April 2017 in Silverton, CO
Photo by Arlin Ladue
Caleb always showed up like a spring snowstorm: unexpected, fun, and entirely welcome. With a little luck and planning, we’d meet somewhere beautiful. Caleb was all smiles and legs unfolding from a white Subaru. The car is full and smelly, straining to contain all of Caleb, the things he wants to do and what he needs to get there. It seems to have almost everything but you notice Caleb wearing the same pants to dinner as he wore on the chairlift and he confirms without a trace of shame that yes, these are his only pair. We share a weekend of revelry with an assorted wild crew. We ride bikes and climb mountains and drive home and eat dinner and Caleb wins all the games. And then, too soon, the car is full again of Caleb driving away with a wave towards whatever great Next he’s bound for. I’m short a ski strap and all our food has disappeared but he left behind a smile that I’ve worn all weekend long.
There, at the toe of the driveway watching him grow farther away but not any smaller, I feel full and accomplished and more capable and more generous and more aware. The mountains seem closer and I now know them by name. Around me, everything is made for play. The frozen waterfalls and the dirt berms and the canyons and the diving boards and the board games and the peaks and my own body are made of utility and joy. If I know how to use them, if I get my feet below me and an open sky above me I will be figured into a force of nature, powerful and thrilling. Or maybe I am only a subject of the adventure and I will be but powered and thrilled. Or maybe I’m just tired and hungry for a bar.
I will miss Caleb lifelong. And every time I’m doing something splendid somewhere beautiful and slightly beyond my comfort zone I will give thanks to Caleb for helping me there. Caleb taught me how to use our world for play. I will live a poorer life without his advice, his joshing guidance, and his embodiment of an important, well-used life. But I will be rich in myself, as Caleb was in himself, made up entirely of utility and joy.
Words by Sam Van Wetter
