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On New Year’s Eve we immersed ourselves in the four ancient magic elements: earth, air, fire, and water. I’m not sure that was the intention of the ritual, but as it turns out, having a bonfire on the beach during a storm will create exactly that sort of experience.

Our celebrity ex-neighbor, who has moved with his wife and chickens back to the big City, hosts a year-end celebration on the extreme western edge of San Francisco. We were invited, and instructed to bring wood scraps. We brought a bottle of wine too, because sometimes wood scraps don’t go well with the entree.

Dinner came in two parts, to ensure we were all sufficiently fortified for the physical challenge of standing around a fire waiting for midnight. Our friends made a pot of gumbo large enough to feed the entire population of the French Quarter. On a Friday. During Mardi Gras. It contained two kinds of meat, and I enjoyed them both (although in very small quantities).

But that was just the teaser, the amuse-bouche. The main course was still to come.

There was a pot of vegetarian beans nearly as big as the pot of gumbo. There was a plate of expertly sliced avocado. There was a bowl of fresh salsa. There was a stream of fish, sauteed with onions. There was a stack of hot, homemade tortillas. It was a fish-taco buffet. I never got out of line — I just kept eating, except when I was drinking, and even then I did ‘em both if nobody was looking at me. The meal was truly great.

Afterwards we carpooled to Ocean Beach. We’d collected our wood scraps and a few discarded Christmas trees and packed one car full of both. We lugged all the wood, the trees, coolers, and our overfed selves up the beach, in the dark, to a suitable spot, then dug a pit in the sand and built a fire.

Over the next few hours, time seemed to pass quickly. More friends joined, appearing out of the darkness, having satisfied other commitments elsewhere. We tended the fire, proposed toasts, told stories. A few hearty folks left the warmth of the fire to explore the beach, dimly illuminated by reflected city lights.

Just before midnight, the scattered droplets we’d been feeling became a steady drizzle. The wind picked up. Standing with my face to the fire, I didn’t notice the rain until I turned into it. The backs of my legs were cold and wet; the fronts, warm and dry. I backed up to the fire to even out the sensation, but my jeans started steaming. Hot, wet denim is scarcely more pleasant than cold, wet denim. I can’t recommend either, except on someone else’s legs, in which case I could pretty much go either way.

At midnight, we torched the pine trees. The resulting crackly fireball was as good a commemoration of the turning of the calendar as I’ve experienced.

We packed up and left a while later, having bequeathed the fire to a few hangers-on. Once in bed, I slept like a dead man, if that dead man had eaten 7 lbs. of fish tacos for dinner.

One of the party guests stayed up all night. I don’t think he ever sleeps.