened and you are now living amongst your social peers with nowhere to run, man....Talk about exclusion. Let's say my physical scars run as deep as the emotional. So once again I bolted.

As an adult I lived in my own bubble until one bossy woman drug me out of my shell kicking and screaming and things were ok. Life was fun, I went out....partied.....worked on me a bit. But life still tended to be sanitized....everyone ran still in their little cliques liking some, excluding others based on some imaginary list of what was cool or not. Then in 2002 my mom decided to drag my ass out to a little event out in the desert and my earth shook to it's core.

Burning Man....yeah...I reference it a lot to a lot of people without a ton of explanation. To some it's a kick ass party. 10 days of devil may care fun on a patch of land trying to kill you. And it is. Hell, 30,000+ people from around the world migrate the last week in August to Black Rock Nevada and we create a city that vanishes like footprints in sand. We have a fire department, post office and emergency medical team. City builders, planners, architects and artists flock to make the barren playa come alive. And alive it is. For, although there are many, the basic tenant is "Radical INCLUSION." Yep...you heard me....Inclusion (capitol I.NC.L.U.S.I.O.N).....and there are all types out there. Beautiful, amazing, talented people who not only wave their "freak" flag high, they light it up with el-wire and make it sparkily. You want to dress like a smurf and speak smurfish for 10 days, camp with Smurfville....they'd love to have you. It's amazing. It's awe inspiring. It's painful. Because it's only *10* days. How do you go back to shadow when you've been allowed to shine? So we take our flags and go home....and try desperately to recreate amongst ourselves....the magic for the other 355 days.

And somehow we end up back in high school. Suddenly the magic of the playa dust fades and line of sight clears and for some reason we start remembering how to EXCLUDE. "Well, you're friends with her and I don't like...." And *poof* the cliques form and factions divide. And suddenly the freak flag everyone partied under in the sun looks sad and faded. There are some who rail and rage against this indignity "But what about the smurfs?" we long to call but how do you fight something so *ingrained*? We aren't taught to include others, really. We as humans seem only happy when we are finding some way to tear another of our own down. And then when someone, anyone is at their lowest and alone....the masses move on to the new drama.

It's sad, sad, sad. And I don't know how to fix it. As I mentioned earlier...I'm a messed up kid from a messed up home who's been on the outside looking in for her whole life. All I know is that I worked too damn hard to get out of high school to find myself back excluded from the sun. This is my community, my party, my life and my family too. And frankly I love smurfs.

Hugs
Dawn