Thank goodness my post from last night didn’t upload properly. I was deliriously tired, and while it was funny to read this morning, it wouldn’t have been the best look for an aspiring writer to have a published blog post that trails off mid sentence into a random jumble of letters. The best part is that I actually tried to post it.
It’s time to get caught up and announce my project to social media. Starting on January 1st, I challenged myself to write every day for a year. The 365 day writing project. Blog posts, journal entries, stories, poems, songs, whatever. Published, private, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s writing.
Some days have fallen a bit short, others have exceeded expectations. I’m coming up on a time period where the daily writing habit will become challenging, as life is becoming extremely busy for me.
Let’s catch up on where I am.
I moved down to Florida in November to stay with my parents, intending to only be around for a few weeks to help them with their business. I was planning at the time to go back to Australia, with the intention of exploring a more serious relationship with my then-partner. We were talking immigration and big plans. Months earlier, however, things had started to get complicated. Long distance is hard enough as it is, and made even harder by the pressure of trying to jam puzzle pieces together that probably aren’t cut to fit that way.
We broke up. I was devastated, but also somehow relieved. I love Australia, and I miss it with all my heart. I love him, too, and still want to be close, but not in the way that I was trying to push for. Right now, it seems like I’m being called to stay in my home country and focus on my own path.
In late November, my parent’s business–a b2b sign shop–embarked on a massive project that nearly killed us all. Not even exaggerating. Driving back from Miami after the last 27 hour shift building a stressful pop-up for Art Basel was one of the more dangerous things I’ve done in recent years. 100 hours in 5 days for me, more than that for my father, who did 56 hours on the job site without sleeping or sitting down. It was an absolutely insane build, and one that I hope to never, ever repeat again.
Yet…. there’s a part of me that enjoyed it. A part of me that remembered, ah yes. I actually love this shit.
In the moments where I was able to step up and manage a team of people, I felt powerful. They recognized it, too. That build was like a warzone, and the contractors I directed were soldiers that came forward to help with finishing a seemingly impossible installation- an acrylic tunnel made with cut panels weighing up to 120 pounds each, which needed to be lifted into the air and carefully slotted into metal channels with LEDS on one side. It was chaos, but I had a good team. Several of them came up to me afterwards and expressed how comfortable they felt when I took command. I realized that, yeah, I’m actually good at this. But more on that later. By later, I mean in the future, at a time unbeknownst to me, when the seeds that were sown have grown to mature, fruit-bearing ideas.
In that time, I reached out to an old friend from the festival world for help. He didn’t have hands or time to spare, as he was wrapped up in his own projects, but he did invite me down to meet his friends once Art Basel was finished.
And so it was that in early December, I met a crew of artists and dreamers and doers who talked about something that became a relentless idea in my mind, the kind that haunts my dreams and waking moments, refusing to let go. I wasn’t even part of the conversations, but I heard them talk about this thing called Love Burn. And I decided that I wanted to go.
Shortly thereafter, my parents were informed that their lease would not be renewed in the space where their business operated. We had to move locations. This was stressful news, but also presented an opportunity for me. As a sign business, there were piles of accumulated materials that suddenly needed to be thrown away. Gigantic letters outfitted with LEDs, panels of acrylic, old restaurant signage. Things that hold no value to the vast majority of people, but which I knew would be solid gold for the Burning Man community.
So, I put up a post on the Love Burn facebook group.
I was inundated with responses, and soon found myself welcoming Burners to my parents’ shop. What a peculiar experience that was. They all asked the same question- are you going to Love Burn? Where are you camping? What’s your project?
I told them all the same thing- I’m not even sure I want to go. Maybe, but it sounds expensive and difficult.
I wrestled with it in my mind. I asked people I knew, was denied, decided that I hated everything about the Burning Man community. Got talked off the ledge. Met people. Learned things. Got a ticket.
Consensus: I’m going to Love Burn!
With any luck, I’ll be able to talk more about this tomorrow. As for right now, I need to go to bed. As mentioned before, my parents are having to move their business, and we’re right in the middle of the worst part right now. Long days of manual labor, short nights of restless sleep. Doesn’t help that we have family in town right now, and that beds have to be surrendered.
So, I will rephrase: I have to go to couch.
Goodnight, and I hope to have time to share more tomorrow.
