Sixty-seven days have passed since she died. Not that I'm counting, except I am. Marking each day with a photo taken with her iPod Touch*, my own personal yahrzeit.
Leslie was a burner and she had a really tight community of friends and aquaintances that she met through Burning Man and then all the other events that happen through out the year as a way to come back to self after, and then start preparing for, the next year on the playa.
Leslie always talked about how I should go one year and then we'd laugh, because I'm so not the camper/roughing it kind of girl. I love nature, but I'm also scared, (see no. 5 of this post), and the idea of being in the desert, with no body of water and nothing around you, makes my heart race, and not in that pitter-patter good, kind of way.
When you're sleep deprived and grieving from the bottom of your soul as I was last June, I found myself pinky swearing with Leslie's good friend, that I'd go to Burning Man next year. And then R told my sister that I was going, that I'd pinky sweared with her and Leslie smiled.
So I'm going to Burning Man next August. Thank the heavens for my girl Sooz and her man WAX who've always had a burning desire to go to the playa and we're going together. We're renting an RV and we're driving to the desert. Gulp.
These plans, this dreaming and scheming has been a part of the passing of these sixty-seven days. Sixty seven ways to get used to the truth that my sister is no longer here.
* Leslie's iPod was the one thing I really wanted to keep of hers. I now have her playlists, which I won't add to on her iPod, it's all Leslie and very different from my own musical choices, which I love.
