another story about Burning Man

Two months ago, one of my dear friends — a friend who many people receiving this email knew — lost his year-long battle with cancer. His name's Eviatar Frankel and he had the biggest smile and laugh I've ever seen and heard.

Ev was sarcastic and wise. He engaged in deep philosophical conversations about life and death, volunteered for and donated to political campaigns, and danced until sunrise, adorned in sparkly lights and lipstick.

During what would end up being his final couple months, we voice-noted back and forth a lot. Usually I was sending him jokes. Sometimes he laughed, often he told me I could do better.

On July 18, I woke up inspired to send him a joke I'd just heard the night before. It's easily one of the crassest jokes I've heard and, in fact, I refuse to put it in writing here — if you want to hear it, dm me.

I waited for most of the day to hear his reaction to this joke, but it never came. Instead, my phone was struck with a heartbreaking text: "our fierce and thoughtful and stubborn and genuinely amazing friend passed on this am."

Oh, Ev. I immediately missed him. Memories filled my head, tears filled my eyes.

But wait..the joke! Did he hear it?! I frantically opened my text thread with him, and the voice note had disappeared — listened to, but not kept. Was it possible that it made it to him in time?

It turns out, not exactly. I found out, from friends who'd been with him in his final days, that Ev's aunt had been monitoring his phone, managing messages that came in.

Definitely not the audience that joke was intended for. Now my sadness was mixed with embarrassment — teary eyes and blushed cheeks.

I told a friend that story on a sunset bike ride around Burning Man exactly two weeks ago. I ended the story saying, "I know Ev would've loved that joke so much."

She paused for a moment then responded, "he probably would have loved that joke, and, he would've thought it was even funnier to see his aunt's reaction when she heard the joke."

I simultaneously laughed and cried at this reflection. She was right.

This year I thought about Eviatar a lot. I talked to him and sometimes I felt him talk back. Always, I wished he was there, together experiencing the wild unpredictability of one of our favorite places.

And while Ev was no stranger to a crass joke, he also lived for deep, meaningful reflection and often posed long questions about life experiences, Burning Man being no exception. In a post-BM email from 2017 Eviatar wrote the following to our camp:

"I'm writing because I wish someone would have told me this after my first burn. In the days immediately following, I was too busy picking up my jaw and pieces of my brain off the floor, and didn't find enough time to reflect about the experience. I didn't take the time to process what happened and translate the experiences into lessons on how I want to live, and how I want to be. And I think I let a really special opportunity slip away.

Of course burning man is awe-inducing, and fun, and wild, and inspiring, but I think one of its primary values is as a place to "practice" life, to experiment with different versions of ourselves, and to push ourselves in different ways - to find weak points for us to strengthen, and identify new sources of joy and energy for us to seek. It's a place for us to feel feelings and think thoughts that are more varied and more acutely and intensely experienced in a shorter period of time than in the default world."

It doesn't matter if you were at Burning Man this year, went once 10 years ago, or have no plan or desire to ever go. I believe there's something special here for us all to learn here.

Our time in these precious bodies flies by, and it's easy to delay the experimenting. We forget to take time to just "practice" life; we choose the well-worn path, and say we'll push ourselves tomorrow.

As Ev reflected in some of his final writings, "this is it," and "remember, life's a game."

So today, tell the joke, even if it bombs. Howl at sunset and stay up for sunrise. Mail a postcard. Put on a fake mustache and lean into your alter ego. Listen to all of "Dark Side of the Moon." Dance until your feet hurt, then treat yourself to a foot rub...and why not get those toenails painted while you're at it?!

In that email from 2017, after sharing his 11 post-BM prompts — which I'm happy to share with you if you're curious — Ev asked one final question that I'm going to steal and make my own:

How much does Caleb love you? If you're reading this, this is the only question with one right answer.

A lot

ps — here's a little playlist I made with songs that I've recently dug