I wanted to feel, for the first time in a while, real glamour.

After all, living in a city like San Francisco should offer crevices seeped with my particular craving. My apartment, while admirable for a young woman trying to go at it solo, is not full of sumptuousness. It’s a bit like a well dressed lady of the night, without the drift of melancholy.

I looked up a couple of spots for vintage designer resale and took off for BART. Downtown was taking on that sunny tropical mugginess that promises rain soon. Sun is usually cause for wine on rooftops, but the steamy bus windows aren’t ideal for city traipsing.

I whooshed into the vintage store with half my hairdo left on the bus, the roots lifting off my head with abandon. Raincoat slung over a wilted fringe shoulder bag, I was a wild haired virgin to this store and it’s breed of romance. And it must have showed.

The scion came forth silently, like a recently gassed Prius.

“Hello,” he said with velvet, trailing over me quickly. “Welcome to the store.”

I said thank you and shifted my droopy bag nervously. I needed time to take in the scene, it was heaped with jewels. I felt like Aladdin coming upon the mountainous gold in the genie’s lair. Street rat, indeed.

And if I was Aladdin, then he must have been my genie. Only it was clear he was here to grant me no wishes, that I’d be granting his instead. Black combat boots, textured black ensemble, with a sharply manicured beard. His eyebrows communicated excellent design. He looked like a nineties club kid drowned in a vat of Clive Christian and reborn into an Onyx Prince.

A Whiting and Davis metal mesh halter the color of a disco sunset adorned one of those headless half mannequins on the cashier counter, draped round the collar with a monkey fur. This place was no joke. Here is not where glamour came to die, it’s where glamour came to get a sex change so it could become even more fabulous.

I immediately started sweating, and made my way to the back, labels flashing. Dior c. 1968, Irina Roublon, Bill Blass, Maude Frizon. Decades of parties, drunken cab rides, 7 course dinners, illicit kissing, snobbery, passion, and madness flitted by me. My eye caught on a gold and black jacket, Chinese silk with a pattern of bamboo leaves. The sleeves trimmed in black and tan alpaca fur.

Whhhhaaattttt was this. Whaaaattttt what this!

The Prince emerged behind a Missoni mumu.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” He flicked it off the wrack with a spell. Flipping it back and forth the hangar like a weather vane.

“That’s Alpaca,” he intoned meaningfully. “This piece runs about $800”

Ah, the price check. A weird noise threatened to come up my throat. How do you explain to a Prince you just came for glamour and hi-jinx? That you won’t steal anything but does he have time to tell me a story about hand rolled chiffon hem?

I decide I have to buy one thing, out of pure pride, the proverbial “Sonia Was Here.” I am struggling not to buy the jacket. It would be a ridiculous purchase, I picture myself on BART, unable to grasp the ceiling hand hold because my Alpaca sleeves would tickle a neighboring rider.

The sweats come again. Nothing has price tags, so I am assuming everything is $1,200.00 (My expensive number). I pull a heavy chained baroque 80’s cross off.

“I’ll take this!” I announced, to no one. The Price has returned to the cash register.

I purchased the stupid necklace. It’s actually not stupid, it’s fabulous, I am like an uncool rapper with it on. I bade farewell to the kingdom after having paid my toll, and the Prince’s goodbye was so musical it played in my ears long after my sweat cooled. I quickly found him on Instagram.

I wasn’t sure one could put a price on shame, but as it turns out, mine costs $258.00.

When you start going to music, art, or transformational festivals, a few things happen.

One, you enter into a land of wonder and dimension you weren’t sure existed before. It’s dirty, golden, and fabulous. Have you ever seen a full wheeled clothing rack inside a Coleman? Sequins, vintage fur, and iridescent ponchos. Music happens in various forms, and you participate. Plumes of burning Palo Santo wood filter down onto ancient Persian carpets and inflatable furniture. You get to see the quirks and thoughtfulness of your neighbors in the creation of these temporary weekend dens. Tan oiled arms in the air, coconut breeze in her hair; we are simply supposed to be right here.

Also, get a Yeti cooler.

Sometimes, you get a festival moniker. I didn’t get one until my second year at Burning Man and she is called Nala. She’s a mother and a fighter–day drinker, night sinker. Cowrie collar, lion leotard, red fringe. A leopard beret, mild pink hair, a catsuit.

But this story is not about Nala. It’s about a girl named Moon Jelly.

The second year of High Sierra Music festival, I ambled up there with a crew comprised of a variety of men and women who were a mix of best friends, future roommates, future married-s, San Franpsychos , and fire women.

Most of them came to Quincy in a silver van named Silvia. High Sierra is on the cusp of July and it is hot–during the early part of the day we usually nurse our dehydration in the Feather river’s cooling waters.

This first ride out that year we went to the Rope Swing, 15 minutes away with just enough time for a naming convention. Rattle Snake, Moose Juice, Indigo, Wild Rabbit, and finally, with zero fanfare, as if she had already known her whole life: Moon Jelly.

Moon Jelly and I have been friends since we were 19 years old. She’s seen me though some of my worst behavior. Truly vile yet harmless 22 year old shit. I once, in a fit of passion about a boy I can’t remember, high kicked an Orange County glass shop window in stiletto Topshop over-the-knee faux suede boot. Unsurprisingly it shattered, big time. We looked on, shocked. THEN WE RAN.

We ran way the hell away and she never held it against me. I felt like a criminal. She nursed me back to equilibrium without judgement, even if it was there. I also cut out any more Topshop boot acquisitions.

I’ve seen her through a bit of a longer, less violent phase. When Moon Jelly found a new tribe.

This new lot of tow-headed smart boys in flannels and rust colored pants who worked for big companies but rarely wore shoes, ate goji berries, and probably took philosophy confounded me.

Names I could never remember but really didn’t try to: Reetman, Bartac, Tallow, Saphran, Ziggy. Young, Californian men like this have connections to magical lands. A ranch in Bolinas, private ocean coves in Carmel, dewy plots in Sea Ranch, mountain tops in Big Sur, high ceilings in Marin.

Moon Jelly took to these spaces and band of brothers like she found her name, with a grace and enthusiasm that should upleveled me to what she was uncovering. Moments like the most psychedelic, rarified sunset. Above the clouds. Red wine from the box in a clay cup. Knee high socks and hiking boots. Long, tawny blond hair. And that goddamn light up frisbee.

My ego interpreted this as loss; loss to these unfathomable mountains of an in-crowd and lifestyle and crew I couldn’t seem to touch or be a part of. Had M. Jelly forgotten all our vodka grapefruits at Club Deluxe and fervent declarations of sisterhood despite all odds?

No. But she had found a family and built it from love, nature, planning, sharing, time, appreciation, and her own blend of kinetic energy. And I was still welcome. I just had to show up and pay attention.

Then one evening in Santa Cruz, I was shown the light in way I could have never anticipated. Moon and I were having beers when her two friends joined us: Tiger and Diego. My mother and sister were meeting us shortly; we do a weekly family Aptos beach house trip every year.

We played the thing where you throw bags at a holes at breweries. I could truly not be worse. It’s not an exaggeration. I may as well have closed my eyes and gagged myself, spun around, shibari rope tied my tits, and tried to throw. It’s just a nightmare.

Tiger was my victim and teammate. He was a knight in shining Patagonia. This kind, smart, effective man let me throw bean bags into the sun for all he cared as he held my beer and asked me gentle questions. Diego ribbed us from across the way, and Moon rested her elbow on his shoulder. I took stock of this sweet family I had felt excluded from. My heart painfully bloomed in that pleasurable way when you know you were wrong but it still feels so great.

This was the shift for me. And it also was for Moon. That summer she ended a 7 year relationship with a great love. She also bought a cobalt blue truck and turned it into her new home. She got a promotion at work–saving the tuna. She spent months in Puerto Rico, the island of her origin, dancing salsa and eating tostones. She backpacked into green jungles by herself. She wrote it all down in a book. She sat with strangers in a sacred circle and shared what was going on.

She was wild, brave, and free. She was single. She didn’t have an official address.

I realized all of this recently, when Moon Jelly and I went hiking in Butano State Park. There’s a bat sanctuary, and I was really looking for the bats.  It was day, so no bats.

Freed from my bat burden, it finally dawned on me the enormity of what she had accomplished. She could have stayed in the cave but she chose to walk through the fire. She’s at this highly specific moment of her life–stunningly beautiful, professionally accomplished, geographically liberal, and manifested into a powerful form.

I didn’t know it then, but it’s a uniquely Moon Jelly move to go through a break up and decide to take on a solo van life. She did it completely her way.

Oh and the crew I spent 6 paragraphs explaining? They are totally still around. I find they tend to manifest wherever Moon’s fabulous blue truck is parked.

Because home is where the heart is, right?

Well, the inaugural month of 2020 is coming to a languorous end. What a spell.