New Year's Day Traditions

A woman in my book club watches all 3 Godfather films each New Year's Day. Her son is now a teenager and has joined in her tradition to watch them with her. Some people watch football (wait... there is football today, right?) and, apparently, I'm not one of them.

Here's what I do: I find a local coffee house, usually an independent, one-off, and I order a delicious, coffee treat in a ceramic mug. Not one of those paper to-go cups, but a real, ceramic i'm-staying-here-for-a-while mugs. I get comfy, take off my coat, open an envelope marked, "To Naomi, to be read on 1-1-19xx" and I read a letter I wrote to myself a year ago at some other funky, coffee shop.

I always laugh, I often cry, and I'm always entertained at how much I've grown (or how little) in a year. Things that troubled me a year ago have long since been forgotten and it puts those pains into a significant perspective for me. You can get over *anything* in a year, I always say. And I do.

Once I've finished reading my letter, which can range from several pages, to a 12-page book if I was feeling inspired one year, I open a notebook of clean, sparkling white, college-ruled, lined paper and pluck a favorite pen from my bag. The paper has to be in a spiral-bound notebook, and the pen must be a good one. It's very important to have the right pen, for the right pen can invoke magical writing skills while a dud of a pen can halt the process and get me out the door too quickly. I love having the right pen.

I write a new letter, pouring out my thoughts and feelings of the past year, as well as my wonders and hopes for the upcoming year. It's not filled with resolutions, but rather it's a record of my thoughts on my life at the time.

I love this ritual, and I've been doing it every year since 1992.

Only now I drink decaf.