Earth to Skye

PROLOGUE: SANTA MONICA 2016

PROLOGUE

SANTA MONICA 2016

I will never forget my best friend, Skye, on the beach, wearing sparkles in her long blue hair, pretending she was dancing from one cloud to the next. Her youngest sister, Daphne, ran in circles, blond curls bouncing in the sun. Sabrina was five, with a voice as full and beautiful as Skye’s. We dressed them both in wings and danced to 60s music – Donovan and Joni Mitchell. Later that day, Skye and I wrote a poem in her journal:

Sabrina sings louder than the waves, dancing in the water

Pink-flowered T-shirt, sun-kissed cheeks

She throws her little arms out

with all the joy of morning dew

and plants kisses on my lips,

sweet angel’s breath,

see-through skin and ocean eyes.

What’s this, she asks, what’s that?

Not a moment in the universe will ever last,

So let’s live Now,

when every day is a question mark.

Skye always lived in the now, the best that she knew how. And she left me with a lot of questions. Big questions, like where do we all come from and what on earth are we doing here and why?

My English teacher said that we have to discover our own individual story, good and bad and ask the question, “Who am I?”

He said that when you stop saying “I don’t know,” your life would change.

I finally found my answer on a mountaintop in the Himalaya. And my life will never, ever be the same.

PART I

SANTA MONICA 2015