Big Sur. Cows on seaside mountains. Young horses suck grass under a giant tree. Contemplated whether I’d want to live in a sea cave or a fort high in trees. Decided on tree fort, swinging between the sequoias on vines. Imagined monkeys on the green hills under the dense fog—what’s with all the nature? It’s everywhere. Flowers. Arrived at Dublab’s ambient party, Tonalism, and laid my blanket next to someone donning a dead fox as a hat who had a friend wearing a shark jaw on his head. Told my friend about Collie Ryan and astral projection, the dreamy silence of the winding highway, the rocks covered with poop sticking out of the ocean, the birds flying up in geometric W’s and V’s—one bird turned and flew in opposite direction, I rolled down the window and said, “Hey bird, you’re going the wrong way!” Whatever, it replied, I was once a dinosaur. We walked in the woods by fallen and broken giant trees, crawling through holes in a Jurassic Park fence, and thought about how landscapes can remind you of a book description but the book is the fake one, or is it? —Tried to remember high school philosophy: the idea of the chair is the chair, is the idea, the idea, is the chair the idea, the chair is the chair…There’s people laying on grass, eating sandwiches and chips, some try to play ping pong in the dark. On a giant screen high in the trees: images of trees. The idea of the trees is the trees, so we watch the images and not the trees. This is called Tonalism-izing—here we are in nature, making or receiving noise with electronics. We, the peeps, surrounded by speakers coursing vibrations through our senses while we down some fresh air between gulps of tea—so much tea. I’m buzzing with tea. The frequencies course between us like tiny creeks in the leaves or air blowing from our mouths from deep yoga breaths. I may be too close to the speaker. I thought about eating pizza and a delivery appeared so I paid $3. People bought books at the Library all night long. I recognized Henry Miller from a poster in my home rolled up sitting on the kitchen floor, this-close to becoming garbage, but now that we have a connection in the woods, I’ll probably have to keep it. More people arrive. There’s a bit of fur and leggings and doppelgangers that walk and have hair like people from L.A. but these are not them. I want to say we were all like little bears or those long rodents peeking their heads up around, scoping the scene, standing on hind legs—meerkats. But we were just like people, bundling up in blankets to stay warm and to trap the electricity from the speakers. Oh, the weirdness of sounds. Some drink, some smoke, as the vibrations echo around our shoulders. By midnight, my friend has passed out from half a bottle of whiskey she opted for instead of a blanket. Later, after I have retreated to the car to sleep a while, my friend will appear at the window and say, “I just opened my eyes and I was the only person left on the grass. There’s still a sound playing from the stage. It’s 4:20 am and the whole place is empty. I think it’s real. But what if there was never anyone there?” And—this is without drugs—this is Tonalism. I’ve had about 9 cups of tea and that shit will rock you. Two slices of pizza, four handfuls of nuts, and Mia Doi Todd tells something about the river and oneness and “we.” We cocoon further, returning to that first experience of life, the burrito—when we’re cuddled in blankets. And the outside is cold. Two girls in fogged glasses smoke cigarettes in the same rhythm, slow like clocks. I think of someone who walks into a crowd, finds the saddest-looking attractive person and falls in love. We are either in a cloud—the mist Big Sur is famous for—or, it’s raining, slow like the clock-smoking girls, so that by morning we’ll be wet enough to go home or to see elephant seals laying on each other at the beach, or to breakfast.

—Daiana Feuer