Some New Year's Thoughts for You

My grandmother Grace McGrady painted this, looking out her second-story window onto Central Park West at 85th Street.

The flight from last year wasn't nearly as desperate, it seems, as years before. Around here, 2010 was full of goodness and beauty. I married the best man I have ever met, and gained a beautiful new family as a happy byproduct. A Chihuahua puppy we named Cinco found us and made us his pack. Lucy the beagly mutt got older and deafer and a little more daft, but she gained a new kind of sweetness and prompts extra compassion from us. We met neighbors who quickly became like extended family, with the bonus that there is a lot of good food cooking over there all the time. I kept an excellent job and played nicely with others. There were no tragic losses of the immediate and personal ilk. I watched life unfold -- very much wanted babies for two 40licious women I love, two Christmastime engagements (in one of them, I'm getting a daughter-in-law!), Natalie's wedding, Lisa and Kathlyn and Joanna back at school to make the world a better place for all of us. I reconnected with Liza, the daughter of my mother's best friend in the 1970s, my friend as a child. As we compared our common childhood horrors and the sometimes baffling family dynamics of girls growing up at a very particular time in New York City, I felt a puzzle piece snap into place. I will never, ever let her go.

Here is what I hope for you (and truth be told, me) in 2011:

1. You are temporarily disabled by something so hilarious that you cannot do anything but laugh and laugh and try to catch your breath.
2.  You get enough physical exercise on a daily basis. People who don't move get old, really quickly. For old people who move, extra blessings to you. Also, exercise makes people nicer.
3. That you spend several nights or more on the couch with people and possibly pets you love, watching films that move you or entertain you to a profound degree.
4. That you make something beautiful, even if is only for yourself.
5. That some kind of little miracle happens for you, just when you need it the most.

Happy New Year.

Love,

Vanessa

PS -- Some great resolutions, in case you're looking for some ideas to make yourself a better version of who you are, are over at Undecided. I absolutely love those women.