September 18, 2003
Monday night, Stig convinced me to go on a trip north with him. I had been standing outside of the Castro (a movie theater in the Castro (a region of San Francisco around the Castro (a street))). We had in fact been talking about doing this fora while, but I had come a hairs bredth from seeing the Animators' Festival - put on by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeld, who combined with Matt Groening make up the Trifecta of animation (and no I wouldn't normally say Trifecta, but I've heard it at least three times this week).
The Majority of our time was spent in an experimental forest, which had no extraordinarily proportioned trees - neither giant nor pygmy. But, it was a powerfully good time nonetheless. I'm remember all the things I knew in high school.
So now I'm driving to AR for another big party. I was kind of on the fence about the whole thing; it was 2000 miles away, after all. Moreover, people were starting to ask me to do things with them in the 'Frisco area. But, Danielle asked nicely in an e-mail that I received Tuesday night - the eve of the commitement day for the decision to go. So now I'm in a bad road-side Mexican restaurant in AZ. Notable features of the trip include a meteor crater that costs $12 to see! I didn't see it. Also stopped off in the Mojave desert to sleep. The colors out here are, as Claudia once told me, quite beautiful. And some of the people are bowlegged.
...Later that day in TX...
So now I understand why both potential passengers from 'Frisco to Santa Fe were unable to ride with me. Just shortly after missing the continental divide in NM (whatever that happens to be), I picked up Drifter and Ricky - two Navajos going to the state fair in Albequerque for a good time. Can't tell you much about Ricky except that he's Drifter's neighbor. Although we had no trouble talking, I think Ricky's less comfortable with English than Drifter. The two of them would speak to each other in Navajo. Then, most of the time Drifter would ask, "do you know what we just said?" and then he'd try to teach me some Navajo. This was certainly not the most efficient way to keep everyone in the loop, but I sure didn't mind. Navajo's a neat language - full of gutteral sounds. Good thing I had all that phonology training at MD and MIT!
Drifter also told me some things about his life. He has 17 children - 15 whinos and 2 dishwashers (these terms being slang for boys and girls - who knew?). He's been all over the world with the Marines, in prison and now he's an artist. He's supposed to send me some drawings in the mail. He also gave me the basic run-down on the 4 sacred mountains. Nice system. I would also tell the story about how he lost his fully-loaded .44, but that would almost certainly upset my mother.
In high school, I became very involved in my church youth group. My most powerful emotional bonds were with these people, who were my brothers and sisters in Christ (it should be noted that relationships with family members adds a layer of complexity that I'm avoiding for now). I think the weight of these bonds was heightened by my need to compensate for instabilities in my home life. Then in college I essentially turned by back on the whole thing. After that point, I think the only way I allowed myself to love anyone like that was if I was romantically involved with them. This, of course, would disproportionately intensify and warp that romantic relationship. So, things got progressively more out of control with my dating life, and my sense of dissatisfaction with the rest of it gradually increased - culminating in a desire to drop completely off the radar of American society. But at Burning Man, on that dance floor, I was all of a sudden able to love again.
Mahmoud told me that I needed to find the God to be happy. This was a big conflict for me, being an atheist and all. But I think if you translate between our Ontologies, he was right - I did and now I am. I ended up being a christian mystic again in spite of myself.
And so now I can preach the Good News. It's not really so important that we end the suffering or save the whales or avert Nuclear Disaster. It's OK if Satan rules the world for 2000 years and then the angels come to wipe us all out. We can all still have fairly wonderful lives if we just let in the Love. Poor peoples seem to have a good grasp of this, and perhaps this is why Christianity has such and easy time getting a foothold when the missionaries go build their churches in the jungle. Er, "rainforest." It's all you guys out there with internet connections who've go the big problems.
So cheer up! Have your neighbors over for some bread and wine. Or Chinese Food. I'm working towards where I can say, "Love one another as I have loved you," but as of yet, that's a pretty low bar. But you get the idea.
And I do love you.
