I hope

The New Year approaches. 2011 will be a time of renewal and growth. I will weed out the bad things in my character and nurture the good. The curmudgeon will fade and the bon vivant will emerge from his long, long sleep. The icy fingers of Winter and cynicism had delved too deep this time. I feel the need to rejoin the dance of humanity and the festival of life. For too long I have been walking in a wiener wonderland and I feel the urge to dance around a Maypole.
I have dreams and they will probably remain dreams but I will continue to dream. I dream of Tuscany and Provence and Akrotiri. I dream of Arlington and Nashville and Saint Leo's. I dream of watching my genes laugh and giggle and smile and quietly watch the world in their unique pensive way. I dream of finally achieving gravitas instead of flitting through life as a boy does on a Summer day.
These are dreams, what I will achieve I don't know. I might settle for a beat up old hat and a bed among the leaves of grass. I think of a quote from that wordsmith of the plains "There once was a man that lived alone, with his wife.". Still there is another dream, that I might meet up with some gap-toothed old harridan that smokes unfiltered Camels and drinks straight bourbon from the bottle and bounce our way through life. There is not much gravitas to that dream but it is a lot more possible than the other dreams. The soup kitchen dream depends too much on the pipe dream and will probably never happen. So 2011 will be a time of renewal and resolutions but there are always the words of the poet. "Life is what happens while we are making other plans.". 2011 will be a time of dancing and laughing. It will have to be. The prediction of the Mayas waits in the wings.