Chapt 66: Life throws a harpoon at me

BAM! Life has thrown a wicked left hook that's caught me squarely in the jaw. For the last three and a half years, I've been a wandering free spirit, clocking up airmiles like crazy as I have flitted from one wonderful experience to another with my friends all over the globe. But as some of you know, I'd lately started to feel that perhaps My Gallivanting Life was preventing me from connecting with something intangible but profoundly important. I worried that my wandering life risked crystallizing into a permanent and insatiable restlessness. But although I had pretty much concluded that my globe-trotting life would have to come to an end, and soon, I was perplexed and paralyzed by my bedazzling surfeit of options. I just couldn't see how to choose one particular life over any other.

But when I prayed for something to come along and ground me to a particular life, I never for a moment imagined that the grappling hook would come in the form of a 2 inch aggressive tumor in my mother's left breast! I arrived in Vancouver for a short visit on the first of September after an amazing week at Burning Man (see chapter 66). My mum and brother met me at the airport and after we exchanged hugs and kisses, I took one look at my mum and said "What the hell is wrong with you?" (My family's mental interconnectedness is frighteningly honed - a legacy, I believe, of my father's alcoholism which made reading the ever-shifting mental and emotional states of others in my family an essential survival skill. More on this below.) Mum promptly confessed that she'd discovered a large lump a few days earlier, and suddenly the dazzling array of options in my life collapsed into one clear certainty: I was going to have to tether myself here in Vancouver for a while, perhaps a long while.

Since then it's been a medical shitstorm at Casa Familia at 1220 Dogwood Crescent. Mum had a mastectomy mid September. And last Friday we went to the oncologist who gave us some pretty brutal news: after surgery, her only treatment option is a very harsh regime of IV chemotherapy that will last 4-6 months and will boost her 5-year survival rate from 20% to 60%. Now, I don't find this to be a terribly encouraging prognosis, but it isn't totally without hope, and it's important, we're finding, to decide to be positive.

But the medical turmoil is not just limited to my mother. My 92 year old stepfather, Hugh, has not been at all well either. He's been on warfarin, a blood thinner that was originally used to kill rats by causing them to hemorrhage to death, and he requires blood tests nearly every day to ensure that he's not going to follow the rats. When I brought Mum home after she was discharged from hospital, Hugh was curiously AWOL. A few hours later we tracked him down - in the emergency room of the hospital. Seems that just as my mum was being discharged from the surgery ward, he was being admitted to emergency with cardiac problems (exacerbated by pnuemonia!) after he collapsed in the street while walking to the bus to go for a blood test. He took out an election placard on the way down to the ground. "I hope it was one of the Conservatives' placards" said my brother. No such luck, though. "It was the Greens," said Hugh. "Flimsy. Not much support." Now I'm going to vote Green next Tuesday, and so as punishment for his election vandalism, I've told Hugh that unless he promises not to vote for Canada's hideous Conservatives, I won't drive him to the polling station.

Joking aside, there's a lot going on and it's actually quite difficult. The whole thing is kind of funny in a terrible black comedy sort of way. But that's only from the outside. To live it, the only thing I can fairly conclude is that old age and illness really are an awful, ghastly, horror show. The idea that there is something ennobling and redeeming in them is just a load of bullshit. As for me, I'm finding that one of my biggest challenges is managing my reflexive reaction of irritation to any sign of weakness from my Mum. Another aspect of that alcoholic family legacy! The little kid in me is enraged that, once again, I have to sort out the adults' shit and take care of Mum's emotions. And of course, my mum picks up on my irritation immediately and reacts reflexively. Our family mind-meld often means that we generate the emotional equivalent of an screeching audio feedback loop. But I'm happy to report that I think we're getting better at recognizing and disabling these old patterns when they get freshly triggered.

The truth is that my mother, brother and I are drawing very close. And I'm truly grateful - I really do give thanks every day - to be able to be here for Mum during her time of need. I've taken a cute little flat in downtown Vancouver, which is a helpful refuge as the cold grey rains settle in for the winter. Yet I still can't see myself settling here permanently; I feel too much like an alien to the bourgeois, anti-social, and small-city smugness of gay life here. But clearly, I'm here indefinitely while I take care of my mum while she's on the long process of either recovering from or dying from cancer. Pray God it's the former, but the truth of what's to happen will only be revealed one day at a time. And that's how we're living right now.

The strange thing is that I saw this coming years ago. Well, not this cancer thing specifically, of course, but the general shape of the current crisis, a shadow looming inexorably on the horizon of my life. But even though, in a sense, it has been entirely foreseen, my knowledge of it has always been purely intellectual. The shock and pain of it, when life's harpoon lands in your chest, is truly brutal.

Still, my wise friend Lance Berman, who knows me perhaps as well as anyone on this planet, remarked "This could - in a funny way - be a good thing for you, Peter Worthington." Perhaps he's right. And I am so reassured by his faith in me. But it sure doesn't feel good.

Chapter 65: Ultimate Fun at Burning Man

In late August I went to the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. It was truly one of the best weeks of my life, and I am already planning on going back next year. Everyone who attends Burning Man takes a special Burning Man name for the week. I was Kingpin. I went (left to right) with Maybelline, Bambam, Possum, and Mother.

Every year Burning Man has a theme. This year it was American Dream. (Next year it's Evolution.) I had a great costume - Big Daddy Money - for this year's Burning Man, but American Airlines kindly lost my bag, so I had to make do and improvise. Thank God Maybelline brought practically nothing but costumes and fripperies, and a blue Top Hat, that I just had to lay permanent claim to...
My favorite costume was the day Possum and I went out as a nightmare version of America's Dream: a combo version of the two things it fears most: Transgender Muslim Fundamentalists. I'm the one with the big gold glasses, flashing my wares around. The people loved us, just fucking loved us.




It's hard to describe Burning Man. Basically, 50,000 people converge on in the Black Rock Desert City" in camper vans and tents and have a week of the most outrageous fun. It is a no money economy; you must bring in what you need, with plenty of gifts for everyone. The idea is to contribute, whether it's something small (like volunteering your services for a couple of hours, or handing out scented cold hand cloths to wipe the dust off, or distributing free glasses of spiked lemonade, or ice cream) or something large (like the amazing art installations or performances or giving talks on new age spirituality). Or whatever. For example, a sunrise coffee camp:

The camp is organized around a giant circle, from 2 o'clock to 10 o'clock, within a larger area covering 9 square miles. It takes about 45 minutes to walk from one side of the camp (9 o'clock) to the other (3 o'clock). The circle of camps and the open area in the center of which is The Man (who gets burned at the end of the festival) is called La Playa. But this is not all. The entire area of the Burning Man Festival covers 9 square miles, and the area outside the circle of camps is called The Sea. This is one segment of the clock, from about 4.30 to 6 o'clock:

Burning Man's not easy though. It's in the middle of the Black Rock Desert - a vast, dusty, alkaline seabed, where nothing grows. We arrived in the middle of a ferocious dust storm and it took 8 hours to enter the site. When we arrived at the gate, and the volunteers said "Welcome home!" and we replied that it was our first time, they screamed "Virgins!" and said they had a special induction ceremony for us. They made us get out of our RVs, lie down in the dust and make angels, front and back, in the dust. The angels were immediately swept away by the howling wind, but the point was to get us used to the dust and dirt, because that was going to be a key part of our experience over the next week.

But even when there was no dust storm, we'd get real dirty. We had only whore's showers (ie Wet Wipes) during the whole week. Possum's feet after a typical day:
Maybelline and Mother's "playafied" hair:
Easier to keep your hair short. Possum and Kingpin look clean. But we're not. The water ran brown out of my hair when I finally got to wash it.

But the dust and dirt didn't matter, because it was so much fun! In the day there was always something to do. Like climb the fire engine ladder to nowhere (Maybelline and Me):
Do the naked Slip'n'Slide:
Scarf down magic mushrooms:
...and then go play in things seemingly designed specifically for this state of mind:


Ride the giant teeter-totter:
Lock Mother up in a cage at the Bondage Workshop:
Watch Maybelline parading down The Playa:

Laugh, laugh, laugh:

Shimmy our asses at the Silent Hoola Hoop Disco:
See how long Bambam could stay vertical in his boots:
Dance at The Deep End:

Or partake of other entertainments:Check out the Mutant Vehicles, including this next one, which is called The Beast. The Beast walked across the desert to Black Rock City and took it's owner three years to build.

Visit the simply gorgeous Basura Familia, more simply known as The Temple. It was made entirely out of found objects and it too was burned at the end of the festival.

Cycle further out in The Sea to the Tower of Babylon, the highest point in Blackrock City, built by a family to commemorate their father. Like everything else, it was a temporary structure, and would live only a week.
Scramble up a 20 meter high chair to sit in the royal seat and survey the camps in The Playa and all of the Sea. Embossed on the chair was the slogan "It's Great To Be Me!" and lights blinked when you sat in it. In the second picture pay no attention whatsoever to the apparent size of my stomache, hanging over my gold tights. It's a forshortening perspective problem.
Or just people watch:
Many people walked around naked. If you weren't not naked, you were in costume, or at least an outfit. If you were walking around in jeans and a t-shirt, you'd feel like a total dork. Everyone was interesting to look at, to talk to, to laugh with!

But the highlight was the amazing art installations:

Sometimes the art was ephemeral. One day we saw a very strange effect. Some machine was making HUGE amazing smoke rings that hung in the still afternoon air. Another day, we saw dozens parachute divers, trailing tails of flame, spiral down into Black Rock City.



But it was at night, when the shadows lengthened, that Black Rock City and Burning Man really became magic incarnate. As the light drained from the sky, and the shadows lengthened, thousands of stars came out in the frozen inky blackness. And all the lights of Black Rock City's camps, installations, mutant vehicles, bicycles bejewelled with glow sticks, fire dancers etc, came out. One night we took acid, and it was one of the most entrancing evenings of my life. The whole Playa and Sea became a seemingly infinite constellation of lights and delights, put there solely for our entertainment

We'd see lights, and walk towards them to discover something amazing. A Japanese tea house, where you'd be served tea by a man with a fu manchu moustache. A diner in the middle of the desert where waitresses would make you a grilled cheese sandwich. A pair of amazing sculptures (one of my two favourite installations):
A whale which seemed to breach out of the very desert. A giant kaleidescopic globe:
A giant jellyfish:

An installation of flowers made out of coloured dildos:
People who were themselves an installation:
A circus tent:

A roller derby:
A flame shooting range:

The Domes.
A field of lit giant balloons that would pulse and keep time with beautiful music:
And of course the Mutant Vehicles emerged in full glorious force at night to swim around dusty dark Sea: Dragonflies, giant red squids, floating ducks, top hats, jellyfish, dragons, Golden Gate Bridges and so many more:

There were Mad Maxish entertainments at the Thunderdome, where fights were held every night:
And when there wasn't fighting, we'd see performances of opera, or, one night, a woman who lit her cigarette off a handsaw sparking off her metal breast plate.
It really was Trip the Light Fantastic:
Especially dancing at Opulent Temple at 2 o'clock:
Maybelline got the award for most energy, but sometimes even she'd get tired and pass out under our camper van.


If she could have walked one more step, there were more comfortable places to rest:

Mother just turned to drink when she got tired:

And in the morning, after nights of "trip the light fantastic", or in the late afternoon, after the shocking heat of the day, there was the serenity of the desert:

And looking over us all was The Man...

...whose reward for his oversight was to be burned in a fiery inferno at the end of the festival:

Then we took our little RV homes and went to cool, green, fresh Lake Tahoe for a night of recovery:


And then we came home. And we're already planning better costumes and better contributions and better everything for our return trip next year. As I read over this blog entry though, I realize that my photos and text utterly fail to capture the magic of Burning Man. It's indescribable. It has simply to be experienced.