New Year's Eve Magic

I'm a big believer in New Year Eve's traditions. And by tradition I mean "repeating silly actions annually to ensure good luck/fortune/health or at the very least funny photos." One year (long, long ago) I found myself polka-ing right at the stroke of midnight. The following year I got a new boyfriend and a new job. Needless to say I made sure to polka at the stroke of midnight for the next 5 or 6 years. Until one day a friend said, "um...has the Magic Polka really done any good since that first year?" I had just broken up with said boyfriend and was now in a crappy job. Thus ended the New Year's Eve Polka Tradition.

My current (and, might I add, most successful) New Year's Eve tradition is to walk around the block with a suitcase right after midnight in order to guarantee travel in the New Year. Apparently this is a Colombian tradition. At least it was a woman from Colombia who shared it with me. But come to think of it she might have just been trying to get a bunch of drunkards to leave the house so she could have alone time with her then boyfriend-now husband on New Year's Eve. She also told us that Colombians believe in order to ensure lots of money in the New Year you had to wear new, red underwear that you put on under the bed. Hmmm... maybe it was "to ensure romantic success you put on new underwear while standing ON the bed..." Obviously I haven't been keeping that tradition...but hey, it was a party, you can't blame me for being fuzzy on the details.

But I'm positive about the rules for Future Travel: you have to walk around the block with a suitcase just after midnight. Yes, the suitcase can be empty. And yes, 'the block' can be whatever you have to work with (one year while in South Dakota, the Esquire and I simply circled the outside of the house because well, in rural SD a block can be 10 miles or 3 soybean fields). The key is to do it with intention.

And it works. I have proof. I made the walk the very first time (around the block near the Ashby Bart station in Berkeley CA) with a great friend who now splits her time between the US and Sierra Leone. Coincidence? I think not. That same year I spontaneously decided to spend a month in Ecuador (after being spontaneously laid off). The first year after meeting the Esquire, the Future Walk caused him to whisk me away on a surprise trip to Costa Rica. And just months after the Esquire and I first made the walk as a married couple, we took off and spent the next year and a half traveling around the world. Gives you goose bumps eh?

I could go on and on giving you examples but really it's up to you... either you believe it or you don't. But trust me that for this year, 2009, when we hope to make the biggest, most life-changing trip of all, you can be sure we BELIEVE in the MAGIC!

And so, early this morning, at 12:04am, Jan. 1, 2009, we took the walk. And not only did the Esquire gallantly carry the suitcase for us, but he also humored me enough to slow down for a photo so I could provide proof for you and all the adoption gods out there.

And no, it’s not snowing in LA (the Magic isn't THAT strong silly); those specks are just the prerequisite mist and fog that makes the Magic seem cooler.

Happy New Year... may 2009 take you exactly where you want to go! xoxo-Kat