Beloved local guy Henry Chapman finally wrapped up the story of his 29th year this last Friday night, with the final minutes of 1985 being quietly related to two girls from Tamarindo as they sat by the fire on the beach outside Perozah.
The two girls, uncertain of what they had just experienced for the past hour, but knowing something special had just happened, did not look at their phones for nearly 10 minutes after Chapman finished. Chapman, finally at peace about his 29th year, asked them if they wanted to maybe do some MDA. The girls immediately agreed.
Chapman’s 29th year, while lasting only 365 days, has taken him nearly three years to recount. At parties, in the lineup, at Ya-Ya’s – there was nowhere this story did not unfold. Friends and strangers alike have been mesmerized – not just by all the weird shit that happened to him that year, but also the deep, reflective, and often hilarious lessons that Chapmen had drawn from each event.
Chapman’s closest friends even had a chat thread to keep each other up to date on parts they had missed.
“I had to fly back to Boston last month,” said one. “Parents’ 50th. I was kinda bummed. I was sure I was gonna miss a couple days. But turned out I only missed about 20 minutes. When I left, he had just met a girl at a Radiohead concert. When I got back, she had just found out about his Cherokee grandfather.”
Everyone agrees that it’s hard to put a finger on what makes Chapman’s life so interesting. “Most people you meet that go on and on about themselves, you just want to throw a brick in their face,” said one local surfer. “But man, the shit that has happened to him, and what he has learned from it …. I just wish I had met him before I hit that age.”
The story of Chapman’s 29th year has touched nearly everyone in this town. Nearly everyone has their favorite parts. The small plane crash in Pittsburgh. The dog he found outside the 7-11. Dozens of peyote and LSD trips. The morning he woke up to find his coffeemaker stolen. But without exception, everyone mentions the wedding at Burning Man. Many say this story has changed their lives.
Chapman’s telling of the Burning Man wedding unfolded over nearly 3 months – at parties around town, at Howlers, on the couch at Olo Alaia, at the Blend, and even in line at Super Nosara. Chapman’s five days at Burning Man took 85 days for him to fully unpack – emerging thread by thread into an intimately detailed tapestry, weaving together dozens of life lessons, small-but-beautiful events, chance meetings, pivotal conversations, 2 peyote trips – one involving every male on his father’ side for nearly 600 years – and, at one point – Chapman himself, fully dressed in white, flying on mushrooms, making the fateful decision to attempt a shit in one of the 900 Burning Man porta-potties, where, fearing for his wedding clothes, he ascended into a Moroccan-style crouch above the hole, promptly slipped, and fell in.
Staggering out of the Porta Potty into the golden afternoon light of Burning Man, blazing harder than ever on the shrooms, it became shatteringly clear to Chapman that he must own his situation fully. He strode across the plaza, his stench parting the way, arriving at the wedding in a white linen suit that was now mainly blue but also unmistakably brown, where – having first hugged the bride and the priest and several people standing nearby, he caught the bouquet completely by accident, quickly turned around, and handed it to the nearest bridesmaid, who looked at him curiously and said, “Hey, didn’t we meet at that Phish concert in Portland?”
Of course they did. This was Chapman’s 29th year.
We tried to find Chapman to get a few words from him, maybe a story or two, but no one has seen him since Friday.
“MDA” said a friend. “And those two girls.”
“That’s gonna be a story for sure,”
