So it's a new year

This switch to a new year seems to have a lot of people just ignoring it. No summaries of the year past nor any comments about the coming year. Going by some American bloggers, I'm sensing that the folks on that side of the Atlantic are feeling rather frazzled by how 2006 ended (like, more killed in Iraq than on in the September 11 attacks). One comment to that effect at Alice's prompted me to respond with this:

I see every new year like meeting a new, fun friend. You have no idea what the new person is really like or if the friendship will last, but that initial contact, filled only with promise and not one bad memory, is exciting.

And I mean it. I always like this time of year, the focus on wrapping up the old - not without gratitude, if only for having survived it - and looking ahead at the new. And because I am not alone in hanging up new calendars, wrapping my brain around writing dates with a new digit in the year, and other matters that come with January (like a raise in rent), this feeling of the new year as fresh and unspoiled finds recognition in others, too, even the cynics.