New years eve book

A NEW YEARS EVE 2017 A NIGHT ON THE BEACH IN BOLINAS

Text by Dave & Illustrations by Jenny

There is a moment on the beach. Everyone is involved in something. Collecting wood for a fire. Looking for a piece of driftwood for an alter. Collecting stones to outline the fire ring.

Unpacking backpacks and organizing our food. Cleo is sitting on a log watching, resting for a moment. She looks contemplative not bored. I walk up to her. Come with me I want to show you something. It is a minus low tide. Tide-pools that are normally hidden are exposed. High clouds over head promise a still warm evening. Full moon will be coming up shortly.

She follows me towards the water. There is a grayness to the day. Feels gauzy and mystic, yes sunshine is nice, big orange green flash sunsets are spectacular… but sometimes the gray quiet day just adds to the mystery and the connectedness of things. Sun will be setting soon. There is a back-lit black and white starkness to the beach. The water is cool gray and the sand is warm gray littered with small black dots. She follows me towards the water and I stop about halfway between where we have landed up near the cliffs and the water’s edge. “See all this?” I point towards the tide-pools, and the black dots texturing the water’s edge. She nods. “I want to show you something… This beach is covered in jewels. Think of them as gifts. Small rocks, pieces of glass, shells, skeletons, bones, sea weed pieces of driftwood…. She looks at me puzzled, slightly skeptical. We walk a bit further and I bend over and pick up a flat rock look at it quickly and cup it in my hand. “I picked this for your aunt Jenny.” I open my hand. It is a piece of flat sandstone. Soft flat an pastel colors, soft orange edges fading to the color of the sand. I turn it over and in the middle of the stone is a soft gray heart. A gray heart shaped fuzzy bulls-eye at the center of a the stone. I put it in her hand. “Oh my god!” She exclaims.

Her eyes are wide open now. We walk slowly bending over… suddenly she sees that these black silhouetted dots are actually amazing trinkets. “You’ll figure it out… some shaped like hearts, some with white rings around them, some with holes, some you can see through… some in the shape of animals. Cleo gaze changes transfixed to the sand and the ocean. I walk back to our camp. I find her friend, “Hey Atlalie.” She looks up smiling, that fresh look of being so happy to be here. “I just showed Cleo something.” She looks around for Cleo and doesn’t see her. I point to the small spec at the water’s edge. On her knees looking for something. “There she is,” I point. Off she runs without saying a word. I yell to Oliver “Okay, Ollie lets make that fire now.”

It is New Years eve. Jenny is the best aunt in the world and certainly the best girl friend. I like to call her partner now. I know how to make fires on beaches and I know how to make magical adventures. She knows about kids and she’s know a lot about magic and adventures herself. She brings her group to my house with back packs and goodies. I greet them as they arrive. Welcome to West Marin… from this point on we are nothing but magic!” I am wearing my stay weird T-shirt. The kids look at me just like I’m weird… but they know me enough by now to enjoy it more that ridicule it…

On the drive out I make a game of finding wild animals. We see (actually I see) a fox, a coyote, several deer, hawks on tree limbs, quail in the brambles. Jenny smells a skunk and claims that. Ollie sees some cattle on the hillside, but we discount that as not being a wild animal. We park and make our way down to the cliff. We have backpacks… lots of layers for warmth, blankets and ponchos, watercolors, sharpies and paper. Good cheeses, crackers, champagne and kid champagne, hot dogs and tofu dogs for Cleo. Buns and Ketchup. Some dry wood and a lighter. “Damn we forgot to stop and get Marshmallows!” Jenny exclaims.

We head to the beach. It’s longer than everyone thought, but I know it will be fine. There is a lot to see. I have brought my family here many times. Built fires and collected things on this beach for many years. It is full of memories. I know this walk and my heart is full of anticipation to share it with my small army of children and this woman who we are slowly evolving into a kind of sweet partnership of trust and openness.

We are walking across the cliffs. I see the a California Iris blooming. To Early. So beautiful but a strange reminder that our world is off balance. December 31st is not that time to bloom. The children have run up ahead. I’ve told them the way to go.

I stop alone and look out to the horizon. There is a beautiful light filtering through the clouds. The ocean is still and the swells are moving slowly towards the shoreline… serene linear shadows wrapping around the point and into the cove below.

I stand here on this cliff and think of the thing that I always think about. I feel her with me. No longer the presence as my daughter. All this beauty, all this grandeur, all this natural wisdom, all this pure essence. These waves, moving towards me. The small iris blooming too early, but still such a sweet gift to share with the children and my partner. Phoebe is everywhere. She is essence. She is angel. She is energy. She is here. I don’t doubt it. I feel all this magic everywhere I go. The children are off in front. Jenny is slowly shepherding them. They trust her, everyone trusts her. I know they will wait at a certain spot. They will explore. They will be laughing an in awe. I stand on this cliff and think of the thing I always think about. I feel her with me. I feel her moving around. I feel what I now call magic, but what is really the essence of being connected. Her gift to me. Her silent music, poetry, dance, light wisdom. I stand in awe. My parents now have care takers. They need help getting out of bed, cooking, putting their clothes on. They are finishing their lives. They are together and living in the same house I went to high school in. Maybe a year are two. How life want to keep living and then we die. I stand on this cliff an think about how Phoebe died. For so long I had to ignore it. Such pain. People would ask and I would tell them. She fell from a cliff. But that is not really what happens.

I see it differently now. She is here next to me. The children are below.

Jenny is laughing and wishing her dogs were here. Phoebe is remarkable, she is light. Twenty years old. Just a young girl. So wise for her years.

Human Form we all make mistakes we are all on such a journey of discovery we are here to find our own small truths. Heal our wounds and raise our families. Share our discoveries with those young kids waiting for me around the corner up ahead.

Can we choose how we die? Is that encoded in our DNA. Did I receive the greatest gift in those 20 years to watch a miracle. Hold it, nurture it, love it. Was it I that learned everything through her. Did she stand on her cliff on her day. Her human form not knowing that this was the moment. A afternoon at exactly this time. There was wind. She had spent the day on the beach. Had called me the night before and asked me where a different beach was far up the coast. But for spontaneous reasons chose another one instead. Standing on her cliff where her body fell and her spirit instantaneously left and at once became one with everything. Weeks before she had dreams, she heard things. She gathered us all and spoke to us individually about her love and process with us. Something in her new. And really‌ I stand here on this cliff where I can see everything and know that she left behind so many gifts and perhaps the most profound and beautiful, remarkable, unexplainable death.

Such a way to leave her body and become something of awesome essence. It killed a part of me. It dropped me into a foreign world and it is unimaginable that I survived. I often wonder should I have parented differently. Perhaps I showed her too much magic in the driftwood, glass and small stone. Perhaps we gave her too much freedom to explore the deepest aspects of art and creation. Perhaps we should not have let her dance, explore, create adventure, sensuality, love, life‌ to find herself on that edge of a cliff feeling life in all of its rare form and then just like that disappear from the flesh, heart and breath that kissed us all.

I sigh and catch up with my small crew. They are waiting right where I knew the would.

Oliver is standing next to a cliff and asks me if he can slide down it. I answer no. This is the way over here.

We walk down a trial to the beach. It’s sketchy in places. It is a full moon and I tell everyone to remember this trail because we’re going to walk back up without flashlights. “Just the light of the moon.” What they all exclaim incredulous.

The fire is small and just beginning. The girls are playing near the water collecting and frolicking the way 14 year old girls can. So knowing one moment so young the next. I see so much in them it hurts my chest.

Walking down the beach are some friends of mine. They have two wolves with them.

They are amazing people who I know very well. The wolves I know since they were only few pounds and were asleep on my chest. They are amazing and large beasts. I call Oliver over and we sit on a log. The wolves know me and they drag over my friends to come check us out. Masai out weighs Oliver by 30lbs. My friend tells Oliver not to be afraid and gives him a treat to offer the beautiful beast. Oliver is amazed that a wild animal like a wolf is in front of him. Masai sniffs him. “Go ahead feed him.” Masai takes the jerky treat, gives a small nudge with his snout and leaves. Oliver is spinning in delight. The animals take their stewards towards the water. The girls don’t look up so transfixed in their search for jewels. The Wolves approach. Oliver is yelling hey there are wolves hey there are wolves. The wolves are near them but the girls don’t look up. Just for this instance I have to laugh.

Girls in world of discovery. Young boy who just fed a wolf on this northern California beach in front of one of the most profound shamans on the west coast. The wolves are a few feet away from them but the never see them. They didn’t need too. All the gifts filter through to us on a need to know basis…

We are here together.

How much magic there is in a moment.

The fire is getting big and the coals are getting ready to cook. The girls return baring their treasures. Excited to start their new jewelry line. We set everything out on the alter. Make food to eat. Drink champagne (Pink Brut and Marinarris Carbonated Apple juice). Write things on paper, things we love and things we release. We throw them in the fire. We wrap ourselves in blankets and watch the flames and tell stories and laugh and even cry a bit. The moon rises up over the cliff and it’s like someone has turned a light on. Then it is time to go.

We gather the stuff up and Jenny and I take a few moments to make sure we have everything.

The kids check in for a moment and then disappear. Walking back in the moonlight. I feel light. Their is so much happiness and discovery happening around me. For all of us. The trail in the moonlight is lit with no color but everything is visible. The kids are waiting a the top of the cliff. I’m looking up at them. The moon is filtering through the clouds with an opalescent glow around it. They are silhouette in the moon light.

I art direct them to take poses and take photos‌

They are impatient… but when I show them the photos they all ooh and awe…

“Wow! Those are magical.”

We walk back in the moonlight.

Sometimes the best memories are the simplest things. Small Rocks in the shape of whales or a heart. First time walking under a full moon on a beach, a perfect fire.... laughter and joy.

Sometimes it is that easy.