Two years ago today was Nolus’s memorial.
I first met Nolus with his then-wife Siva at a party at one of the Steele St. warehouses in Denver. I can’t recall the exact party, but it was probably sometime during the fall of 2007. I remember our meeting. We were standing outside. Siva and I chatted while Nolus sat on the railing and said very little. I can’t say I got an especially friendly vibe from him. As I got to know him better I was able to reflect back that he was almost certainly candy-flipping that night and so could have been feeling many things.
In the summer of 2008, I was sitting in the Albuquerque living room of my friends Brendan and Joy. Brendan and I were friends from high school, and we had reconnected in the fall of 2007 at our 15-year reunion, where we discovered that we were both Burners. Anyway, we were talking about Burning Man experiences, and Brendan and Joy were telling me about some people they’d shared a Burn and become good friends with, a couple out of Denver, named Nolus and Siva. “Wait a minute,” I said. “I know them.”
Our friendship began on November 13th, 2008. Brendan’s favorite DJ at the time, Krafty Kuts, was playing at the Church in Denver, and he made us promise to go and to look for each other. I remember standing by the bar and seeing Nolus and Siva on the dancefloor and experiencing the certainty of recognition pass between us, and we hugged and laughed at the small-worldness of it all and spent the night dancing together.
I think the five of us got together only one time. Brendan and Joy came up to Denver for Super Bowl weekend in 2009. On Saturday night, January 31st, Nolus and Siva and Brendan and Joy and I went to hear Lee Coombs spin at Vinyl. The next day we sat in the room where I wrote this piece, and together we watched my beloved Steelers win the Super Bowl. I remember where Nolus was sitting.