The good of getting lost in the desert

Last week I returned from my second Burning Man festival, the annual weeklong gathering in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. The impromptu city created by 70,000 people camping and RV’ing on the vast, flat former lakebed was a little dizzying the first time, but this year I did some ruminating on what the event is about and why I take part.

I guess it was fitting that I met with Richard Tinyes Sr. the day before I got there. Being a community journalist comes with a range of experiences, with school board meetings, 5K runs and Boy Scout ceremonies interspersed with stories as heavy as they come. I sat with Mr. Tinyes at Bagel Boss and looked him in the eyes as he talked about the murder of his 13-year-old daughter 26 years ago. He talked about her body being mutilated. It was a highly publicized crime and I’d read about it before, but sitting with the victim’s father — a salt-of-the-earth guy who has lived every parent’s worst nightmare — turned news headlines into real life. I could see his expression change as he spoke. I could count the wrinkles at the sides of his eyes.

To do the job properly, I absorb. I’m obsessive about remaining objective, but there’s an element of humanity that I believe is at the core of journalism. I make sure that I’m emotionally present and feeling during interviews. What I absorb isn’t released so easily, and I’m not sure where it goes. I parachute into people’s lives, sometimes at their most chaotic or painful moments, and am tasked with telling their stories and doing them justice. I want to erase the problems, but instead I ask the 7-year-old boy dying of brain cancer how he feels, and he closes his eyes and lays his bald head on the table and says he’s tired.

How do you not feel ridiculous asking some of these questions? How do I think a woman felt days after her lover’s body was found stuffed in a plastic bin, or how grieving parents were doing a few months after their son was killed in traffic while he walked to school? My role is to understand the reality and package it into a narrative, so I absorb situations and let them have their impact. I know it’s for a purpose, however unclear it might be sometimes, but some stories make me feel so helpless.