Today is Day One.

Ok.  I realize that technically it's day two.  But the majority of yesterday was a travel day for me, waking up at my mother's house, tired from the previous nights revelries and packing up the treasures Santa Claus brought me over the holidays, then bidding my family farewell outside the Hartfield-Jackson airport in the massive downpour that had descended upon the metro Atlanta area.

Yesterday, as my boarding zone was called over the loudspeaker at my gate, I handed my ticket to the flight attendant.  She scanned it once, scanned it again.  "Wait a minute," she told me.  "I've had to change your seat."  I immediately opened my mouth to protest - after all, I'd had an isle seat when I checked in online that morning.  She either didn't notice my gaping mouth or decided she'd just cut me off at the pass, saving us both the time: "We had to move you up to first class - seat 1D."

Oh.

Well.

Okay, then.

Flying first class for the price of coach, sipping a free glass of wine while I read uninterrupted for two straight hours.  That's not a bad way to start a New Year.

This morning, I was welcomed back to my local Dunkin' Donuts with a huge smile and a "Happy New Year, Honey" from my favorite clerk.  As I walked out of the shop, headed toward the T, I noticed a marking in the dirty sidewalk outside the Dunkin'.  It was just city smudge, the kind of thing that shows up on old sidewalks, ones that are heavily traveled and infrequently cleaned.  The marking, I noticed, was exactly the shape of a heart.

And then, this evening, as I sat on my yoga mat, hand to heart center in my favorite yoga class, I listened to my instructor talk about the intentions versus resolutions, which is exactly the thing I've been talking and thinking about embracing this year.  She's never mentioned it in any class prior, I've never discussed my thoughts with her on the matter before.

But I'll take it.  I'll take these signs, these tiny, subtle gestures that the world just might be throwing my way as we head into the brand new, sparkling, year of 2013.

Because I've always valued - above almost all else, really - the importance of Hope.

"...And before him, the city that had sheltered him and swallowed him and made him a modest fortune loomed, gray and brown, festooned with swags and boas of some misty gray stuff, a compound of harbor fog and spring dew and its own steamy exhalations.  Hope had been his enemy, a frailty that he must at all costs master, for so long now that it was a moment before he was willing to conceded that he had let it back into his heart."  

- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon