Last month, tickets to the progressive culture and art festival known as Burning Man went on sale, and you can bet that my mother was right there waiting for them with cash in hand. This will mark the fourth year she has made the trek to the playa to live for a week with the most basic supplies, and the sweaty, alkaline covered masses. Nearly everyone I encounter on a day-to-day basis is a Burner. In my adult life, Burning Man may be the single most important factor in the growth of my relationship with my mother--and I have never even been to the event.

Like the festival itself, my mother is almost beyond description. At a time when it was impossible to get in, she dropped out of UC Berkley to work in Donner and live on Tahoe’s nude beaches. She is a rabble-rouser, a child of the 60’s and 70’s who bucks authority, protests, writes letters and raised me to be proud, and defiant of injustices I find in the world around me. When you compare us, I am downright plain. I went straight through college after high school, married my high school sweetheart, and hope to work in government.

This dichotomy--the free spirited mother and the conservative child--often set us in opposition, limiting my ability to connect with her. When she first told me that she was going to be attending Burning Man,
I was quietly ashamed to tell my friends. I knew nothing of the true nature of the Burn, or of the community. It was just another thing about my mother I thought I would never understand. That will never be the case again.

This past summer, I found myself immersed in the local Burner community and the open, warm camaraderie that truly happy people freely share with strangers. While enjoying drinks at Amendment 21, or coffee at Tahoe Roasting Co., the breadth of the conversations about how we relate deepened my understanding of the spirit of the Burn.

Now months later, I no longer carry the frightful misconceptions which had plagued me. I look forward to the crazy projects and ideas of the friends I’ve made, and smile fondly at the differences that still exist. In a recent phone conversation with my mother, I realized how wonderful it could be to share her passions and love. Then it hit me: for the first time ever, I felt like I truly understood what makes her so
special. Burning Man may not have saved my life, but in a way, it saved my spirit.

Becca Donato-Hardie