Linda Diamond and I emptied a small cloisonne jar of David’s ashes into the sea at Manly on Monday.

This is from the email I wrote to Angela:

We were thinking of sprinkling into the harbour but the wind was blowing in awkward directions, so the ashes would have blown back in our faces (like the closing of The Big Lebowski) or stuck to the side of the ferry. So we went to the crowded beach at Manly, took off our shoes and waded into the shallow water. The ashes were in a beautiful old Chinese enameled jar – one of David’s thrift-shop finds. After that, we found the funky second-hand shop where David loved to buy knick-knacks. The woman who owned the place knew all about David – he used to go in there & talk for hours. I drove back from Sydney yesterday with a couple of paintings, photographs, an old plastic egg-cup holder in the shape of a Scottie dog… David’s astrological charts. It’s interesting to ponder about how we can know the first date – our birth – but not the second date. Now the second date is known, the person has ended, leaving only stories galore. And nobody has the complete story. Not even David had the complete story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloisonn%C3%A9