When/Where/How did I fall in Love??? I didn't mean for that to hapen. There he was at the right time, in the right place, with the right look on his face. <3
I was going to stay Single. I was going to Just Be. I was going to not get involved...with anyone. Ah well, "the best laid plans of Mice and Men" as the saying goes.
This one time at Burning Man...
I was about 6 months out of a violent 5 year relationship with a raging, dangerous alcoholic. It was going to be my first time on the Playa as a single person ever. It was going to be the only time I didn't have sex out there. That IS the one thing that went as planned. The rest of it?
I was going to just sleep here and there until Tripod showed up with the Yurt he was lending me and we could erect it. (Yes, I said erect.) I posted to Silicon Village about temporary lodging and I got a lot of warm and friendly offers for the 5 days that I would have needed. I was kinda touched and I decided that I would spend different nights sleeping at different friends' places til my own place was in place. --So, ya. That didn't exactly go as planned either. A pre-Playa email from Jack offering to let me stay in his RV for as long as I needed didn't just become one of the offers I took. Little did I know, it was to be much more than that. It was an email that not only changed my entire Burn, and future Burns, it altered the course of the rest of my New Single Life.
I spent the first night with Dazzle! in Jack's RV. The plan for the rest of my Burn going the way I thought it would ended RIGHT there. Those pesky expectations get me every time...at least this time they got me in a positive way.
Dazzle! knew the start of my Burn had been pretty rough. I'd already been exhausted and crying earlier that day, and it was only Day 1 of 13 days and 12 nights out there. I don't think I gave myself any time to acclimate before I jumped in with volunteer work, and I certainly had barely had any sleep since arriving at 3am the previous night. But Dazzle! was a charm. She entertained me that evening, got me to clean myself up and change my clothes, made me a drink, got me to go out on the Playa with her, and got me to have a really good time. It changed the direction of where my Burn had been headed. Meanwhile, I began to get to know Jeremy, someone that everyone called Germ, that I'd only met a few times in passing at ARTery meetings during the year. First he opened the door to the RV when Dazzle! was standing there half naked - but she took that in stride. Then, while Dazzle! and I were out, he made up beds for us in the RV, moved his own stuff out to go sleep somewhere else, and even put little candies on the pillows for both of us. WHAT? Who DOES that?? It was Thing One that he did, in a very long line of still continuing Things, that completely impressed me.
Dazzle! being Dazzle!, she didn't want to walk home after our evening of being out schmoozing with different CORE artists at their art pieces and drinking our Road Sodas. Plus it was starting to get really cold out. She dug up some Eyes on Art guy, Enigma (who Jeremy later fittingly re-named Ickma) and got him to drive us back to the RV in his truck despite my protests.
At the RV, old Icky wanted to "Pause for a moment" and we said sure so he came in with us and Jeremy was there too. Enigma started chatting but he stayed too long and talked too much and altogether too self importantly. We were all growing weary of him and I was starting to get sleepy, being already kinda tipsy anyways. Then Ick made the mistake of asking me if I wanted to put my feet up and he would rub them. Um. NO. And I told him so in no uncertain terms. Dazzle! cracked me up because immediately after that exchange she said to him, "I'm gonna need you to wrap this up because I have to go to sleep." It was perfect. Icky wrapped it up pretty quickly and then it was just her, me and Jeremy left talking about how basically icky Ickma was. Possibly a bit unkind, but we were all bonding and laughing and it was amusing.
Dazzle! got ready for bed and Jeremy got up to go. I looked right at him and, for reasons I still don't quite understand myself, told him no. I've go no idea where that came from or why I said it but I asked Dazzle! to scoot over to the next bed, grabbed Jeremy by the wrist and uttered the immortal words, "YOU SLEEP HERE!!!" He made a few weak protests, but I guess decided that sleeping next to me may not be so bad. He disappeared to get something er other and came back and settled down next to me. I wrapped his arms around me, and snuggled up very closely with my back to him. I slept off and on that way all night, using his arm for a pillow and totally 100% loving it. In the morning I remember thinking how really good he was at cuddling, and on the way back to Silicon Village I told Dazzle! how much I had liked it too. Then I thought about him off and on for the rest of that day.
It was a complete What The Hell?? situation. Ordering someone, anyone, to sleep next to me -most especially someone I barely know- and forcibly making then wrap their arms around me in a intimate way??? SO not me. I just don't do that sort of thing. I don't let anyone get that close to me. Ever. Was it the alcohol? Was it the prior months of utter loneliness? Was it Jeremy and the candies on the pillow? What was I even thinking?? I've deeply pondered this since Burning Man 2012 and the only conclusion I can come to is: It doesn't matter. It happened. I'm glad it did.
End Part One.
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