It was my first night at my first burn. I was camping with a group of acquaintances I barely knew from college, and I had run out of ways to hide how terrified I was. I almost hitched a ride home before the end of the day. It was overwhelming: the sense of displacement, the lack of anything familiar to latch onto, the feeling of being friendless in a wasteland. I didn’t know who I was or what to do with myself, sitting in a lawn chair, wearing a homemade fairy costume with sewn-in electro-luminescent butterfly wings, watching the sun set through a haze of dust, my heart choking at odd intervals in my chest.

Then I overheard from a campmate that Daft Punk was playing that night during the lunar eclipse at a huge outdoor dance camp called The Opulent Temple.

I couldn’t miss Daft Punk, so I decided I would stay at Burning Man.

My campmates and I prepared for the sojourn, smoking weed and cigarettes, which made me lightheaded and more anxious than before. We mounted our bikes, me riding an unadorned Schwinn I’d borrowed in Reno, and departed the campsite and rode into the darkness

I will never forget the visual of arriving at the Playa at night for the first time: a rainbow-hued collage of light and fire and art cars and madness. I rode past a man dressed like a road warrior from Beyond The Thunderdome, a bald woman covered head-to-toe in body paint, an old couple in Levis and Polo shirts. I saw every look and type and shape and oddity. I was just one of many unusual things.

We arrived at The Opulent Temple, and the first thing I noticed were flamethrowers set up on all sides of the outdoor arena, fire pulsating in rhythm with the music. The flamethrowers had been rigged to be controlled by the DJs at the touch of a button, like flame-wielding musical wizards.

And in the center of it all was Daft Punk in their trademark silver and gold helmets and black trench coats, spinning sonic joy.

My pulse thumped in my ears to the four-on-the-floor beat, and I smiled for the first time since I’d entered the desert. I lit up my giant butterfly wings, closed my eyes and started moving my feet in the shape of the electric slide on repeat in my own little corner of the dance floor. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I clapped them above my heart. After maybe a minute, an hour, an eternity, I felt heat close to me. I opened my eyes and turned to see a group of 15 or so fire-dancers behind me. They had joined me in the slide, spinning fire poi in arcs of light, arranged in a flying V with me at the apex. I kept cool somehow in the center, in my own world. Strangers were cheering on the sidelines. “You win Burning Man!” an old British man in a mummy outfit shouted. He ran over to face me and clasped my hand, delivering a gift he assured me was ketamine. Then, with a smile under his dusty, grizzled beard, he produced an actual British flag from behind his back. He draped it around my body, ripped a piece of mummy cloth off his forearms, and tied the end loops around my neck. I popped his pill and whirled to face my fire-dancing entourage, freak flag flying above my wings in the wind, and felt a part of a tribe who welcomed me in their home. I couldn’t remember why I had felt so alone just hours before.

I didn’t know that night that “Daft Punk is playing a set” is a common joke on the Playa. I have no idea, 10 years later, if Daft Punk was actually DJ-ing that night. The joke was on me, but it really doesn’t matter, because it got me to stay and find my home.

As the moon began to eclipse into a crimson red, “Daft Punk” switched to a pounding, steady beat. The speakers were so loud; the bass bored into my chest. The energy reached a fever pitch. People were roaring, animal-like, primal.

The instant the moon fully eclipsed, “Daft Punk” dropped “Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles and turned every flamethrower up to 11.

My heart exploded.