Happy Now Year

This morning in my journal, I misspelled “new year” as “now year,” and perhaps that’s a telling mistake. One thing that makes the New Year special is the heightened awareness of the Now that welcomes it. For an expectant few seconds before midnight, everyone pays attention to this moment and the next and the next: three, two, one, Now! As soon as the New Year arrives, it quickly ages, our lighting-quick attention leaping toward more electric kindling. But for one split second at midnight, everyone shares the same hushed, expectant hope for a future that starts nowhere other than Now and Here.