Prompt #89: Play
Writing Exercise, September 2023
Hi Friends,
For those of you who read my letter last week: I left Burning Man right before the deluge. I had a family wedding to attend, so I flew to Minneapolis last Friday, which means I’m not writing to you from a rain-soaked playa, but from my home office.
I do have to say, however, that the news and social media reports about the rain at Burning Man in no way reflects what I heard from my campmates and friends. I had the surreal experience of reading about the “disaster” and people being “trapped” and “rationing food” at the exact same time I was getting messages from friends still out on the playa, telling me what a great time they were having and how sorry they were that I was missing all the muddy fun.
Back at my camp, one of our 82-year-old campmates (Burner name Boom Boom) was serving lox and bagels paired with a sommelier-led Champagne tasting. Hardly food rationing. Everyone was sharing resources, taking walks to see the art, visiting with each other, listening to music, and chasing rainbows. Many of my friends reported that it was their best burn ever.
Although I was sad to miss the muddy fun, I got to celebrate my niece’s wedding, which meant one of my favorite things—tons of dancing. My age-inappropriate moves on the dance floor earned me the nickname “the cool aunt,” though I’m sure many of my niece’s friends wondered who the crazy middle-aged lady attempting (badly) to twerk was. The definition of to play is to engage in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. Like dancing is for most of us (unless your name is Beyoncé).
Making art and writing are enjoyable, but they are also serious, though not in the way we have come to think. We sometimes (and maybe by we, I really mean me) confuse serious with the ability to make money. If I say She’s a serious writer or he’s a serious painter, you might hear this: They publish books and show their work at galleries, also usually translated to this: They make money.
When we start to think we are only serious about our creative endeavors if we achieve capitalistic success, we might abandon our art altogether, which would mean giving up the most important part of ourselves.
While I think artists and writers should be paid, I also believe we need to create for ourselves first. I lost track of that core belief this past week, which resulted in a serious mindfuck. I was asked to write about Burning Man for a major news outlet, so I spent about nine hours in my sweltering van (before the rain and cooler temperatures, obviously), trying to write in the style of said news outlet, rather than writing something fun for myself. I turned in something, and the editor said that while she “loved reading every word” of my “lively account,” it wasn’t what they were looking for. You see, even though I was trying to sound like them, I couldn’t help but sound like me—not what they wanted, which I already knew.
To be fair: I was supposed to be writing about Burning Man and our current climate crisis, and I ended up writing about Thunderdome, which is an arena for steel-cage fighting, though at Burning Man, they use nerf-type bats, so Gladiators don’t fight to the death (thankfully) like they do in the movies.
I received my editor’s message and went out onto the playa with my friend Phyllis to look at art, and we talked about how hard it is in this culture to be serious artists—serious not meaning making money but to be someone dedicated to their craft no matter what—even if no one wants it.
We rode by a phone booth with TALK TO GOD painted on the front, and the phone started ringing. God was finally calling! Phyllis answered and talked to God first; she wondered if she should do an art project on the playa next year. God said it sounded like she needed angels to help her decide. She agreed, and two angels came running over, offering dusty hugs.
When it was my turn, I told God I had worked really hard on an assignment that was rejected. He said he was too busy to solve my problems because he was brewing up a storm to create chaos for the humans over the weekend. That felt appropriate: God was too busy to take my call. And the rainstorm he was brewing turned out to be spectacular, so I guess there’s that. God, always the trickster.
But I’m tenacious AF, so I tried writing that essay again from the airplane. And then again from my Minneapolis Airbnb. And then on the flight back and at the airport during our flight delay, and then again back at home. I produced three 1,500-word essays in 30 hours. I sent them in. The answer?