This Inauguration will remind a lot of people of a lot of things, but to me it calls up Burning Man, the big annual freakfest/science experiment/music fair in the desert. I love it.

One of the reasons being a Burner has been so important to me, and so mystifying to some people who know me as a serious journalist, is that it’s one of the few places or things that I don’t try to over-intellectualize. It is the smell of sulphur and and the sensation of sunblock applied during a morning that is already blisteringly hot. I take it for what it is, and I look around and see a group of people become an entity in and of itself. I would say a “crowd” but that makes it sound too stupid; and “smart mob” makes it sound too smart. But there’s a moment when people become something bigger than themselves…. a quickening.

That’s happening right now in Washington, DC. There’s the woman—a woman, not a girl—dancing to Britney Spears inside the Elephant and Castle restaurant at 12th and Pennsylvania. She doesn’t seem drunk… maybe she’s good at faking it, but I think it’s the irrational exuberance of the crowd taking over. The streets are shutting down and the parade bleachers are going up. There is a hush on the blocked streets that is urban magic.

Meanwhile—and I will expand on this—I am feeling a bit left out. One of the things being a reporter, and a political reporter at that, has done to me is to take the shine off of hero worship. So while I feel the quickening and the pulse, I am not quite dancing to the same beat as the millions of people who are in ecstasies over the mere possibility of a black President, let alone the fact that he will be in office in about half a day.

Am I distant from the moment because it’s my job to be, and is that a good or a bad thing? I’m still trying to puzzle it out.

Tags: a burner reflects on the inauguration, barack obama first black president, burning man, farai chideya blogging, urban magic