Flipside was an amazing experience.  It’s true weight can’t be conveyed to someone who hasn’t encountered something like it.  Truth be told, I’ve never been in such a foreign place that still felt so much like home.  My expectations of the journey were entirely unrealistic, which was probably due to a combination of factors.  Among other things, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to talk about how to prepare mentally for it.

                I’m not sure it would have done any good.  We were nearly the last of our camp to arrive, as Josie had to attend her clinical that Thursday.  We left straight from there and only stopped for gas and ice.  It was very dark when we pulled up to the camp, after encountering the greeter crew at the front.  The shock of seeing people outdoors in strange outfits and/or mostly nude, rushing out from beneath a shoddy tarp-covered structure to meet us and dance around us wildly, was our first taste of Flipside.  It wasn’t rich or textured, it was a straight shot from the bottle.  We would have many chances to appreciate more complex flavors throughout the weekend.

                We unpacked in the glare of the station wagon’s headlights, putting things in piles to be sorted out in the morning.  A rough circle of camping chairs formed and several of us stayed awake for hours, drinking and smoking and discussing the finer points of electrical power and its corresponding systems of measurement.

                This was the motif.  Electricity and fire and sunlight, raw elemental energy.  Juice.  The heat was overwhelming the entire time, a rising crescendo dovetailing into the explosion of the Burn.  I turned from a sick yellow to a neon red to a healthy brown in three days.  The sun burrowed into us as we built a massive geometric oddity in the hill country outside of Austin.  I was cooked alive.  It was by sheer mental exertion that I didn’t get a sunburn; I simply insisted that I wouldn’t.  The sunblock caked on and washed off with the sweat of our toil and the life-saving plunges into the Creek.

                The Creek.  The Hippie Gumbo.  The tiny trickle of water that saved our lives beneath the midday sun.  It was the wet boundary before the great wall of stone.  It was the meniscus between one reality and the next.  Nymphs and Gorgons frolicked together in the brown water, and every time we passed through the cavern to get there we were born again as some new fantastic being.  I found a secret passageway that opened up another area, and allowed us to get deeper in the water.  It allowed us to jump from the rocks into a bottomless stream.

                Conflict surfaced for air occasionally, but it was mostly to heal, and disappear.  It would evaporate or fry in the dayfire.  My wife and I dealt with control issues, and fear and anxiety and worry.  Eventually I dove headfirst into the dark water, and we let things flow.  We showered outside naked.  We washed away the film of sweat and sunblock and Normal Reality that still coated our vibrant forms.  By the end of the trip we glowed in the dark.

                We danced and reveled in freedom, partying for hours in buildings designed by amateur architects.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Pyropolis was.  The night screamed with jets of fire and thick bass.  The earth vibrated and the people cheered.  We were liberated.  Luminescent wires snaked around our arms and legs; our jaws clenched and our eyes shook in their sockets.

                Over a couple days our crooked carnival lifted off the ground.  The country boy in me surfaced and declared himself Rebel.  He spun cotton candy and drew in the rubes.  He must have been channeling my grandfather when he raised his Coors Light to the sky and toasted his Ma.  It was the most fun I had the whole time I was there: directing the other citizens and denizens of Pyropolis through our ramshackle carnie games and circus sideshows.  It was amazing.  We did most of the work setting up on the first day and got to enjoy the second one.

                The first day was truly miserable.

                The second day was truly euphoric.

                The third day was the capstone to the tower we were erecting.  The experience was so intense, so much to take in.  We languished in the sun and fought a little amongst ourselves.  Our batteries were wearing down.  The generator was hard to start.  The AC project had failed, and not even two huge ice blocks could ease the searing heat of the dome.  We all sat in the kitchen, praying for the occasional cloud to obscure the Hellish Eye of God.

                We were happy.

                Dusk approached.  We had traffic with our neighbors, sharing food and drink, stories and skills.  We watched them spin poi.  I played with practice poi and then with a staff they had brought.  That night they set me on fire.  Nothing has put me out since.  My hands and my heart are still ablaze, and my eyes still reflect that magic wand weaving circles around my shadowed form.

                When the effigy ignited it was like swimming in the sun.  It had taken so long to reach that point.  Josie and I were absolutely exhausted.  I got as close as they would let me and felt the top layer of my skin burn away.  Everything changed, the fireworks detonated.  Thoughts exploding in the mindsky.  I slept that night and didn’t dream.  I complained about my time there.  I wanted it to be over because I never wanted it to end.  Does that make sense?

                Some things can’t be described in words.  We all hated each other the next morning as we disassembled the world.  You can only bring so much back with you, but you’re not allowed to leave anything behind.  I did though, I did.  I’ll have to return to find it, and bring it back piece by piece.