What Could Go Right?

Not your typical mother-son bonding trip, but when my 18-year-old son, Jake, asked me to take him to Burning Man before he left for his first year at UC Santa Cruz, I thought either that means I have done something very right… or possibly very wrong, but let’s find out! 

It was my 14th Burn, sort of his third. His first was in utero when I was seven-and-a-half months pregnant. When he was little, he would say, “I’ve been to Burning Man, but it was very dark.” Then in 2021, he went to the renegade which was not an official ticketed event. Neither of those trips to Black Rock Desert required much preparation on his part, nor was he present to the enormity and profoundness of a “real” Burning Man. 

Honestly, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. Would he have the strength and stamina to pack/unpack, prepare, strategize for entry and exodus, participate in camp, and tolerate the harsh conditions of the desert, including unpredictable and severe weather? More so, would he have the capacity and maturity to hold the vast array of emotions that Burning Man inspires in a person? The playa has a way of stirring up all the feels from joy, fear, sadness, anger, impatience, judgement, acceptance, deep grief, and sheer bliss. 

I told him, “When we drive through that gate, I’m only your mom if you need me to be. Otherwise, I am a fellow Burner and campmate. This is a kind of rite of passage into adulthood before you go off to college.” He looked me in the eye and said, “I’ve got this.” 

And wow — did he. 

First, like nearly every teenager I know, Jake loves his phone. So, imagine my shock after we set up camp and he said, “Mom, I’m gonna let my phone run out of battery and not touch it again until we get home.”

“Sure, that sounds great,” I tried to say as cooly as possible so as not to jinx it. I agreed to do the same, other than checking my message for emergencies once a day. As a result, we don’t have pictures except two — one of him making dust angels at the gate and one that our friend thankfully took of us the night of the burn. However, it was worth it to enjoy the precious gift of being completely present with each other through the week. 

Jake participated fully in our camp, The Burn Scouts. The next closest person to his age was in his early 30s, but Jake connected with all 15 of our campmates, unworried about years lived and backgrounds, on the shared experience of being a Burner. Our camp offering was hot cookies and s’mores. As he ran up to strangers offering plates of gooey chocolate chip cookies, he marveled at meeting all kinds of people — from dust covered toddlers to a man in his 70s who bakes loaves of fresh bread every morning for the people. Our first s’more recipients were a couple from Kazakhstan who spoke no English, so we had to mime what a s’more was and watch their faces explode in delight at the first bite. 

Jake was also a huge help around camp, including hours of striking our large communal shade structure. His room at home is a disaster, but he diligently did MOOP patrol, picking up even the tiniest speck of glitter to adhere to the principal of Leaving No Trace. Watching him in action, I started to worry a lot less about his future college roommates and Jake’s historically rather “casual” approach to cleaning. 

During quiet moments in camp, he would sit reading the WhatWhereWhen guide listing the hundreds of events and activities offered during the week. Jake couldn’t believe that camps included church groups, food camps (all his favorites from waffles to ramen to ice cream), 12-step meetings, and activities like acro-yoga or talks on philosophy. He said, “Mom, this is a real city that exists for only a week a year, but the kind of city I’d actually want to live in all year.” Yet, I had to break it to him that the fact the city exists only for a week, is exactly what makes Burning Man so special. 

It’s the idea of temporality — building beautiful art, including the Man and the Temple, with the intent for it to be consumed by fire and never exist again. It reflects life, in that nothing is ever permanent and it’s only our resistance to that idea that causes suffering. We were out by an art piece that had a large pile of wood next to it. A man and his wife rode up on their bikes and wondered what the wood was for. I stated that it was probably because the art piece was going to be burned. The man said, “Oh no, how sad.” As we rode away, Jake said, “I don’t think he gets it.” I said, “Maybe not, but you do and that’s pretty awesome.” 

When we visited the Temple, he saw me process a lot. Grief for friends and family gone too soon, but also the grief of raising him for 18 years, from a tiny little human into a 6’4” fully grown man with a kind heart and brilliant mind, who would soon be leaving me to make his own way in the world. As we rode away on our bikes, we stopped with both the Man and the Temple within view. Jake said, “I think the Man represents all we want to let go of, but The Temple represents all that we don’t want to let go of.” I had never thought about it that way, but he was so right. 

As we watched the Man Burn on Saturday night, hand in hand, I let go of sorrow about the things I wish I had done differently parenting Jake — the mistakes and lessons learned a little too late. As the smoke rose into the sky, I tried to give myself some grace for trying hard, especially while breaking a cycle of intergenerational trauma, in order to be the best parent I could. Plus, support his invention of himself, not some version my ego was holding of Jake. 

To see Burning Man through the wide eyes of first timers reminds me of why I keep coming back since my first one in 2000. And, to see Burning Man through my son’s eyes was next level. What I didn’t expect, was to see myself through his eyes. One night, as were sitting in the belly of a giant lotus flower staring up at the stars, he said, “Mom, I feel like I’ve really seen you for the first time. You are the most happy and relaxed version of yourself out here and now, I know why you come — to be you.” Woah — he was right. The desert burns off the outer layers of protection down to my truest, most essential self. To feel deeply seen in that moment by the person I raised is ineffable. I’m so glad he got to meet that version of me before he leaves too.

So, to answer my own question at the beginning of all this — I’m not sure exactly what, but I’ve done something right. It just took a week in the dust to know that for sure.

Cover image of Burn Night, 2025 (Photo by Kerry Lange)