Top of My List

I’ve started a list of things I’ll never do. Some of the items are things that, realistically speaking, I’m just too old to do, like become a professional singer. Unless the “American idol” people come up with a show called “Fat, Delusional Old People Who Think They Have Talent.” Then I might have a shot.

One of the things I regret is that I’ll never have a master’s degree. Not that it’s too late. Plenty of people go back to school in their 50s, but I’m past the point in my career where it would be a good investment. Plus, I’m too lazy. I just hate thinking that I coulda, woulda, shoulda back in the day. 

Other items on my “Never” list are things that I would not do even if I were 30 years younger. At the top of the list is going to Burning Man, that week-long bacchanal in the desert that’s supposedly about art, but I suspect is more about being reckless and naked. 

My son Jason just returned home from his first Burning Man, and the tales he tells (which are the milder ones, I’m sure) are enough to convince me. First, there’s the dust. I spent the first eight years of my marriage to Starter Husband as a housewife. With two kids, a flock of sheep, a dog, a cat, and an old house that harbored field mice in the basement, my entire day was spent trying to eradicate dirt. I tore down spider webs. I cleaned up vomit and baby poo. I scraped the muck out of the barn. I scrubbed my husband’s collars with a toothbrush. During those years, my whole existence revolved around fighting back against a universe determined to cover my house and my family with a coating of grime.

So, to purposely go to a place like the middle of the desert where one must bow to the power of the dust devil and accept being grimy? Not gonna happen. Jason told of carefully double-wrapping sausages before putting them in the cooler. After a day at Burning Man, the dust, fine as talcum powder, had penetrated the paper, the plastic and the Styrofoam, to deposit a layer of sand on the Kielbasa. Sorry, I prefer my food grit-free. 

Besides the dirt inherent in the Burning man experience, there’s the fire. When I asked Jason what was scariest thing that happened, he told me a propane tank blew up right next to him, an announcement that had me frantically scanning him for burns, even though I could clearly see he still had all of his skin. When my heart rate has slowed down again, I asked him how the explosion had happened. It seems an “art” exhibition in which fire was piped through ice had gone awry and instead of the flame going up, it had traveled down to the tank, with predictable results. He went on to describe other stunts that involved fire, electricity, rickety structures, and drunk people. Burning Man sounded like a bunch of kids running around doing everything their mothers told them not to do.

That’s when I put “Attend Burning Man” at the top of the list of Things I’ll Never Do. Can you image me, a mother and former housewife, at this celebration of dirt and danger? When I wasn’t frantically cleaning, I’d be running around shouting, “Be careful! You’ll put your eye out!” Because number two on my list of Things I’ll Never Do is “Stop Being a Mother.”