New Year's Revolutions

My New Year's celebration this year was a weekend with Leeann and her friend Andrea in Iowa City. After a wonderful fondue supper, we got dressed to the nines, and went to the Moose Lodge for their free New Year's dance. As you might imagine, the crowd wasn't exactly young, and the band played strictly oldies stuff, but the dance floor was full. It was classy - halfway through the dance the flourescent lights came on so we could enter the raffle for the "wagon of booze" (yes, you got to take home the Radio Flyer wagon). We were lucky enough to share a table with two rambunctious 80-something ladies. They took the dance floor repeatedly, one bringing her cane, the other her walker, wearing sparkly clothes, occasionally shouting "whoooo!". While we were sitting at the table, the lady next to me described her friends' talent for making animal sounds. Without missing a beat, her friend across from me began demonstrating her abilities. You should have seen Leeann's face when the little old lady bleated, "NEIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHHH" at the top of her voice. The enthusiasm was infectious - soon we were all on the dancefloor jumping around to covers of Beatles and other 60's rock tunes.

Which brings me to my New Year's resolution, inspired by a poem that ends with: "I wonder if I'll ever have the courage to be that/ferocious/again?" My resolution is to be ferocious - which I'm defining not as mean but as purposeful and catalytic, a force of righteous anger and girl power. It's the courage to be positive in a world that is so far from what it could be, it's nearly comical. It's a celebration of singleness as a healthy perpetual state, and an embracing of individuality. Think of it as the new "fierce." (Tyra Banks, eat your heart out.)