I’m sitting with my wife on the hard, greyish-brown surface of the Black Rock Desert in Northern Nevada watching the final minutes of Burning Man 2013.  It is the traditional Temple burn, an event viewed by thousands in solemn silence. Burners honor this building with quiet reverence because it is the spiritual center of Black Rock City.  Most burners have been inside the Temple and left notes of love, forgiveness and farewell.  The Temple tugs at your heart with a sanctity that belies the “party on the playa” reputation of Burning Man.  But in truth, Burning Man is a balancing act among the many and varied aspects of life – surviving, creating, playing, praying, loving. There’s no simple way to explain this event.

Our vantage point for the Temple burn is the best we’ve ever had – thanks to our son, who works year round organizing and managing the Temple Guardians, a group crucial to safety and sanctity of the Temple.  As fire begins to lick at the base of the pyramid-shaped structure, we come face-to-face not only with the end of this hallowed building, but with reality: the magic of Burning Man is nearly over for another year.

Temple Burn at Burning Man 2013

The fire quickly erupts into massive flames shooting out the sides and top of the Temple.  The structure – more wholes along its four slanted sides than solid wood – is designed to burn with ferocity.  We have to move back because of the intense heat. Getting up from our roost on the Playa isn’t easy – we’re both getting older and our muscles are becoming somewhat like the Tin Man’s joints in the Wizard of Oz.  But we manage – just as we manage everything we do at Burning Man, which includes a lot of hard work for our village, and riding our bikes for miles across the Playa to view artwork, attend programs, or get in line for free … well, you name it:  grilled cheese sandwiches, root beer floats, martinis.  Burning Man’s gifting economy is just that – you don’t have to trade money or anything else for what is offered to you on the playa.

But now our eighth trip to Burning Man is winding down.  We’re already packed and ready to leave the desert as soon as the Temple burn is over.  We know we’re facing hours of tedium waiting with 10s of thousands of vehicles to squeeze down from the seven exit lanes leading out the gate onto a single lane of rural Nevada highway that snakes some 80 miles southwest to I-80 near Reno. But it’s all okay. It’s been a fantastic week.

As often as we’ve regaled people with our stories of the pleasures of Burning Man, our friends still wonder why we trade our easy Lincoln lifestyle for a trip into the harsh environment of the Black Rock Desert.

I wonder each year too.  Am I too old for this, will it still be fun, can I handle the physical stress? But upon arrival I know I’m exactly where I should be.   I feel younger and more alive than at any other time of the year.  It’s part of the magic of being a Burner – no matter how old you are or believe you are.

But it does take a couple of days to shuck all of my real-world anxieties and begin to see the wonder of Burning Man.  People have come out to the desert with art that they want to share with me, and all I have to do is open my eyes and take it all in.

I put one foot in front of another and go out to help with the ceremonial lighting of the city.  As a part of Lamplighter Village, we’re responsible for hanging nearly 800 kerosene lamps along Black Rock City’s major thoroughfares every evening, and retrieving them in the morning.

Alan and Judie (Perky and Lashes) in front of Lamplighter Chapel, the group’s workspace at Black Rock City.

Astounding.  I can still actually handle the job; it feels good to walk the playa, accomplish my task and look back to see the lighted streets.  We don’t seem old or weak to others in our village – they look up to us, and want our help and advice.  And our playa friends energize us with the love and joy they bring to Burning Man.  What could be better?

You see the true wonder of Burning Man only after dark.  Despite the absence of an electric infrastructure, the playa looks like a lighted carnival.  There’s fire everywhere, a disco roller rink, a pedal-powered bumper cars ride, Thunderdome where opponents bash each other with rubber mallots while hanging from a geodesic dome. Hundreds of art cars roam the desert taking such forms as a fire-spewing octopus, a disco blaring sailing ship and the omnipresent cupcakes.  People wear colorful costumes that are illuminated for visibility (some just wear lights and forego any clothes at all), and they ride bikes festooned with lighted fenders, wheels and handlebars. Then there’s the art.

Truth is Beauty – a metal and mesh sculpture of a woman – soars hundreds of feet above the playa.  She is breathtaking.  A garden of fiery mushrooms grows out of the inhospitable land.  Sacramento’s own Playa Queen – a wooden, hand-crafted paddle wheel steamer – looks for all the world like it’s making its way across the desert surface. The Man itself is perched above a massive three-story building shaped like a flying saucer.

Unless you’ve been there, this event is unimaginable.  When you’re there, it’s almost too much to take in.

Labor Day morning.  We wend our way down the narrow highway toward home, passing Pyramid Lake on our right, and stopping for breakfast at a Sparks diner.  There we see two contrasting groups of patrons:  Burners, full of playa dust and happily chatting up their Burning Man stories; and Others, amazingly clean, grumpily awaiting their morning coffee.

Never is it so clear that Burning Man has changed your life.

I know I’m getting older.  My body tells me so everyday.  Muscles hurt and don’t work as well as they used to.  Naps, which used to be pleasurable excesses, are now annoying necessities.  This year at Burning Man I practically needed a crane to get myself up off the playa surface after watching the Temple burn.  But I still went to Burning Man, and I still felt younger and more alive when I got there.  It’s part of the magic of being a Burner – no matter how old you are or believe you are.

I met a Sunrise Burners reader who’s 75 and returning to Black Rock City for the first time in many years – in part because of this blog site.  His eyes were bright with excitement contemplating his week in the desert, as were mine as we chatted.  But it doesn’t always start out that way – at least not for me.

I arrive at the playa still full of worries and concerns from real life – how can I pay all the bills on the limited income of retirees, will my vehicles make it through another year, have I done enough to prepare us in case we get sick or hurt?  I worry whether the RV has enough water, fuel and holding tank room to last 10 days in the desert.  I wonder what I’m even doing here, out in this harsh environment — away from the comforts of home, the love of my dogs, my daily New York Times.  I question whether I’ll have the stamina to carry lanterns out and pick them up.

It takes a couple of days to get over these anxieties and begin to see the wonder of Burning Man.  People have come out to the desert with art that they want to share with me, and all I have to do is open my eyes and take it all in.

Joyously picking up lamps on the playa — my main job at Lamplighters.

I put one foot in front of another and go out to pick up lamps that first morning.  Astounding.  I can still actually handle the job; it feels good to walk the playa, accomplish my task and look back to see the job done.  Others in my camp don’t see our age as a weakness – they look up to us, and want our help and advice.  And our playa friends energize us with the love and joy they bring to Burning Man.  What could be better?

The fog of anxiety and worry takes a couple of days to lift fully, but once it does I start smiling from the inside.  Sure, there are problems – I’m constantly losing Lashes as we traverse the playa, and I’ve grown to depend on her presence after nearly 50 years of marriage.  But she always turns up, and our love is as intense as it’s ever been when we’re together in the desert.

I also have a tendency to struggle with bike problems – in part because I’m way too cheap to bring a decent bike to the playa, and I always try to stretch the life of each of my junker bikes beyond its endurance.  But the free bike shops and knowledgeable neighbors band-aid my vehicle back together so I can keep pedaling throughout the week.  Meanwhile, I learn a little more about bicycle maintenance each year.

By the time Burning Man ends and exodus commences, I’m a committed Burner once again.  On the way home, we talk about next year – new lights we’ll buy, costumes we’ll design, plans we’ll make to see more of the art next year.  I’ve lost the fog of worry, and for weeks after I return, life seems so much better.  I do my best to hold on to that Burner mentality throughout the year.  Worries do eventually return (that pile of mail waiting for me contains all the bills we’ve accrued getting ready for the Burn, and our property tax invoices as well), but for now, I’m a Burner happily floating through a life full of art, free booze and uncritical friends.

The 2013 Burn (our eighth) is now history, and it was another great one for Perky and Lashes – our playa alter egos.  I was thrilled to meet several readers of this blog site who took pains to say hello at the Burn and let me know that they enjoy the articles and find them helpful and inspiring.

Aside from new friends, this burn was exciting for at least three reasons.  First, the art cars were more plentiful, more whimsical and more fantastic then ever.  And while the best of the best may well have been tried and true entries such as the giant, fire-spewing octopus (El Pulpo Mecanico); new players such as the mobile board room, a steam locomotive, a fish lighted in varying colors and shapes and a covered wagon as well as the many electronica-blasting party cars, roamed the playa.

Second, this year’s Temple of Whollyness was a true work of art and a space that spoke to you in hushed, yet urgent terms about your humanity and your responsibility to others and to the world.

The Temple burns on the final night of Burning Man 2013.

Third, our camp – Lamplighters – rocked it this year lighting the city nightly so the citizens could navigate their way through the worst of white out conditions

We enjoyed a very special moment on the first Sunday evening, when the Temple was dedicated and turned over to the citizens by its builders.  To demonstrate the construction process for the Temple, its builders fitted together six pieces of especially designed wood without the use of any fasteners or glue.  This block of wood was repeated throughout the Temple to create a solid structure that stood in perfect harmony with the natural environment around it.

When the builders completed the wooden square, they handed it to Ranger Carousel, head of the Temple Guardians, the group which has responsibility for gently guarding the building throughout the Burn. Carousel then accepted the Temple for the citizens of Black Rock City and declared it open to all.   The thrill for us is that Ranger Carousel is our son.  We are the proudest of parents.

Art is the major focal point for many Burners, ourselves included.  We already know that we’ll have to look at various websites to see all of the art – it’s impossible to see everything while you’re on playa – but we did enjoy some amazing works such as “Truth is Beauty,” the sculpture of a woman that soared hundreds of feet above the playa.

There’s no such thing as a perfect burn, and this one had its problems – chief of them the amount of bike traffic.  With the population exceeding 60,000 people for the first time, there were issues with congestion on the main roads. I also didn’t realize until later that the earlier-than-normal Temple burn had caught many burners by surprise, hence a low turnout for that event.  Finally, this year’s Exodus was complicated by concerns about a possible rainstorm Monday afternoon.  It took some people 10 or more hours to leave the playa.

These issues not withstanding, 2013 was a highly successful burn for the two of us.

Now it’s back to the default world and transforming ourselves from Perky and Lashes back into Alan and Judie.  It will take a few days to adjust to the fact that showers are a normal part of life and you have to pay for a drink when you go to a bar.  But it won’t take any time at all to start dreaming about and planning for Burning Man 2014.