The Claudia Brown

I arrived in Black Rock City, Nevada in August of 2019 on a mission for inner peace. I knew I needed to let go, but of what was still taking shape.

However, just a few days before I would leave, I came across a letter folded in half; a nondescript piece of typing paper. It was just one of several old papers in a pile that that had been sitting high up on my bedroom dresser, untouched for the last few years.

Nothing made it stand out but I recognized it instantly.

It was the last letter I would write to my husband back when I thought our marriage still had hope —and when I believed him when he said I could make things better, if I tried.

However, my words would come too late. Only days after I gave him the letter, I would learn he was in love with another woman. He wanted a divorce and there was nothing I could do or say to save my marriage.

On impulse, I asked for the letter back and I put it away, up high on top of my bedroom dresser not to be seen again for more than three years.

It had been waiting for me, ready to be discovered at just the right moment to make my purpose crystal clear: I would bring this letter to the Temple and I would watch it burn.

I made the long trek, bicycling from the Home Rule Village camp to deep playa the night before the Temple Burn. From a distance, the beautiful carved wooden structure commanded attention.

I entered the Temple slowly, taking in the messages written so lovingly on the walls, letters, and poster boards, and the photos in every direction of deceased relatives, past loves, and beloved pets.

All around me were signs to let go, and yet the letter stayed firm inside my pocket. I hadn’t seen it for more than three years but I knew that the letter was still out there, somewhere.

Could I now leave it behind?

Could I let those words go?

Perhaps I could photograph the letter as a keepsake in time, a memorial to who I was and a reminder to move forward. However, transferring the medium from print to digital felt like cheating. There were no shortcuts to the healing process.

In the end, I compromised by sharing all of my emotions on camera as my partner Sunshine pressed record and snapped photos of me leaving the letter behind.

And then Sunday came: the night the Temple would burn.

In the previous two nights, I had only been able to sleep for about an hour combined. When Sunday morning came, the intense heat knocked me off my feet, and I could barely stand, much less walk or bike to the site of the Temple.

I settled into the coolest place I could find: a hammock on the third story of Home Rule Village’s tower. As Sunshine checked on me, feeding me cherry freeze pops and sips of water, my eyes stayed closed as I willed for the sun to go down.

After the heat broke, I joined the camp for dinner, got on my bike and rode.

As I raced towards the burning Temple on my bike, Sunshine captured the moment on video while riding on his one wheel behind me.

We stopped and he photographed me smiling broadly on my bike, a total transformation from hours before when I barely had the strength to stand. Just a couple days prior I had struggled learning how to ride the bike, which I had mastered on Burn Night the year before!

By the time I got there, the fire had been lit. The crowd was somber. I watched the flames consume the beautiful wooden temple as I thought about my past and told myself to “let go.”

I thought about my marriage, and my husband’s friendship, which I missed. I thought about the letter, going over the words for the last time in my head.  This was my chance to finally let go.

As much as I missed my husband’s friendship and the life we shared together, I could let go of the future I had planned and imagine a different path. I could forgive him … but could I forgive myself?

Could I let go of the disappointment in myself that I carried like a boulder on my shoulders?

I could have done better, been more loving, and more attentive. I had thought I would have a lifetime to make up for those years when I was consumed by work, pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Had I known what was coming next, I would have done better.

My marriage never got a second chance, but I had.

I had been gifted an Act Two, ready to be written from scratch. It was time to start page one of the next story I would tell.

In the days following Burning Man, I could feel a shift, a lightness take hold — one that kept me centered when I would discover that the video and photography footage so painstakingly captured before, during, and after the burn would be just a memory. I had bought a new phone immediately prior just so I could capture these experiences.

In a freak stroke of misfortune, the photos and video did not save. My phone malfunctioned and lost all of its data.

However, it wasn’t just the loss of the captured memories that would emphasize the need to let go.

I would soon learn that the relationship I shared with Sunshine, my best friend in the burner community, my adventure buddy, my partner these past two years … the relationship that had taught me how to finally trust again was ending too.

My mission at the Temple had been to let go, and the universe wasn’t holding back!

Before I could unpack my Burning Man bin, I had to let go — again, not of my past this time, but of my present. My future, which was once so uncertain, was now uncertain again.

However, in the midst of all this loss, one constant remained: one that was growing stronger each day and one that held the key to the inner peace for which I so longed.

Myself.